take it ezzz!

Screw-deria Ferrari

2009-04-05T20:17:00.003+05:30

My opinion on Ferrari on its 2009 Championship season till now! Here.

Shame on you Media…

2008-05-29T00:04:00.001+05:30

On May 16th 2008, the Breakfast show woke the country with the news of a murder of 14 year old Aarushi from Noida, the day which incidentally was her birthday. The press and TV were on their tows trying to gather every bit of the information they could muster so that the news comes first on their news channels.

The first reaction to the incident was a shock, a shock at gruesome murder of a child who had great dreams of her birthday, a girl whose aspirations were never to be fulfilled. But the second shock was on the irresponsible behavior of the media, especially the TV.

Aarushi Talwar was no more, Hemraj, in-house servant of the Talwars was found dead too, Aarushi’s father Dr Rajesh Talwar became the prime accused. The family was barely coming to terms with these horrifying incidents, by then the media goes on pumping stories relentlessly. From alleging that Rajesh had an extra marital affair with another woman, to hideous claims of Aarushi of having a clandestine relationship with their house servant. Pulling a distressed family to roads and striping them of its dignity is unethical and absolutely uncalled far.

Now, things have gone way too far, every channel is taking turns with her mother Dr Nupur Talwar.
It is really agonizing to see the media repeatedly pocking her wounds by asking her accounts of what happened on the night of the murder, how she reacted on seeing her daughter lie dead, what was her thoughts on her husband’s alleged affair, what relationship she shared with her daughter. As if Nupur has a short memory of the events, the anchors will contantly remind her with statements like “Now that Aarushi is dead….” etc, grow up folks, For god’s sake, she’s the mother.

I appeal to the media to kindly have some consideration, please spare the wounded hearts. Probing into news is your job, but pocking your nose beyond a point makes it ugly. What pleasure do you derive by seeing a terror stuck mother chock in sorrow? There are many ways to improve TRP ratings, please, please, please, have some mercy, please act responsibly.

Strangely, in this episode till now, the media has cared little about Hemraj’s death, why media, was going to Nepal not all that interesting??

Ps: I am not putting any links. The net is already flooding with information.

Force India Laps a McLaren

2008-05-26T00:41:00.001+05:30

This was the headline I was expecting after watching the highly eventful 2008 Monaco Grand Prix. In a race clouded by clouds, rain, skids, slides, near misses and wall kisses, in a race where, Kimi, Massa, Hamilton and many others went on to make mistakes, if there was one person who drove sensibly, it was Adrian Sutil of team Force India.

Sutil kept his cool all over, just driving on the race line with a calm mind when chaos was prevailing all around him. The myth of Monaco as race where mind rules the heart was beginning to become apparent as the drivers with higher impulse began making mistakes. Once by one most of the front runners had to get into the pits, and a seamless Sutil moved from as low as 18th to 4th place having only Lewis, Kubica and Massa ahead of him. The highlight of the evening was when Sutil lapped Hekki, unbelievable!!! My hair stood straight when the mighty McLarens were lapped by the usual “backmarker” - Force India. Sutil went on to trade Fastest Laps and at the moment locked like it was not all luck. The turning point was when Rosberg crashed heavily bringing the safety car out. The significant gap between him and Kimi was reduced to peanuts. Sutil was now sandwiched between the Ferraris, Massa in the front on 3rd and Kimi behind on 5th. It was quite expected that Kimi would fight hard to move forward, and given the fact that Monaco offers very little space for overtaking, its was up to Kimi to find a way past Sutil. And then it happened, a charging Kimi lost control of his F2008 and banged straight onto the back of the unsuspecting Sutil. I missed a beat, probably more. Sutil’s brave run came to a grinding halt and understandably, Sutil remained inconsolable.

Monaco is known to spring in surprises. Today it was Sutil’s turn to experience what it takes being in the top and becoming a flop.

I don’t want to blame it on Kimi, although I wish he were a little calmer.

In a sport where it’s usually the car-driver combination that wins races, Monaco has the ability to distinguish between the great drivers and the good ones (if you are in F1, you’d better be good).
Adrian, you are absolutely sensational. I am sure this will make you and the Force India team stronger than before.

Ranganathan Street

2008-04-15T23:26:00.003+05:30

Indian Economy is growing at 8% a year but looks like human traffic in Ranganathan Street grows at 8% every month...

There is not an inch of space left to move... Proof that deframentation technique was invented in India ;)

What a way!

2007-08-29T00:30:00.000+05:30

I saw this board in PizzaHut, Radhakrishna Salai.
What a way to politely say "No Smoking!" :)

Impulsive Shopping - Part II

2007-06-28T00:02:00.000+05:30

The Credit card woes I highlighted in Impulsive Shopping earlier is still haunting us,

“All Cards accepted, minimum bill values 200”

Many at times when I read this, I would think, what is their problem? Why don’t they simply accept cards for lesser amounts? They are loosing out potential revenue. I’ll blame it on poor business strategy and walk away.

And one fine day, I acknowledged that it was indeed a great strategy.
Last Friday, after a long day’s work I was on my way back and felt very hungry. I wasn’t sure what was available at home and didn’t want to risk disappointing my hungry stomach.

I parked my bike outside Trinetra, a big Retail store near my house and went in for some purchase.

As I was wandering the aisles picking junk food, I realized I only had 50 bucks in my wallet, I read the board, “All Cards accepted, minimum bill values 200”, but I’d already picked stuff worth 70 bucks. Keeping them back was never an option, so I went on to buy some stuffs hear and there, some wanted and some not so wanted, and finally the bill came to around 400 bucks.

I happily swiped the card, ignored the 700% increase in bill value and walked away!

Spend Vs Invest

2007-06-21T23:54:00.000+05:30

We’ve read/heard many instances like
“Please spend some time learning something new”
Or “Spend time doing something worthwhile”.
Although Spend seems to convey the message, it could well be undermining the potential of the English language to express the point.

Today, 21st June, incidentally, World Music day, I was listening to Big92.7FM, where Speed Dheena was doing a program with playback Singer Sujatha. On her final words for the listeners, she was advising young and aspiring singers to “Invest” sometime everyday practicing their music. This statement just took the wind out of me!
How true, commoditizing time makes our work accountable to us. It tells us to wisely use every little time we have and reap its benefits. However subtle the statement may look, it wraps within, millions of words that says how determined one must be.

Ennaku Pull arichidu!

Confessions of a Software Professional

2007-06-07T00:12:00.001+05:30

I got a forward from a Software professional friend, who was sharing a common confession, it read,

The Software Engineer's Preamble

We, the unwilling, lead by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.

We have done so much for so long, with so little knowledge that we will one day qualify to do anything knowing nothing.

I thought, let's cut the euphemism and get to the crux, and so came my one line,

We, the unsatisfied, lead by the uncaring, are being paid the unthinkable for doing the unwanted and still feel underpaid!

And thought its worth sharing with the rest of my cult!

Is India truly Independent?

2006-10-10T16:10:00.000+05:30

On the Road to our 60th year of Independence, lets look back to see where we really stand.

Is India truly Independent? Mahatma Gandhi once said that only when women wearing all her jewels can go out safely at any time of the day, is India truly Independent. Yet 59 years after India got freedom from the British rule, she is yet to find her path to true Independence.

We talk a lot about India’s growth and achievements in the last six decades, we have at our disposal an array of Industries in every known sector and we’ve proved time and again about our potential to excel in all fields we lay our feet on. Our GDP has grown, we have become economically self reliant, and by all means we changed the way the rest of the world looks at us, and you bet I am proud of this. But the big question is “Are these just smoke clouds concealing the harsh reality beneath it?”

Let me illustrate, On 15 August 2006, in view of the Independence day celebration, the national capital was declared a No fly Zone (height of insecurity), Public coming to watch the parade were not allowed to bring their mobile phones, radios, and worse even water, the Prime Minister was on his way to address the nation, the whole area is fit with signal jammers, he travels in a bullet proof car, and his escort convoy was as dramatic as the parade itself. Are we calling ourselves Independent? Whom are we trying to fool?

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, respectfully known as Mahatma Gandhi, is the father of our nation, although I don’t subscribe to many of his Ideologies, he is definitely a National Icon in my eyes, but is the country anywhere closer to accepting his ideologies? Easier or hard, Gandhi was Instrumental in a non-violent freedom struggle and in creation of an independent India 60 years back, but on this very day every year, our Prime Minister accepts a Military Guard of Honor! Except on October 2nd when the youth remember him for many reasons but for his birthday, and our leaders garland his otherwise crow-befriended statue, we hardly recognize him and his much talked about contributions. Is Gandhi good enough only for the currency notes? A recent ad-hoc interview by a leading news channel of few of the members of our honorable Parliament revealed a lot of disheartening facts. Many didn’t know who wrote “Jana gana mana” or “Vande Matham” and more horrifying the full name of Mahatma Gandhi. When a question was asked to a sitting MP as to who wrote our national anthem, the MP said “There are many who wrote it, I am getting late for the parliament session, we’ll sit one day and I’ll tell you in detail who wrote what”, another MP was asked, “what is Mahatma Gandhi’s full name” and he replied “I call him with respect as Bapu, how can I spell out his name” and when he was insisted all he said was “um…mm…um…”, and we entrust these morons (forgive me for using an un-parliamentary word here) to decide our fate? Is this what we envision for Independent India?

India is the world’s largest Democracy, and we get a pat on the back for being “Of the people, by the people and for the people”, and till date the only contribution this democracy has give us is, over 900 political parties split across every division of Religion, caste, creed known to India. On an average every state in India has 30 political parties and more are coming up for every friction in ideology. Interestingly, close to 90 parties have the word “Congress” in their name in some position or the other. Surprisingly almost all of them will have a huge turn over when they make public speeches; it’s a shame when crowd is gathered for Rs. 25, a pack of Biriyani and a bottle of local liquor. The members who get elected may know nothing about economics and development but are masters of vote bank politics. It has more than just co-incidence that in most of the electorates, tickets are given to a person belonging to the religion or caste that has a vast presence there.

This was in news some days back, The Home Ministry ordered all the states to crack down a banned outfit that was linked to many terrorist activities in the country, but still one state gave a deaf hear to the order since election was round the corner. More recently when a death sentence was passed against the primary accused on the 12/13 parliament attacks, a section of people of Kashmir, many leaders and even the Chief Minister of Kashmir requested a Presidential pardon. When a minority religion after 60 year of being Indians suddenly said they won’t recite Vande Matham since the words meant worship the nation, the ruling party was more than happy to make it optional. Is this only because all of them belonged to a Minority religion? Is that community and votes bigger than the country itself? How many more days are we going to tolerate this cheap politics to woo those votes? People who know nothing about history and economics can write white-papers on hypothetical minority oppressions, demand for reservations in every place they know public have access to, and can talk hours together about (pseudo)Secularism, but still have no privy to what this polarization can cause to the nation. While India continues to fight anti-Indian Terrorist attacks in the north, anti-government militant attacks all over central, south-central and eastern regions, underworld dons controlling the western region, our humble representatives would be busy (just) playing blame games on one side and having high-tea on the other. Is this what Independence gave us? Did we free ourselves from the clutches of a lion only fall prey to a vampire?

Yes, India has grown multifold, its is an emerging superpower, we did have over 8% growth for the past five years, but we still are fighting our battles and until every Indian starts to think rationally, every step we take towards a better tomorrow, we will be finding far more powerful issues to deal with. It is as the saying goes, “It’s the duty of science to make better mouse traps, and it’s the duty of nature to create smarter mice”.

Jai Hind.

BACK or KCAB ??

2006-10-10T11:57:00.000+05:30

If you were wondering whether I’d said that I was back or was I showing my back after my over hyped “I’m back” article way back in August, we’ll I am not to be totally blamed. My office in India blocked all blog sites and message boards and my home system was down with viral fever for a long time giving me no access to the site. I just got past one hurdle and wanted to show my attendance.
Expect more soon!

Tryst with Technology

2006-08-21T21:56:00.001+05:30

Yesterday my brother had left Chennai on a pilgrimage tour, and couple of 100 kms on his way he tried to contact my mother back home. He kept calling but all his tries to the land line and the mobile were in vein and the only message he got was “Network busy”.
So, called me up and told me that he’d been trying to reach her but couldn’t and wanted me to call her and pass the message. Ok, what’s so great about this? Well I was just 10,000 miles away in Toronto and his call came to me as an uninvited wake up call at 6-ish on a Sunday morning. I called my Mom and the line connected, I passed the message to her and told her to call him.
It may be a desperate move or sheer audacity, but for making the world smaller it’s definitely “Bravo Technology”.

I am back!

2006-08-02T02:12:00.000+05:30

I am back!

Yes, after a particularly long deserved hibernation, I finally gained enough courage to face the blog-ing world. While I was out, the world had a lot of interesting things happening to keep readers busy even while my blog was asleep, viz:

Government got ready to reserve seats of OBCs, Vote bank showed its power,
It had to increase seats, pay and infrastructure, Government goes under cover.

Amma and Kalaignar changed seats,
They have also changed seating arrangements.

7 years back in Kargil Indians fought,
7 years later, Indians forgot.

Mittal’s bid good enough for Arcelor takeover,
Still, Arcelor delays Mittal’s makeover.

The Sensex crashed like never before,
It crashed again.

To increase accountability RTI (Right to Information act) was enforced,
The act was deflated as the government was getting exposed.

Israel goes on war with Hezbollah,
Give me a break, says Nasarallah.

Indians lost to WI in the one-days,
India does came back to win the Test some days.

In 2006 F1 GP, Alonso as yet won six races,
Schumacher too made the best in five chases.

I am back and I am back for good,
I am here to give my thoughts some food!

Trade Over

2006-03-31T20:33:00.000+05:30

Do you have the flair for the share market? Want to play with Big Money?
Ever wished you buy Shares of Microsoft, Google, BMW, Pfizer and Nokia all for a hundred thousand dollars each?
Do you like playing with Tons of Gold, Platinum or Crude Oil? Wondered how it will be to buy Indian Rupees for a million Dollars and sell them when US dollar goes down?
Then its time for your dream to come true. Enter the world where only the fittest survive.
Enter www.tradeover.net

Trade Over is a share market simulator that gives you a Million Dollars to start with. You can buy stocks of all your favorite companies from around the world at current market prices.
The latest prices are updated from the Stock exchanges world wide and you get a taste of the real world market with no real penny at stake. You can short sell products based on speculations and Market sentiments and make money.
You can create your own league and compete with in friends and also against thousands of players globally.

Indulge, Invest, Involve and Increase.

Enjoy!

Super தத்துவம்s.

2006-02-10T23:22:00.000+05:30

This is a consolidated list of some funny தத்துவம்s (Thathuvams) I came across lately.
It's really hilarious, so take a break and laugh out loud.
Folk who don't understand Tamil, Sorry about that.

தத்துவம்s:

Mechanical Engineer Mechanic aagalam, aana,
Software Engineer Software aaga mudiyaathu.

Paaku marathula paaku irukum,
Thaeku marathula thaeku irukum, aana,
Panamarathula panam irukaadhu.

Tea cup-la tea irukkalam, aana,
World Cup-la World irukkuma?

Cycle-la poana cycling,
Train-la poana training-a?

Pant Pottu Muttipoda mudiyum, aana,
muttipottu pant poda mudiyuma?

Fan-ukkum rekkai irukku. Paravai-kkum rekkai irukku,
Fan-ala parakka mudiyaathu, Paravai-ala sutha mudiyaathu. Aaanaa,
Fan-a amukina suthum, Paravai-a amukina kathum.

Tool box la tool la parka mudiyum,
match box la match a parka mudiyuma?

Irukkurappa enna daan Complan, Bournvita kudichalum,
sethadukkapram ellarukkum pal daan.

South India-la Narthangai kidaikkum. Aaana,
North India-la Southangai kidaikuma?

Mezhuga vechi mezhugu-vathi seyyalam, Aana
kosuva vechi kosu-vathi seyya mudiyathu.

Kovil maniya namma adicha saththam varum, aana,
kovil mani nammala adicha raththam than varum.

School testla bit adikkalaam,
College testla bit adikkalaam, aana,
BLOOD testla bit adikka mudiyaadhu.

Vaayala "naai"-nu solla mudiyum, Aaana,
Naayaala "Vaai"-nu solla mudiyuma?

Enna than naai nandri ullatha than irunthalum,
Athala "Thank you" solla mudeyathu! Idhuthan valkai.

Aayiram than irundhalum,
Aayirathi onnu than perusu.

Yennathan Ahimsavathiya irundhalum,
Chappathi-ya SUTTU than sappidanum.

kasu irundha call taxi!
Kasu illaina kall than taxi!

Train yenna thaan fasta ponnalum,
Train ode kadaisee potti kadaiseeya thaan varum!

Bus poita bus stand angayae thaan irukum, aana,
Cycle poita cycle stand koodavae poogum!

Cellula balance illana call panna mudiyathu, Aana,
Manushanukku call illana, Balance panna mudiyathu.

Poison 10 naal aana payasam aaga mudiyaadhu ,
ut, payasam 10 naal aana poison aagidum!

Meelendhu vizhuntha aathu Aruvi,
eeszhenthu parantha aathu Kuruvi.

Finally one in English:

If you drink ethanol you will dance
If you drink methanol others will dance.

The Global Indian

2006-02-09T02:27:00.000+05:30

The story begins with Lakshmi Metal (sorry Mittal), the Indian born billionaire, steel tycoon and the chief executive of the world’s largest steel maker Mittal Steel, bidding $23 bn (€18.6bn) to acquire his closest rival Arcelor of Europe. Arcelor is the product of a merger four years ago between three steel companies -- Spain's Aceralia, France's Usinor and Luxembourg's Arbed. Luxembourg is the largest single shareholder with a stake of 5.6 percent. France which is a major player in this has expressed serious concerns over this bidding. Other governing bodies including Belgian, German, Italian, Luxembourg and Spanish unions have expressed "unanimous opposition" to the takeover.

While the apprehension over job cuts as the primary concern, Arcelor has strongly criticized Mittal's "hostile" approach, claiming the two firms' businesses and cultural values are incompatible. And although France tries to avoid looking arrogant over Mittal, since that might jeopardize the diplomatic relationship with India, the obvious hint behind the disinclination could be because Mittal is an Indian.

There are two arguments to this issue.

The less significant side: Why is India so keen on this? Why is the Indian government is closely monitoring the issue of Lakshmi Mittal, who operates in 17 countires including Algeria, Bosnia, Germany, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, South Africa and the U.S but nothing as yet in India? When I say “as yet”, am I hoping he would have a set up in India soon? Is it so typically Indian?

But the more significant side: Why is there so much insecurity among the French and the other European counties about a bid? Lakshmi Mittal may be Indian by birth but he has nothing yet to do with India and his company is as European as any other. A lot of questions have been raised about him, his Indian-ness and his way of doing business. Are they worried if this takeover would monopolize the European steel Industry or is it because it’s done by an Indian?

Being Indian, I know it’s very difficult when you just keep thinking of the days when you were on top and doze off in the present (Who better than us to talk of that, we've been and still are talking about how susrutha was the world's first surgeon and how we founded astronomy before they wore clothes in Europe).

Anyways, it’s more apt to say, “Hello World! You may love or hate India, but you just can’t avoid her”.

So wake up Europe and smell the curry. The global Indian has arrived.

Outsource to Out of Source

2006-02-01T04:14:00.000+05:30

Why is India the best choice for outsourcing? Because we are English speaking, we deliver quality work and most of all, we are cost effective.

Countless companies mainly from North America chose to outsource all their IT and ITES (IT Enabled Services) jobs to India to save valuable bucks. There were large scale job cuts in that continent as they were all moved to cheaper locations in India. This made both the players happy since the giver got the job done for peanuts and the taker was able to do a lot with those peanuts. However, things are now beginning to look different and soon we’d be moving form being a victor to a victim of the same thing.

Over the time, many IT companies in India began increasing the pay package of their engineers and the greed to get more money made well paid engineers feel they are underpaid. This led to higher demands, high attrition and greater efforts by organization to hold on to the resources. Even people who worked all day collecting status in Excel sheets began demanding annual compensation in 7 digits. And in no time these peanuts grew to become watermelons, defeating the cause of this whole outsourcing exercise. The Source of work and money that felt the bite of this expense has began searching for alternate destinations like China and other East Asian countries.

Is this Shining India just a lamp that’s going to go off? Did we count our chickens before knowing whether the eggs will hatch or become omelets?

Just when countries like China are emphasizing more on learning English, if things go the same way, we will soon move from the “Destination to Outsource” to a “Destination Out of source”.

Also read: SAP finds Indian techies too costly

Governmentium

2006-01-30T11:22:00.000+05:30

I got this as a forward, and its really hilarious.
While I was Rolling On The Floor Laughing, I wondered, Is that all I can do? Are we going to live with it just making fun?

Anyway, for now, let's have some fun.

Governmentium:
A major research institution (MRI) has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named Governmentium. Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

I am Clueless…

2006-01-24T05:20:00.000+05:30

I was rather bored of being bored during weekends and decided to beat the lull. How best can one spend the weekend during peak winter if he doesn’t know skiing? Go to pubs? Well if he doesn’t drink? Hm, may be a movie should lighten up the spirits. After careful scrutiny of all the running movies and their reviews, I opted to go for the movie that had the maximum review score. To answer your curiosity it was ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ that had scored 8.9/10.

I and my friend reached the Paramount Theaters well in advance to book our tickets. And, what do you know, the movie runs in an IMAX facility (without 3D and of course for few extra dollars). Having never been to an IMAX before, I was curious to see what all the hype is about. We entered a rather empty theater and took the central location for best view. The movie started.

The screen was massive and I couldn’t fit the whole picture in one view, and watching those spectacular visuals with great precision on the BIG screen was a treat to the eyes. The 3D surround sound surrounded us. The movie went on for two and half hour without intermission and we sat there in comfort.

The movie got over and we were out, just then I realized I hardly remember any scene of the movie. I lacked the feeler one generally has after a movie. That’s when this question came up. What makes a movie deliver the punch? Is it the IMAX clarity, the flawless graphics, emphatic sound, a best selling story or the $15 you pay to watch it? What makes a movie leave an impression that lasts at least a day? How are movies rated then?

All of a sudden, I was clueless…

How fast is an F1 car?

2006-01-17T03:25:00.000+05:30

We’ve all seen or heard that the F1 cars are really fast. But how fast are they anyway?
Wanna see?

This is how India lost Rs. 87000000000 in 2005

2005-12-30T10:39:00.000+05:30

How is this possible? The economy looks so bright; the Sensex has reached it’s highest ever only in 2005. India has been ranked as the Best Destination for FDI with Investments running in billions of dollars.

This is how it happened.
The tectonic plates that were sitting still for millions of years decide to scratch their back a little, how would they know that by then millions would be dead and billions lost. Few hurricanes and cyclones tired of monotony chose to play, little did they knew this would leave mega cities inundated, and render millions homeless.

Starting from 26th December 2004, India has witnessed over seven natural calamities and 2005 became a year of largest financial loss as a result of weather-related disasters.
The loss is estimated to be over Rs. 87,500 crore during this year with some of the industrialized states getting the hardest blow.

The Mumbai floods, that created history for receiving the most down pour in a single day (944 m) combined with the ONGC’s Bombay High disaster caused a loss of 30,000 crore. Tsunami and the recent floods in Tamil Nadu cost a cumulative 44,000 crore. That’s not all, the Karnataka floods cost 7500 crore, the Gujarat floods 4500 Crore and the Himachal floods 3,000 crore. If there were floods all over here, there were other parts that were drying in drought. Of course, let’s not exclude the earthquake in Kashmir.

We are not alone in this issue, the December’s Tsunami created havoc from the coasts of Australia all the way to Somalia, destroying everything in its way. There were earth quakes in Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and POK. China faced severe floods.

Who can forget what Wilma and Katrina (not the models but the Hurricanes) did to US? Wilma (Miss Universe) was the strongest Hurricane ever while Katrina (Miss World) was the costliest Hurricane ever with a price tag of over $125 bn.

Across the globe, weather-related disasters led to an estimated $200 bn loss in ’05 compared to $145 bn in ’04.

Are we testing the limits of ecological balance? Is this Mother Nature’s way of teaching her children to respect her?
As the most intelligent and the single most dominant species of a world that’s shared by billions of different species, it’s our duty to conserve nature.
Act now or there won’t be a tomorrow.

Read more here

India wins the Cricket World cup 2005

2005-12-23T04:36:00.000+05:30

India beat England in the finals to win the World cup 2005 participated by nine countries .

“Funny! World Cup is in 2007, and morevoer this is end of December 2005 and I didn’t see any World cup happening this year, and that too nine countries, you must be out of your mind.” If this is what you are thinking, continue reading.

Ganguly was dropped from the team and the impact rocked the Parliament. If Sachin injures his left leg little finger, it’ll be on the main page of the Daily new paper and if some one plays for one match, he’ll be the next target for the billion dollar advertising company. Most of all, if the Indian team is going to the world cup next year, the entire country gears up to watch it already. From customized music albums, to constantly recurring motivational advertisements to even offering special poojas at temples, every player is in the spotlight.

But when a team of proud Indians play cricket against teams from eight other countries and win the World Cup, it won’t even get a single line mention in papers leave alone the media only because they are all Deaf?

Visit the Deaf Cricket International Federation.
Read more about the Second World Cup for Deaf.
Read about the Final Match when India beat England to take the cup.

Toronto, the city that never stops!

2005-12-19T08:36:00.000+05:30

Toronto is the largest city in Canada and one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world with people from over 150 countries making their presence felt here. Although its population is around 3 million, which is merely a forth of Mumbai or Tokyo, Toronto’s downtown is on top gear and faces usual problems with too many people and too little space.

The city wakes up early, and by 8AM people are already on the move. More people mean more activities. This city has a lot of activities and entertainment all through the year, including seasonal carnivals, ethnic fests, theater plays, night clubs and fanatic sports activities. Toronto may appear happening and industrious during the day, but past 7 PM, most of downtown will become deserted and turn cold in silence!

Toronto homes the CN Tower, the tallest man made structure built till date baring only the KVLY-TV mast, which is a TV tower in North Dakota, USA. See Also

So, why is Toronto in my blog today?
Is it because, it’s not in the top 20 cities in population, or not in the top 20 cities in economy or just because it has the tallest concrete structure in the world?

Toronto is a geographically challenged city. The city has two wonderful seasons like spring and fall but faces the wroth of the summer and winter in between them. If the summer bulls the mercury to 40 degree C, the winter can bear it to -40!
So, if this city’s weather is so unforgiving, why is it still so happening?
It’s because of the best use of the exorbitant 15% tax levied on every merchandise bought, apart from the 30% levied on income.

Toronto has one of the best public movement systems in the world. Apart from the busses, trains, street cars (trams) that are cost effective and cover the cross sections of the city, Toronto has something the world should admire.

It has the PATH. Whether going for work, visiting a client, shopping for a gift, catching the subway train, or just lazing around, the PATH is the right medium for you!
PATH is downtown Toronto's temperature controlled underground walkway linking 27 kilometers of shopping, services and entertainment. Follow PATH and you'll reach your downtown destination easily in weatherproof comfort. It has over 4 million square feet of retail space running for 16 miles and connecting over 50 important buildings in downtown. See more for details on the PATH

A snap of the PATH

That’s not all; if you think you know all about energy saving, have a second thought.
Toronto is one of the pioneer cities pledging to reduce the citywide emissions by a whooping 20% in 1990. It has well exceeded this goal in its own corporate facilities and operations, reducing these emissions by about one million tonnes or 42% from 1990 levels.
And what’s next? Its new Deep Lake Water Cooling project will draw cold water from the bottom of Lake Ontario to provide air conditioning for a number of large buildings in downtown Toronto. It will use 75-90% less electricity than traditional air-conditioning.
Read more here

Guess, now you accept this city is worth a mention. This city, Will never stop.

Pasitha Pasta

2005-11-30T10:34:00.000+05:30

(Pasitha in colloquial Tamil means ‘if you are hungry’)

I have been in a major cooking spree, and I prepared some delicious Pasta for dinner.

Incase case you wonder how I did?
First take adequate quantity of Pasta, add a pinch of salt, three times water and boil till the pasta is really soft. Drain the remaining water and keep it aside.

Take some vegetables like Capsicum, Carrot and Broccolis (or anything you feel fit). Chop them finely and microwave for 2 to 3 minutes to make them soft. If you don’t use microwave, boil them on a vessel for a short while.

Heat a dry pan, add some vegetable oil (or any edible oil you can lay your hands on), add a cup of tomato puree and cook till fresh smell is off, add the half baked vegetables and fry for a short while. Add a cup of milk, let it boil. Add salt and spicing ingredients. Stir continuously. Add the drained pasta and stir/cook for a while. Add butter or fresh cream and take it out of the pan. Garnish with the greens and your pasta is ready.

Additional tip: Spread some grated cheese and microwave it for 2 minutes to have some melting cheese pasta.

Now a treat for all the waiting eyes..

Extraordinary People

2005-11-29T09:48:00.000+05:30

How does someone who doesn’t have fingers in her toe, well no toes in her legs, actually no legs joining her thigh, in fact with no lower extremity live?

How will it be when you only have the upper half of your body and you have to live with a father who suffers from Alzheimer's and dementia and a brother who is mentally challenged?

Rosemarie (Rose) Siggins was born with a disorder known as Sacral Agenesis. Meet her here to know more about this Extra-ordinary lady and her fight for the right to live a normal life.

I saw a program on TLC channel about her when she said (something similar to) “I am not handicapped, one who cannot do something is handicapped, I can do them, may be differently”.

My hats are off to respect her.

Try II

2005-11-26T07:53:00.000+05:30

My dad's birthday was nearing, not that he really cares about it, but I did...
I was 10,000 miles away, but thanks to technology, we can do everything except touch, smell and taste.
I decided to make a cake, and cut it for him...

With overwhelming response for my first cake, and from the lessons I leant, I attempted a more mature cake this time.

I called it, Karthik's Choco-chocochip Apple cake... hm.. no prizes for guessing the ingredients here :)

And here it is,

It was much better in looks and taste and really hard to resist, but with 24 hrs still to go for my dad's bday, I kept my hands and mouth tightly shut.

Right on time, I got the cake, and cut it for my dad who was watching it live from the beautiful Far East.
Soon after, the cake didn’t last 15 minutes.
:)

My Cake

2005-11-14T08:10:00.000+05:30

This is my first try on Caking and baking...

I tried my hands on making a cake and this is how I did it.

Ingredients:
Cake mix - 500 gms
Flavored whipped cream - as needed
water - 250ml
Butter or Vegetable oil 75gms

This is an egg-less cake, but eggs can be added (recommended qty: 3).

First mix the power, water and butter and beat them for up to 4 mins (add eggs if being used).

Just to prove I am preparing the cake :) (sadly I was my own camera man)

Take a vessel, preferably a nonstick one, and grease the sides with butter or oil.

And evenly pour the mix into the vassal.

Bake the mix for about 30 mins, in a preheated oven at 325 degree C.

The cake base is ready

Take the whipped Cream,

And apply over the cake, till its fully covered..

And Hurray!!! My CAKE is Ready..

Trust me, its tasty tasty.. yum..yummy yum…

When our brain gets all worked up...

2005-11-12T02:35:00.000+05:30

Often we do something and then think “How Stupid”… That may be because we are used to some un-interesting routine in our lives. Here are two such subtle incidents that woke me up.

I got a new (relatively) optical mouse for my laptop, I had the drivers installed and fit the mouse to its slot, but it wouldn’t work. I knew it work earlier but couldn’t quite get why it didn’t respond. After (re)searching the control panel and the physical socket in all dimensions, BANG, the gyan came in, my laptop and the mouse were rested on a glass table and the light from the mouse happily passed thru w/o reflecting and that means no net displacement. I was wondering for a long time why did man invent a mouse pad, today I acknowledge that invention.

I was in the Bangalore International Airport at 2 AM crossing the final check before boarding the flight.
A lady employees of the Airlines had her made up smiley face and was wishing “Bye”, and I said “Bye”, the other lady said “Thank you” and I said the same thing, and the security guy said “Have a nice flight”, and I spontaneously said “You too”…DING.. I found I was sleeping already.

You may share your funny incident if you wish to.

On Diwali nothing matters

2005-11-02T17:00:00.000+05:30

Rain batters, roof tatters, life shatters but on Diwali, nothing matters…

Diwali is logically the beginning of a new year for most business people throughout India. Hindus and Jains alike pray to the goddess Lakshmi to bless them with progress and prosperity.

Despite heavy rainfalls flooding most parts of Chennai, causing huge loss to people and property, the sprit of Diwali as always was seen lit up.

Wondering if the below picture was taken in the Times Square, or a busy shopping arcade in Dubai or Singapore? Well you need to look again.

This is how Purasawalkam, the area I stay looks for weeks during the Diwali season. This 300 meter long shopping paradise in North Central Chennai attracts Lakhs of people from all walks of life every day during festival times. From road-side shops to retail outlets, there is something for everyone. The year 2005 saw an unprecedented level of security and traffic regulatory arrangements that helped maintain law and order throughout the season.

Water water everywhere, not a place to move…

2005-10-25T18:51:00.000+05:30

This was how Bangalore was paralyzed after a rain that lasted just for 5 hours. Water was logged everywhere and normal life went in for big spin.

On my way to from Chennai to Bangalore, the bus took close to 5 hr and 30 minutes to cover the 350 odd KMs and an extra 2 hrs just to pass a 5 km stretch on Hosur Road.

If this city gets to such shapes with rain, trust me, it would have been out of the world map if it got any close to what Mumbai received.

This city has been crying for basic infrastructure and now it’s evident. It’s sad to see that despite all these, politicians are busy fighting petty power battles with the definite visionaries of this city. I’ve already described the plight of Bangalore in earlier blog (The BIG BANG(ALORE)).

Here are few snaps to know I really meant what I said.
Few snaps are from my friend Kaushik, will the rest are from a forward…

Wipro office - Under water Adventure i guess :)

Call Superman... HURRY!!!

This is no hovercraft.

Hum honge kaamiyab...

Hm, was the wall built on Ambuja cement ??

And for the best (i mean worst)...

Water water everywhere.. not a drop to drink.

Name... Not for the sake.

2005-10-25T18:47:00.000+05:30

My friend became a proud father on October 1st early morning. The nine+ months of waiting finally paid off; both the mother and the baby (boy) are safe and sound. The wait for the infant to step into this world may be over but now comes a bigger issue, how do you call him?

5 or 7 years back things were much simpler, where parents called their children with some fancy god’s names prefixing or suffixing with their ancestor’s names. I still remember my Andhra friends whose names extended something like “Satyasai seelamanjula satyabaskara venkatakalyana Rajendra Prasad Reddy”. Despite being long and virtually impossible to fit in a passport, it was an easy task for the parents whose only work was to respect all their family deities.

But those days are over, man may have even gone to the moon on a joy ride but god knows where did we Indians pickup this sudden craze for nameology (MsWord give a red underline for this word). Parents run haywire just to keep a name to their new born. Sometimes these names are so weird with many fragments that they would lack any sense when kept together.

The kid had barely opened its eyes, by then the grand father had already checked the birth-star using the time of birth and downed on the syllables the name should start. It was “Mo” “Da” or “Du”. South Indian names hardly start with “Da” (as in Darling) or “Du” (as in Duplicate) and leaving the kid’s fate at the mercy of the syllable “Mo”. “Mo” is not a very flamboyant syllable and has very little to offer namely the 1980s fame “Mohan” probably with some suffix. After searching the cross sections of the internet we could hardly boil down to 4 not so interesting names like “Mohit”, “Mohin”, and two more in the same flavor.

The kid's father now has a new taste, he wanted his son’s name to be purely in Tamil, of course the “Mo” restriction still holds good. We went back to the internet to find refuge. Again not many names to choose from, except for names like “Mokkachamy”, reminds me of this popular Tamil Vadivelu comedy “Mayannae vandhurukkaha, Maapla Mokkachamy vandhurukkaha… Vaamaa Minnal…”

With half mind we chose “Mohit” as the only name that sounds somewhat fine, by then the grandfather came with a different game plan called “Numerology”. Every English alphabet is given a value and we need to derive at a total value that’s right for the child. What’s right is decided by experts in that field and our new born and still anonymous got his number as 41.

The number calculation goes like:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
A B C D E U O F
I K G M H V Z P
J R L T N W - -
Q - S - X - - -
Y - - - - - - -

Using information technology’s advantage, somewhere close to 3000 names were extracted from the internet and values calculated for all of them.

Scanning through all of them we finally got one good name “Harshavardhan”, name of a famous and fierce Indian King of the medieval times. The father was happy with this name and when he conveyed this to his father, and got another bombshell, the name’s calculations are to be done with the initials as well. The initial added 4 more to the name “Harshavardhan” and value changes to 45. Flop again.

We were so rigid on this name that we decided to tweak it a bit instead of finding a new one.

Out goes the middle “h” and now value is 40. We need to and a one. That is, A, I, J, Q or Y should be added. And so the final draft has been made and he’ll now be named “Harshavardana”

It’s easier said, but only we know the scanning we did across thousands of names to get here. My aim here was to euphemistically convey the hardships we undergo by not taking any chances and putting our best to make sure the kid’s life is great, keeping aside the argument of how valid this concept truely is.

A DEAL 2 BUY: Buy an Organ and get some Mind Free!

2005-09-14T13:24:00.000+05:30

This is a great piece of information I learnt from the Discovery Channel recently.

When Ms. Debbie Delgado-Vega, a committed floor broker of Walls Street was first diagnosed with Chronic Active Autoimmune Hepatitis(a fatal progressive inflammation of the liver), she was told it would prove critical if she doesn’t get it transplanted soon. After a long, patient and yet a desperate wait in the queue for 2 ½ years, she finally got her Liver transplanted, donated by a family who’s inmate just committed suicide.

This new liver no doubt gave her a new sense of rejuvenation, but also gave her some new traits, foreign memories, their personal preferences and unexplained emerging talents. She had a new found flair for kick-boxing and eating peanuts.

With no proper explanation to this recent change in interest, she researched to find out that the donor of the liver has liking for kick-boxing and eating peanuts.

In TRANSPLANTING MEMORIES, prominent medical experts attempt to explain why some organ recipients adopt these memories and emotions, also known as "cellular memories". While a handful of scientists are skeptical dismissing this strange phenomena as post-surgery stress or reaction to anti-organ rejection drugs -- they are also countered by a growing number of experts who believe cellular memories are indeed transplanted with organs. Dr. Candace Pert, a pharmacologist and professor at Georgetown University believes the mind is not just in the brain, but also throughout the body. This school of thought could explain such strange transplant experiences. "The mind and body communicate with each other through chemicals known as peptides", says Dr. Pert. "These peptides are found in the brain as well as in the stomach, muscles and all of our major organs. I believe that memory can be accessed anywhere in the peptide/receptor network. For instance, a memory associated with food may be linked to the pancreas or liver and such associations can be transplanted from one person to another".

Hm! Looks like nature knew the art of paging memory much before we thought of it.
In future, there will be a day when donors can sell their organs containing some talents; you can shop for your aspired talent from them.
To know more.

Mumbai Vs New Orleans

2005-09-06T11:53:00.000+05:30

I just got this forward, and couldn't resist posting:

Mumbai Vs New Orleans

Inches of rain in New Orleans due to hurricane Katrina: 18
Inches of rain in Mumbai (July 27th): 37.1

Population of New Orleans: 484,674
Population of Mumbai: 12,622,500

Deaths in New Orleans within 48 hours of Katrina: 100
Deaths in Mumbai within 48hours of rain: 37

Number of people to be evacuated in New Orleans: entire city… wooh!!
Number of people evacuated in Mumbai: 10,000

Cases of shooting and violence in New Orleans: Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in Mumbai: NONE]

Time taken for US army to reach New Orleans: 48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach Mumbai: 12hours

Status 48hours later: New Orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricity
Status 48hours later: Mumbai is back on its feet and is business is as usual

USA: World's most developed nation
India: third world country...

Oops! Did I get the last fact wrong???
Jai Hind!

Happy B’day Take it ezzz!

2005-08-19T12:50:00.000+05:30

It’s been one year since I started blogging, Thanks to Echo, who was my primary inspiration. I still remember that day last year when ‘echo’ introduced me to this blogging world and forced (I wont mind using that word) me to write something. Having lost the habit of diary-writing, this sudden push to post something almost extempore was quite a task. At last I was successful on this day last year when I completed my first article as and with a ‘Sigh of relief’. From then it’s no looking back.

Although I neither have the time nor patience nor the substance to write much, I make sure I post at least one article a month even if it calls for a battle with thoughts to make sure I don’t get rotten eggs flying from the other side. From travel-logs to sports, from political perceptions to film review and from sports to finally a Story telling, I tried them all. I even fiddled a bit with my native language given to say that I never formally learnt it.

Thanks a lot folks, for patiently reading all that I’ve scribbled here.

New looks:
After hours of battle with templates and divs, I finally settled with this new look to celebrate the Birthday of my blog.

New Blog Release:
I am releasing a new blog site herewith.

http://krazykars.blogspot.com (CrazyCars flavored with my obvious obsession for “K”)
In this blog-site, I’ll be posting my personal reviews and a fair idea about cars running in India and abroad based on my personal experience in them, initially with a frequency of one a month.

Suggestion, Comments, Questions and Good Jokes appriciated.

Keep reading and encouraging me.

Thanks!
Karthik

Oxford speaks bindaas Hinglish

2005-08-11T20:46:00.000+05:30

The fusion of Hindi and English words in random permutation to bring out a sentence using the best of each world that is well-formed in grammar and sense is globally known as HINGLISH. This is common not only with Desis abroad but also with the 350 million strong local urban population of India.
With English being a language of popularity and choice in the Urban and Semi-Urban population, it was matter of time before it fuses with the local languages and have its own local flavor. In fact, Hinglish has become so much a part of us, that we fail realize that we are actually talking something butler-ish.

For Instance “Mai Office Jar raha hun” has become more common than replacing Office with say “Dafhar”.
Again, “Abi TV may kaya programme hai?” sounds far easy that to replace their Hindi equivalents.

The new edition of Oxford Dictionary of English includes several common words of Hindi origin like bindaas, tamasha, mehndi, desi, lehnga and of course, Hinglish. Few words of Indian English like agitation, off-shoring, tom-tom are also making appearances.

With Hinglish makings its presence felt, the other native equivalents will soon join this race. May this infiltration last!
Click:
>>To read more
>>To see the full list

The BIG BANG(ALORE)

2005-07-29T22:30:00.000+05:30

It looks as though I just took my train from Chennai to Bangalore on the 18th of June ’04 and it’s already one year past since. This is how I described Bangalore after 1 week’s observation,

“As of Bangalore, it’s a boring city. Life here starts really late and ends quite early, and the climate makes people really lazy.
The roads are too small but people are damn rich. So there are too many self driven huge cars congesting the already chocked roads.
Each traffic signal can stop you for a minimum of 100 seconds and thus to travel 8 kms it takes close to 30 mins... (By bike you can travel 25Km in 45 mins in Chennai).
Bus network is not applauding and totally undependable... No where else can we see bus conductors stopping busses for adding natural manures to the soil... (So much for the garden city) ”

And after a year, I find my observations haven’t changed much, I am still sticking to my point that Bangalore is not up to the mark.

Bangalore’s best asset is its chill weather; the temperature strives hard to reach early thirties for most part of the year. This is what attracts people from all parts of the country and the globe. Still sometimes it could make our lives a misery. People who frequently travel in and out of the city would know the ear-cracking chillness early in the morning.

Bangalore is truly cosmopolitan, even a fruit vendor can talk a minimum of four languages and language is never a barrier for survival. Sharp eyes would have noticed that vehicles from other states (with their respective state registrations) equal the number of vehicles from Karnataka, and of course this has led to less road space and motorized vehicle not even sparing the pedestrian pavements.

The once retired man’s paradise suddenly woke up late to discover its population gushing beyond the threshold and yet the infrastructure remained the same since times immemorial. Traffic snails the whole day and it takes 45 minutes for bikes to commute 10 KM, I leave it to the reader to guess the plight of the car commuters.

I have to point out that a flyover at Domlur, the heart of a busy junction on Airport Road that was in-progress for 2 years then, recently celebrated its third year of dormancy. The issue was that the contractor (UP State Bridge Constriction Company) and the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) had some issues on project commitments. The BDA terminated the contract and the contractor dragged BDA to the court. After some lull the court commented that “Contracts are not shirts to keep changing often” and ordered the contractor to resume work but the BDA has decided take it to a higher court. What about public nuisances caused due to that? The BDA is still having its Eyes Wide Shut.

One of the most affected is the aviation industry, with frequent delays and ‘no show’ cases triggered due to heavily inching traffic. Since they are unable to persuade the government to get it resolved, they inevitably delay the fights and also they advice the passengers to leave early.

Real Estate values have soured up multifold in the last few years. A two bed room apartment in city limits, that was rented for anywhere within 3 to 5 thousand two years back is now rented for 10 to 12 thousand. The IT industry that attracts people with un-realistically high salary increases paying power of this small section of the public and thereby forcing the local urban middle-class to move out of the city. The owners of these houses have a policy “You earn more so pay more”.

There was an interesting incident when the Finance Minister of India recently visited Bangalore and looking at the plight of the infrastructure, advised the Government to take necessary actions. The government cleverly put the ball back on his count demanding for more funds and the FM shot back by offering some finance classes to the government on handling the situation with the available funds.

Bangalore has a pet of its own, none other than man’s best friends the canine mutts. Every inhabited locality in Bangalore has a comparable mutt population. And they consider the night times as their own and consider man walking during the nights as an intrusion to their privacy.

And the worst is yet to come, if Government and bureaucracy haunt Bangalore from within, security issues have shook the living hell out of the city. From petty thieves to terrorist, from mobile phone theft to the threat of mobility destruction, Bangalore has it all. If we have thieves who go up to stripping you naked to steal all you possess, we also get news that if London was a victim to these blasts, Bangalore is not far behind.

Will the authorities act before this city explodes? Will the projects like the New International Airport and Metro Rail that is still on papers ever become reality ? Will Bangalore be safe for human movement? Only time has the answer.

The first story I wrote...

2005-06-16T21:43:00.000+05:30

ARE YOU STILL WAITING FOR ME?

It was around 6:30PM that warm Thursday, Ramya and Sandhya were still waiting for Kishore at Lipton, a fast-food joint at AirPort Road, Bangalore. Kishore had promised to treat them since India beat arch rivals Pakistan in the Pepsi series One-Day cricket match. Having arrived at sharp 6, after a kilometer and half walk, Ramya and Sandhya in their best efforts to kill time exhausted every topic they could possibly talk over. It was a long wait and the hour’s needle was now pointing 7, while the patience needle was gradually edging towards the red area. Just then a waiter neared their table, handed over a chit to them and left the scene.
On the face it was
Are you still waiting for me?

On the first unfold,
You know what day its today?

And the final unfold,
HAPPY FOOL’S DAY,
Signed - Kishore
It was the 1st of April 2004.

Extremely annoyed by this, they lashed the shores of Kishore’s house like a colossal tsunami triggered due to a massive tremor on the ocean bed. After an hour of continuous upbeat, the sea finally began to recede as Sandhya let it pass by, but Ramya was no chicken, the thought of being hoodwinked still lurked in her cerebrum.
“Beginner’s luck, Try to out-smart me next year” she yelled.
“I am in” countered Kishore, “but wouldn’t waste my time fooling you for nothing, wanna bet?”
On mutual consensus they arrived at the looser treating the winner at a 5 star hotel.
“Deal” assured Ramya, “But no monkey tricks that play with health and life” “I will definitely budge even if I strongly believe you are prancing at me”.
The bet was on, with Sundar as the witness. The plans for the next fooling kicked off without a break, but for most of its tenure lodged in one tiny corner of Kishore’s mind.

Kishore, Ramya, Sandhya and Sundar were all batch-mates in a Post Graduate Diploma course specializing in Information Technology at Bangalore. They went on to pursue their IT career in Bangalore itself. Kishore and Sundar shared the same apartment.

Five months had passed in no hurry, every day like the one before, and Kishore enjoyed his workplace almost being paid for doing nothing. Fortunes changed, and he was now part of an assignment called CVM, rated one of the technically advanced, most challenging projects. CVM, is a product owned by an American Multi-National, and as a part of outsourcing, it was off-shored to India. At offshore Balaji led the team and his only team member - Kishore.

CVM had a lot of learning to do and the team had to travel onshore to get some hands on experience. The trip was finalized and they were scheduled to fly on the first of October 2004 to Malvern, a small town in West Chester County, Pennsylvania.

The business trip was for three months and Kishore had a lot of packing to do to sustain through the haunting fall and the ruthless winter. Ramya was closely involved, from groceries to garments, and from stuffing them to sendoff, she made sure his trip had everything in place.

On October 2nd, they reached Malvern, after a thirty three mile drive from Philadelphia. Here is where Kishore first acquainted with Kamal, one of Balaji’s long time colleagues, who went on to share Kishore’s apartment on his return to Bangalore. Kamal was already in Malvern for a different assignment and similarly returned prior to the rest.

Balaji was to return to India on the first day of the New Year 2005, while Kishore’s term stretched longer, as his I94 stamping permitted and his project demanded him to stay longer.

The occasional yet periodic bubble bloated again; What if I am here till April 1st, how can I win this bet. May be, an idea stuck, what if I inform her I am returning on the 1stof April! She will definitely come to receive me, only to find hundreds of other passengers but for me. Let me see, it's still too early to think off.

Kishore’s anxiety bubble cracked, and he returned to India on the 12th of Jan’05, and as expected, Ramya was there to receive him.

Latitudes changed but their attitudes didn’t. The CVM team was ever sincere in implementing all they had learnt to meet their stringent Feb14th deadline, sidelining this `bet` to the farthest corner of Kishore’s mind. Still, Due to technical problems the deadline was postponed to a later date in March.

Ramya, working for a different organization probably knew more about CVM than anyone but the core team, merely being a good listener to Kishore’s daily narrations, technical and otherwise. Though she felt sad that her good friend had barely anytime to breathe in this throat choking schedule, there was this wicked happiness deep inside that Kishore had totally forgotten about the bet.

It was early March and Kishore still sandwiched in his tasks hardly did any home work on the bet. Time was running short as he was desperately gasping for an idea.

March 12, Kishore was on his routine weekend trip home to Hosur, an hour’s drive from Bangalore. Ramya called him on a usual casual note. Just to drag this conversation a little longer, she impromptu inquired
“So, when are you going to US again?”
Kishore took a brief moment, thought of an answer, and faked unhurriedly “mmm…month-end… mostly”
“What? Why didn’t you tell this to me earlier?”
With a subtle smile Kishore said “It’s still not confirmed, I didn’t want to tell even my conscious before it was certain”.

Wow, this sounds like a great work, I can tell her I am going to US, and since she raised it, its all the more natural. End of March will begin with the 1st of April, the day I’ll be leaving to the US. There was a sly smile, as he set the foundation for this bet.

The following week again passed with no pause, work was blinding the whole world behind. And finally it was a well anticipated weekend. Kishore, Ramya and few of their friends were traveling to Chennai to attend a wedding. In the train he caught up with Swarna, a colleague who was soon taking a trip to Malvern and was having a long chat on the Visa, travel, accommodation and about his chances of going back, subtly impressing the clue of his travel to Ramya. To his luck she started to believe him more than ever, or at least pretended to.

It was back to Monday blues, hot pursuits and burning mid night oil. Despite all his interest, Kishore’s thoughts barely deviated from his tasks. And it was not till that following Saturday that he thought about the bet. Having lunch at home in Hosur, he was discussing about the bet and the idea he had. His parents were more than ready to help. His mom went a step further, and suggested that she would give a “Missing my son” stunt to Ramya to earn her vote.
“That won’t be needed mom, just be sure, if she ever calls up enquiring, you’ll are sure to affirm on the same”.

The week started in a relaxed note. Kishore had some time to breathe fresh air since his deadline was now postponed to a future date.

March 29th, around evening, Ramya calls him up
“Hey what’s up with your trip? How far is it up to?”
“Still tentative” said Kishore.
“How long will it be?”
“A month”
“You are going alone?”
“No, Balaji too is coming”
“Ok, Well, I need a Zoom lens for my Canon SLR camera, buy one for me.”
“I don’t have time to investigate, give me exact information of what you want”
“Ok, I’ll check the Internet and get back to you.”

March 30th, 8 PM, they met at Lipton,
“Are you done with your purchases?” questioned Ramya
“No time for that”, I’ve been busy all week with my work.”
“Deadline and departure are discrete” he punned.
“Stop this nonsense”, “You have just one day left, and you are joking”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care. It’s just for a month, nothing much to buy”
“Are your tickets ready?” “No, Not yet”
“You still haven’t got them? Why?”
“This was a sudden plan; the travel desk is fighting hard to get us in. It will take time”
“When did you apply for the Visa?”
“The Visa that was stamped earlier is valid for one year”
“Fine, why are you guys flying on Friday?”
Because that is April fool’s day “So that we can have a comfortable journey reaching Malvern by Saturday night, and take a day’s rest before beginning work”

“Let’s not talk about my trip” said Kishore in a slow unexciting voice, giving her sight clues that he wasn’t too keen in going.
“As you wish, ok, here is the list of the lens available for my camera” she gave him a 20 pages document containing specifications and pictures of all possible zoom lens the world manufactures for her camera downloaded from the internet.
What a criminal waste of effort, time and resource Guilt rocked Kishore. “Hey, I don’t have any clue about them, you choose one of them, and I’ll buy that”
They went on to have a long chat, with Kishore mostly on the receiving end. Ramya repeated her advises that he knew since childhood.

March 31st, 9 AM.
I can’t drag this any longer. I have to tell Ramya about my travel. And Bingo! An idea stuck, Swarna was leaving to Malvern that Sunday, I could take her travel itinerary and modify the dates to make my very own. He got into action; since Swarna was leaving from Chennai, he changed the source and even the flight number.
AI 137 03 APR MAA BOM 0330 now read
9W 442 01 APR BLR BOM 2055,

He put his name and sent it for a proof reading to Sandhya and Gokul. Gokul was one more of Kishore’s batch mates. “Proof Reading done, its good to go” replied Sandhya, who too had her part in helping Kishore win this bet.

Ramya received a mail that looked like a forward of an itinerary mail from the Travel-desk to Kishore. Kishore added Gokul and Sandhya in the TO list to make it look natural.
It was less than 120 seconds when he got a reply from Ramya.
“Hey you are leaving from Bangalore, but why are you returning to Chennai?”
He realized he forgot to change the return details of his fabricated itinerary; but what perplexed him was the intent of Ramya’s care for his travel and the way he was exploiting it.
“I noticed it and I spoke to the travel desk. They will make the necessary changes in the booking and intimate me. Anyway it’s for my return, a long way from now” he lied relentlessly.

March 31st 8 PM, they while having a walk on Airport Road,
“Tomorrow evening you are leaving, aren’t you?” She asked this for the sake of asking a question. He was one of her closest friends and she had already begun to miss him.
“Kishore, I am held in an important assignment and cannot help you like the last time. I may not come to the airport even” Ramya made reason to warp her unwillingness to send him off tomorrow.
“That’s ok!” Opps! Where the hell will the climax be then! He thought. His dreams of giving her an April-Fool wish over the Public addressing system flopped.
“When are you going to pack?”
“Tomorrow I’ll finish my travel formalities and leave office by 10-10:30 AM, and start packing there after”. Kishore couldn’t believe his mind bring out these answers in a whisker.
“Okay, Good luck; I’ll call you before you leave”.
Kishore came back home, and had a long chat with his room-mates. “Ramya seems to be close to believing me in full, but I am still apprehensive” he said, “What if she was playing her part to counter-fool me?” He alight his huge suitcase from the loft. This might come in handy. Incase she comes home, I’ll fill this with some junk, take it till the airport before I shock her.

April 1st, as usual he and Kamal reached office at 8 AM,
8:15 AM – first call, “Hey you are in office? What happened?”
“I am clearing my desk”.
9:15 AM – second call, “You are still there?”
“Yes, will get through soon”
“What about Balaji?”
“He too is with me…”
He suddenly thought What if she calls Balaji? He turned his head towards Balaji in the next seat
“Balaji, incase you get a call from Ramya, you know what to do!”
“You’ve already left office, we have our flight at 8 PM” Balaji recited his written dialog that Kishore gave him.
“Good!”
He left to Kamal’s seat, “Kamal, most likely Ramya will call you, please...” Kamal interrupted “Don’t worry, I can handle that”
“Thanks”
He had called up everyone he knew to keep them alerted except Johnsy, one of his other room-mate who couldn’t be contacted.
9:45 AM – third call – Kishore cut it.
9:46 AM – 4th call, cut again.
9:47 AM – 5th call, this time he picked, “Hey why didn’t you pickup the previous calls?”
“I was having a chat with my manager, he was giving some last minute details” he said in extempore,
“Oh; you are done with your work?”
“Almost, Should be leaving office anytime”.
He decided not to pick her calls anymore.

6th, 7th, 8th…12th call, Kishore still wouldn’t pickup.
She called up Gokul, “You know where Kishore is?” “No, he left office but” “Oh, thanks”
6 PM: She called up Sundar, “You are sure where Kishore is?” Sundar didn’t know what to say “I don’t know, may be he’s gone home to Hosur to pickup some important documents”
“May be, Thanks!”
13th, 14th, 15th call and still it was negative response.

It was 6:15 in the evening when Kishore left office with Gokul and was on his way back home.

6:30 PM, she called up Kamal,
“Hey you know where Kishore is? I’ve been trying to reach him all day!”
“No idea, he left office early”
“Ok! You are not going to send him off?” she asked
“He’s not a kid” riposted Kamal “Besides I have a lot of work to do”
“Same here, I had an important assignment and thought I wouldn’t make it” and suddenly she yelled “Johnsy……”
“Who’s that” asked Kamal,
“It’s Johnsy, he’s on the other side of the road”
“Oh!”
“Ok, I’ll talk to you later, bye”
“Bye”

If Ramya saw Johnsy, she must be on Airport Road and probably heading towards Kishore’s house. Oh my God!
Immediately Kamal made a call to Kishore, “Where are you?”
“M.G Road”
“Listen, I was just talking to Ramya when she screamed ‘Johnsy’, she just saw him, meaning she’s somewhere on Airport Road and close to home. Be really careful”.
“Kamal, thanks for this info, I was actually heading home” “Sundar must be there, can you call him, and enquire about the situation and update me?”
“Sure, hang up, I’ll call back”
“Bye.”

Kamal spoke to Sundar, and found that neither Johnsy nor Ramya were there, he alerted Sundar about the situation. He advised Sundar to switch of all the lights if he still planned to stay home and then updated Kishore.

6:40 PM, Sundar called up Kishore
What if it was Ramya calling from my home? On the safer side Kishore cut the call.
Sundar called up again, and it was cut. Sundar realized the apprehension on Kishore’s mind and messaged him “This is Sundar”, and called him again,
“What’s the update?” asked Kishore,
“Ramya and Johnsy are home” “The lights were off, and Johnsy opened the door, I am talking from the back side room, they don’t know I am here, I’ll update you soon”
“Great, Bye”

Ramya and Johnsy were here in the foyer and Sundar arrived at the scene, she spotted the empty suitcase lying in a corner “Why is it still empty?” she demanded,
“I too was wondering why…” Sundar bought sometime to think of an answer.
“May be he took Kamal’s suitcase since this one was really big” he fumbled, but managed to complete the sentence. Johnsy who has very little idea about the plan felt more like a kid lost in a trade fair.
“Fine, Why didn’t he pickup the phone?”
“I don’t know why…” “Ok, are you not going to the Airport for sendoff?” Sundar changed the topic.
“No”
“I want to go, can you tell me how do I reach and what should I do to get in? Will I make it before he gets in?” Sundar asked to both Ramya and Johnsy deliberately trying to sound natural.
Johnsy still blinked while Ramya though irritated gave her bit of brains to Sundar.

6:50 PM, Kishore, now near Airport Road called up Sundar in Gokul’s mobile to avoid any coincidence with Ramya, Sundar picked the call in the backyard,
“Where is she?” Kishore enquired,
“Still here,”
Sundar went on to update him about all the happenings,
“Ok, Listen plans changed, Gokul will come there soon, and he’ll take care of the rest”.
“Bye”.
Ramya is home, Plan A of fooling her at the airport is written off, and its time of Plan B
“Gokul, here is a plan, go home and meet Ramya, tell here you are coming there straight after dropping me at the airport, force her to come to the airport, instead bring her to Lipton, and we’ll complete her climax there”
“Ok, but I must be ready to face her when she bombards me with questions” worried Gokul,
“hm… Ok, If she asks about the suitcase, tell I took Kamal’s suitcase, she’ll ask about the phone not being picked up…” after a moment “ah! Tell her that I had requested the service provider to discontinue the connection, since I won’t be here for a month”
“And what if she asks why I didn’t call her?” questioned Gokul,
“Hm… tell here your mobile had only one rupee balance and that you couldn’t make any calls” Kishore felt proud of his reasoning ability.
“She won’t ask more, continue the conversation to pull her to the Airport, I mean to Lipton” he winked.

7:10 PM, as planned, Kishore stood at Lipton, and Gokul met Ramya at Kishore’s house, alongside Johnsy and Sundar. “I’m just coming form the Airport, Kishore is waiting there”, he began the conversation, and as expected Ramya asked him the same three questions,
“What about the suitcase?”
“He’ took Kamal’s”
“Why didn’t he pickup the phone?”
“He called up the service providers to temporarily discontinue the connection since he won’t be here for a month”
“Ok, why didn’t you call me?”
“My mobile had just one rupee balance”
Ramya was taken aback by Gokul’s ready answers.
“Ok, come lets go and meet Kishore” Gokul called,
“No, I am not planning to come, please wish him safe journey from my side”
“Why should I? Am I your mouth piece?” Gokul was at the peak of his performance.
“If you want, come along, or else…” he delivered this statement like an annoyed husband tired after a quarrel with his wife.
“Hey don’t get angry Gokul, I too wish I come, but I have my own reasons, Ok, I am going home, if you can, Please wish him.” And she left.
Gokul updated Kishore that Ramya has left, and that she’s not coming to the airport, “Plan B too flopped”.

7:25 PM, Kishore came home, and was hearing to all the updates till 7:45 PM

7:45 PM He the went to a local phone booth and called Ramya on her mobile,
“Hello” “Hello, it’s me, Kishore”
“Hey, where are you, I’ve been trying to reach you all day”
“I am…” “Hello I, Hello….HELLO” and there was an engage tone. Kishore had cut the call emulating a signal problem.
He took a brief moment and called her home and this time Ramya’s mother picked the call
“Hello”,
“Aunty, this is Kishore, is Ramya around?”
“Oh yes” and she yelled “RAMYA, Kishore is on the line”
By then something stuck his mind, and he hung up.

8:00 PM He decided to go to her home and shock her himself
8:05 PM, Knock Knock, Ramya opened the door and saw Kishore standing, his face reveling too many details, but she didn’t care for any,
“Hey you still didn’t go?” she asked, without any exclamation
Why is she not even reacting? “No, I had to tell you something”
“What is that?”
“HAPPY FOOL’S DAY”
“Ah! I knew about it all the time, I knew you were trying to fool me” Ramya said with no surprise, no hurry and as if she was waiting for this moment for a long time now.
Kishore’s heart sank like a bearish stock exchange; he sat down without balance, his shoulders drooping, his throat dried up, and all his efforts meant meaningless to him.
“Can I have a glass of water” he whispered

As he took the glass and drank some water, Ramya’s mom showed up.
“Hello Kishore how are you”, “You just now called up right? Ramya came running to pickup and when she found it disconnected she was terribly upset and told me you were calling from the Airport” Kishore‘s shoulders now stood straight, he could feel a sudden sprint in the blood flow,
As her Father continued, “I knew something was wrong and that’s why I enquired her well in advance.” “I asked here about your Visa, and she told me it was multiple entry one, I asked her why the tickets weren’t issued, she blamed your company for the last minute hustles, and when I asked her why you were leaving on the 1st of April, she told me that it was a Friday and you’ll be getting a day’s rest before work” he added, “she was damn sure you were going”
Kishore now felt as though the market recovered to a bullish tone.
Her mother continued, “Even when we were walking this morning, I warned her that today was the 1st of April and to be very careful”

“Oh, so you did get fooled” “You were just trying to get away from me” asked Kishore
“No, I had a slight doubt...”
“Then why didn’t you investigate”
“I thought…”
“So, I win, now do you accept?”
“No, I actually…”
“Accept it, come on, be a sport”
“I…”
“I won?”
“Ok, ok you win”
“Good, you accepted at last”
“Why didn’t you pick up your phone, I was really worried!”
“Sorry about that, Business is Business”

“Ok, Fine you win; I hope no one knows about it!”
Kishore stood there smiling,
“Does Sundar know about it?”
“Yes”
“Johnsy?”
“Yes”
“How dare, they were acting as if they were having no clue, I’ll deal with them”
“How about Gokul?”
“He dropped me at the airport, don’t you remember”
‘Grrr... and Kamal?”
“It was Kamal who informed me that you were coming home, or else my plans would have been in soup”
“That’s atrocious; he was acting as if he was really busy”
“Ok, how about Sandhya?”
“She only proof read my itinerary”
“Wait till I get my hands on them!”
“It took all of their effort to fool you, it only goes to say you are one cleaver woman”, Kishore did the putty work to patch things up.

“Well Kishore, you did it this time, try to fool me the next time!”

Will Kishore make it three in a row or will Ramya break the jinx, I'm going to wait and watch.
------------------------------------------- X ---------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: All characters in this are fictitious; any connection to reality would be simply co-incidental.

Michael Schumacher, winning streak hits the break shoe.

2005-05-31T09:04:00.000+05:30

Schumacher’s winning streak may have hit the break shoe, but the engine is still running. The oldest driver in the sport has gone without a win in the past 7 races, the longest ever desert since 1995. But he’s still kicking, and thirsty for wins. The manner in which he sliced past Brazilian team mate Rubens Barrichello on the final lap and almost collided with younger brother Ralf at the line in a desperate bid to seize sixth place in the Monoco GP suggested that he has lost none of his hunger and determination.
Schumacher takes hope from Liverpool, Wednesday's Champions League final, with underdogs Liverpool overturning a 3-0 half-time deficit against AC Milan to win on penalties in one of European soccer's greatest comebacks, reinforced that point.

It is still possible, difficult but there are still 13 races to go and so many things can happen. If you take two Grands Prix wins back 2 back things will change. Everything was focused on Alonso till Raikkonen won the last two Grand Prix and immediately things have changed.

OVER and OUT!

2005-04-19T19:14:00.000+05:30

Pak tour of India during March/April -2005.

By winning the final ODI against India, Pakistan avenged for its loss at home a year back. Any game has a winner and a looser but every player who enters the field prays and plays to win, their commitment and the determination to fight till the last has flipped fates of many matches.

The First Test match between India and Pak is one great example where India entered the fourth day of play with the over confidence of crushing the 6 down and dying Pak team and seal a victory, but Pak’s crave for sheer survival slowly stole victory from India. The match ended in a draw. India paid the penalty of napping during play.

Conversely, the third test match showed how passive planning and negativity could bundle you out. Pak was the better side of that match, and being the final day, all India had to do was to bat it out to draw the match and win the series. India opted a defensive strategy to dot each ball till the end of the day. This cynical approach not only made legends like Sachin face 91 balls for his 19 runs but also forced players to be too defensive causing unforeseen errors and costing the match. India impotently lost!

Test matches bygone, it was ODI’s turn. After winning the first two matches in style, India did prove that it had the substance to achieve any limits. That’s when over-confidence stuck again. Each ODI after that was like – “Pakistan played a better game today and India has to JUST improve in FEW areas like batting, bowling and fielding.”

The Historically, Politically, technically and strategically high rated final ODI at Delhi was typically one sided. The Pakistani President came to India on a peace mission sighting this match as an excuse. The pitch was brand new, the match was witnessed by our Prime Minister ManMohan Singh, the Pakistani President Musharaf, our Union Railway Minister Laloo Yadav, and the DCB Head and BJP leader Arun Jaitley. India already down 2 to 3 had to either DO to tie or DIE. Still there was nothing tangible. Pakistan, for the third consequent time secured over 300 runs and in return India put up a spineless effort and crumbled for 144. The show was that bad, it made the two big heads cancel their plan of returning to watch the thrilling climax. The match ended before their talks :( . There was one consolation, Indians were together, and their disastrous loss was nothing less than a team effort. Their coach Wright couldn’t have asked for a better farewell gift.

Why blame just Ganguly when the whole team lacked commitment? Team’s performance was comparatively worse without him. Their governing body, the BCCI that works like a public sector Institution needs total refurbishment. It’s sad that this Multi million dollar organization doesn’t have even on MBA graduate to manage their issues. It’s high time these old rats be replaced with young, enthusiastic and educated masses.

I wonder if we give awards the Hollywood way, where not just the best movies, director, actors get recognized, but the worst ones too, things might get more streamlined. Just like a “Man of the Match”, we could also have an award called “Missing in the Match” for those whose contributions were literally missing.

Final words: There is one similarity and one big difference between successful and unsuccessful teams. The similarity is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.

Eureka! - The theory is now proved.

2005-04-11T12:57:00.000+05:30

Saturday April 09, 2005, I was watching the India-Pak third ODI at Mugil’s place. Pakistan has just finished their innings with a whopping total of 319. Since the over-rate was less, the next innings started sooner than usual. It was noon, and hunger struck, but with no patients to prepare lunch, I thought of Maggi as the best alternate. By the time I bought a pack and cut it, Shewag and Sachin were already in the pavilion. Now, here is a strange co-incidence, I am going to prepare Maggi and Ganguly was just in the crease. I began with hopes that the theory equating Maggi’s preparation time to Ganguly’s time at the crease would just be “Blown out of proportion”. I was praying for him to break this jinx. But what do you know, by the time Maggi was done, Ganguly was on his way back!
---- Eureka! Eureka! It’s finally proved.

Hm… How I wished my inadvertent experiment failed.

LONDON

2005-04-04T17:37:00.000+05:30

I recently went to London… No no, not to the London city but to the movie “LONDON”, starting Prashant, Bekhu-muzhi Pandiyarajan, and a lady who comes only to dance. The movie features Mumtaz XP, the latest slim version of the legacy pumpkin. In one line - the movie is “all gupsa and no substance”.

The movie is all about Prashant, who’s from a family haunted by 2 lakhs. On the same day Prashant gets a job in London and needs 2 lakhs security deposit, his younger brother gets an Engineering seat and requires 2 lakhs as donation, his sister gets a good alliance and the wedding cost would be close to 2 lakhs, his Mom is a heart patient, and for her operation needs 2 lakhs and finally his elder sister is back home as a “vaazha-vetti” and to get back to her in-laws place needs 2 lakhs. Uff… Is it 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 2 as in tuttuduttudu :). Prashant goes to London after mortgaging his house for 2 lakhs and promises to satisfy the rest of his family soon.

In London, like all other Tamil movies, Prashant keeps his luggage (with the cash) over a standing car and is seriously enquiring for an address only to see his luggage moving along with the car and never to return, I don’t quite know if he kept is common sense in the bank locker. Deprived of his luggage and money, Prashant is still seen in verity of cloths, god knows how he managed to get them. He meets upon Pandiyarajan, after he saved the later from a gang with a fierce Matrix like fight, and gets into a gang headed by Manivannan that plans to burgle the ****** bank (the name part was muted). Mumtaz is Manivannan’s friend, philosopher and misguide. Mumtaz gets Manivannan caught behind bars for the burglary and puts the blame on the Prashant-Pandi duo. By then Manivannan cleverly transfer the stolen amount to a different place keeping only Vadivelu aware of it. Vadivelu is a “Dubakur” Lawyer and Periya-paapa Nalini is his wife.

Vijayakumar and Srividhya pair is rich, old and accidentally blind, living alone in London for 25 years, even without a telephone connection. Staying lifeless for this long they suddenly feel a new zeal when they get the news of their grandson Saravanan (from America) visiting them shortly. Vadivelu is their family Lawyer too, and Pandiyarajan is his PA. Their family doctor, one fine day accidentally meets Pandiyarajan on the way and passes a message to inform Vijayakumar that his grandson won’t be coming for 6 more months. Pandiyarajan takes advantage and along with Prashant enter Vijayakumar’s house as their grandson Saravanan. Prashant first opens his mouth but Pandiyarajan gets accidentally hugged by Vijayakumar. The blind couple has a sharp sense of voice and physical recognition, So Saravanan is now a mix of Pandi’s body and Prashant’s voice. Some how, these oldies sadly stay ignorant of the distance and direction of the incoming voice and remain unaware all the time of two entities staying in their house and that Saravanan’s proximity is not matched by his voice. The only person aware of this is Vijayakumar’s mostly suspended “ever” drunk manager Delhi Ganesh, who tries deliriously to prove this to his master and his efforts though obvious, is still in vein.

The whole story revolves around, Manivannan who’s behind bars, now is the hospital with a “usually political” sick stunt. Pandiyarajan also in the hospital, again with a sick stunt to avoid talking when Saravanan’s mouth piece is missing. Vadivelu in hospital badly beaten by Prashant or Nalini. Mumtaz behind Vadivelu for the secret of the stolen money. Delhi Ganesh behind Prashant and Pandi to get them caught. Manivannan and Mayilsamy behind Delhi Ganesh since he was the only witness of the burglary. Vadivelu behind Pandiyarajan for cheating his clients. Vijayakumar’s distinct relatives coming home to squander the last penny with him and the two ignorant oldies still believing that the two men are indeed one.

There were few cost cutting measures done in this movie, few of the out-door scenes containing few co-stars were taken in India, needless to say about the indoor ones. Those scenes were very obvious with the Indianized buildings, with the only cars in vicinity being Ikons, Accents, old imported cars and tempo travelers.

Over all - LONDON - the bridge is down.

Modi's US Visa.

2005-03-21T17:19:00.000+05:30

Narendra Modi was denied a visa to visit the US on Human Rights grounds. Is that really justified?

Well, not quite.

I seriously believe this is blown out of proportion. Agreed Godhra was disheartening, and Modi being the CM then holds responsibility for that. But what relationship has it got with his visit to the US? We don’t care if he goes to Gandhi nagar or to Delhi or to his bedroom, why are we suddenly fussing over his interest to visit US? Is US some kinda pilgrimage that only the purest of people can visit??

We are all worried about the killing of Muslims in Godhra, which spanned few weeks and by then Modi is a villain. Has anyone thought or worried about the massacre that is continuing for decades in the Kashmir valley against the Hindu pundits?? There is no news, there is no concern; Why do we have this biased ideology?

US unhappy with the human rights records of Modi - Really funny!! Here is a country that destroyed two huge cities of Japan just to see how good their weapons were, and whose effect is still visible; The racial discrimination practiced in US is a well known recurring history, and now they are talking human rights? How better can an Oxymoron be!

What about Musharraff, Arafat or Bush??
Musharraff threw out a democratically elected government, and was responsible for the Kargil war, and he is US’s best friend.
Arafat lead a coup against the Israelis, making battles, bombs and blood sheds a part of daily life. He too is a Hero!
And Bush, he is the best. He went on a war despite disapproval from the UN. His vested interests took the lives of thousands and rendered millions homeless in Iraq and Afghanistan, he gets invitations and Red-carpet reception from all over the world. What kind of hypocrisy is this?

US has different visa policies for different counties, India is their IT backbone, but for Indians, they still want finger prints, retina scans and would even strip the last cloth out. Who can forget the strip-search conducted on our then Defense Minister George Fernandas while still in power. Why are we calling them gods?

I am no advocate for Modi, but with these many criminals at loose, why target only him?

And, The Big Question: The Embassy of US did consult the Ministry of External affairs before deciding on the rejection. Now, who’s responsible for that decision?

Scintillating Shenandoah

2005-03-11T18:09:00.000+05:30

Shenandoah Caverns
The plan started a week before, after feedbacks from one of our friend’s successful venture. Shenandoah encompasses a cavern and a National park, and with the fall season reaching its end, it was a gamble to see if we could salvage the remaining beauty before the park becomes a vast land of haunted trees.
On Friday 29th Oct ‘04, we began counting heads that progressively increased from 5 to 8. Mugil was the only one with driving permit, and we were sure of not hiring a bus :). Shripad, one of our US counterparts wished to join us, and now it was 2 cars and 10 of us (he and his wife). Car renting was done on Friday evening as we planned to leave quite early the next day. Mugil got a Chevy Cavalier, a small fully manual car, and Shripad got a huge and sporty Pontiac Grand prix (Obviously the former was $30 less for the weekend).
The experience of the previous trips hinted us to take our own lunch. So it was going to be a long Friday night. At 9 PM we began preparing lunch for the following day. After deep thoughts we decided on our typical (default) desi types Tomato Rice and Tamarind Rice (better pronounced as Puliyodhari), along with Allo fry and peas masala. Work got over by 12:00 AM and we were anxious about waking up at 5 AM the next day.

Saturday, 30th Oct, 5 AM, I respected my otherwise snoozed alarm and awoke. We were all set at 6 AM. Shripad and his wife were there on dot. Me, Mugil, Balaji, Kishore and Prakash got ourselves packed into our tiny car, while Anand, Rajesh, Joshy joined Shripad and Saritha. Route maps were all ready the previous day and I as always was the navigator for our car, although we were piggy-backing the one in front. Our car was full of noise, either from the FM station or from within, while Shri’s car was relatively silent (well they can’t be boyish when there is a lady in the car). That was the first time I listened Hindi music on US FM stations.

Half past 8, we’d done 100 miles, and had 150 more to go. We halted briefly, finished our breakfast and soon we were on the hot-foot towards Shenandoah Caverns, Virginia. Clocking a maximum of 90 miles (145 Kmph) and an average of 75miles an hour, we reached the caverns around 11 AM.

From left to right, its Anand, Joshy, Shripad, Kishore, Prakash, Balaji, in second row, it’s Mugil, me and Rajesh

The entry fare was an exorbitant $17 per head. But Mr. Brilliant Balaji did his negotiation with the counter striking a deal at $11 per head for 10 people (Pretty good deal uh!!!).

The Caverns was first found in early 20th century by a father and son, who observed stream surfacing out of a small hole on the ground. Inquisitive to know what lied beneath, the duo began to widen the hole and moved inside. After progressing deeper and deeper for about 250 ft, and halted their expedition when rope didn’t suffice. This didn’t deteriorate their fascination for more adventure and they came back. Thought the caverns had few natural opening to give them enough air to breath, the only source of light was the small lamp as powerful as a zero watts bulb fully covered by our fingers. All these were narrated, some times even demonstrated by our 12 yrs old guide (12 is his age not experience).

The cave has so many distinct patterns carved meticulous by the master architect – Water. Mostly constituted of limestone, these caverns have a mixture of Iron, Manganese, Phosphorus, Sulfur and other minerals. There were many other crystalline substances glittering like diamonds falling from a height.

There are primarily three levels in these caves at 200, 250 and 300 meters below ground level. For our security and the cavern's safety only two levels are open to general public.

This limestone cavern is ever growing in all dimensions. An analysis states that the gap between these two formations (below) would ideally be closed in 25 years time (they can’t cheat me, I'll be back to see that).

Out there was a small pond with fresh water lying nearly 10 ft blow the standing level, and the only thing that captured my eyes were the countless ‘one cent’ coins that were inside making that a `wish` well, just proving geography is no barrier to human insanity.

The cavern is completely dark. Lights placed in every corner are switched on, only when we enter each section. This is not just to keep our suspense beats high, but also due to the fact that constant light fall on those formations, results in a white sodium/phosphorus patching over them.

As we moved deeper into the caverns, we found several marvelous patterns that were focused with multicolored lamps giving a spectacular view. With those humungous structures and haunting pathways, the caverns could have easily served as a natural set for all Vittalachariar’s (famous South Indian mythical movie director) movies.

At the second level, we found something really interesting, there was a formation like a three dimensional parabola, covered with glittering crystal, it looked so gorgeous that I wondered if only this was in India, we would call it Swayambu Lingum of Lord Shiva and start our regular pooja.(picture not available right now)

After our captivating tour of the caves, our next stop was the American Parade hall, also owned by the Shenandoah guys. This was a collection of all the huge structures that were built for the parades that take place in US during Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day and New Year.
The specialty is most of these structures were colored/covered using only naturally available materials.
Some notable pieces:
This colossal American flag stage was set for the oath taking ceremony of one US’s presidents.

And a massive Rolles Royes look alike that can actually move at 25 mph can be rented by public for a meager $50,000 a day.

It was time for lunch, to taste (test) what was frantically made last night. To our surprise the food came out really well, and we enjoyed our lunch sitting in a circle on the lawn with a picnic feeler.

We soon began our way back home, through the Shenandoah National park (paying $10 per car as an entry fee), to have last look at the changing colors of the fall season. But we were a little late, the reds, and oranges were gone, only yellows and browns were remaining.

From the left : Me, Mugil, Balaji

On our detour on the Interstate 76, at around 7 pm, we were as usual piggy backing Shripad on the right (slower) lane, when a police patrol car just zoomed by us in the left, Mugil was reflexive in removing the legs off the accelerator voiding chances of any speeding ticket. But the fun just began. Shripad was in the front for a while not too sure which lane to take and the cop was patiently following him (without his Doppler effects lighting). Soon Shripad unaware of this follower moved on to the left (faster) lane. Now to the left was Shripad, right was a huge truck both moving at the same (little more than permissible) speed, and our patient cop was growing otherwise. We were silent spectators to the whole hot (or should I say lukewarm) pursuit. Deliriously waiting for Shripad to recognize this, we were counting odds whether the cop will or will not switch his glow lights on, signaling – “Dai.. Side vanagu”(Step Aside). It was like he will, he wont, he will, he wont, he will he wont, and then it was an unanimous “HE DID”. Shripad had to move his car to the service lane, and our cop began his interrogations. We helplessly moved past them and stopped at the immediate emergency wait area for them to come. That was our first firsthand experience of a pursuit. We worried if he was fined for speeding, but luckily he was just warned not to block the traffic. We were back home by 12:00 AM and the day came to an end.

I must thank Mugil for not only driving us swift and safe but also for taking these wonderful pictures that say a million words themselves.

Coalition Dharma - Great Indian Politics

2005-03-01T17:34:00.000+05:30

India: The home to politics of weird alliances, ambiguous manifestos and bizarre rationality

There are still lots of questions that do not have answers in Indian Politics. I wish I get them answered.
First of all, I would like Sonia, Lalu, Mulayam, Paswan, and all the Lefties to revisit their coalition theory.
I never knew that a party proclaimed of supporting the upper class community becomes communal but aligning and vote banking on specific jaaths is secular. Brahmins are communal but Yadhavs or Jhaats are secular. Hinduthva is communal but INML is secular.

There has never been a speech given about the growth and prosperity of the region. Their only motto for these `budbuk` people/parties is to make sure NDA doesn’t come to power, and to provide a secular government. This Pseudo-secularity can be attained even at the cost of development. If DMK is part of NDA, it’s because NDA is democratic, and if is out of NDA, it’s because NDA is communal. Did it take them four and half year to find that out?

No where else can we see a government with heterogeneous composition of people from capitalist, socialist and communist beliefs, all trying to influence the government with their own ideals, and the coalition dharma satisfies everyone resulting in a pull from different directions with net displacement as zero.

I truly wonder if this full-blown democracy is more a bane than a boon. In the pretext of democracy some malicious forces are destroying it's sanctity. The whole system of electing individual representatives to the assembly and they deciding our leaders creates a vacuum in the ruling system. We have no access to choose the decision makers of this country. How else can Mulayam Singh become the Defense Minister of India? Considering the case of 2005 Bihar elections, the NDA won 91 seats, the RJD 78, Paswan’s LJP won only 28 seats, while the Congress, Lefties, smaller parties and Independents shared the rest. With No clear majority, the NDA now ascertains that it is ready to support Paswan from outside (Source NDTV 24X7). That means the Chief Minister of Bihar is a person who could only salvage a merger 28 seats of the 243 strong assembly! i.e Even if 88% of the people don’t want him, he’s still in.
This is not new, For the United Front Government, with more parties that the members knew counting, the PMs were Deva Gouda and I.K Gujlal. I would be surprised if at least 10% of Indians knew both these people before that. Will the Nation survive with this kind of democracy?

If we thought this was crazy, there is something more ridiculous waiting to be discussed. The one man army. Democracy here is redefined as “of the person, by the person and for the person (and his family)”. People know only him, vote for only him and in worst case accuse only him. TN’s Amma is such a one (wo)man army. The only one who can tell at least 2 of her MLAs or ministers is her PA. The same goes with all the bigwigs like Lalu, OmPrakash Chautala, Farroq Abdullah etc. These people are mortals and one day may die, but their influence still stands high. We still know parties begging for votes in Rajiv Gandhi’s, Kamaraj’s name and people still voting for MGR and NTR.

If some are fully baked, and some are still raw, there will be some who are half baked. This is a situation where Independents stand for elections with high aspirations of changing the way things presently look. The election results when announced, either a big party gets overwhelming majority and these Independents become speechless, or when there is a hung assembly, these Independents are bought for a huge ransom, in which case they loose even their identity. End of the fifth year he’s forgotten.

In all these scenarios the only thing common is the money and muscle power that is heavily invested by our representatives to get through to the position they are currently in.

Now, back to the point we stared from, is this full fledged democracy a boon or a bane. Given a chance, I would prefer the US form of elections where the candidates who run for president-ship is made to earn it. People vote for him not his puppets. And the presidential debate is by far the best way to find out the potency of our leaders.

If only Dr. Ambadekar was alive today…

Impulsive Shopping.

2005-02-07T22:07:00.000+05:30

“Excuse me Sir, I am from Citibank, we are offering you one year free GOLD credit card, would you …” and immediately a bell rang within. The greed to decorate your wallet with a Gold card closes ears to all thought processes that would have otherwise enlightened you with the consensual reality. I ascertained myself, “Who said credit card provokes spending? I am just going to have it because it’s free for a year, I’ll cancel it the next year”.

First few days go with at-most sincerity and the card solves the only purpose it was got for, “a show piece”. Things soon changed and the ignorant wallet begins housing the card unaware of the slow yet steady increase in the buying power it had.

Spending got a new dimension. “Going out for shopping” soon became “Going out means shopping”. We don’t have any idea of buying anything until we suddenly like something, it’s time we posses it. The best pass time would be going to huge shopping malls, coffee pubs, Pizza outlets and any other place that would require a heavy wallet if not for its tempting substitute.

Things come to terms only when we get the monthly payment statement. It will have a description of all our unwarranted expenses. Plus some uncalled for insurance, and many other non familiar entries adding bill value. We’ll pay the bill with a resolution not to use that “idiot” card any more… it’s like writing in water.

No one encourages our spending power better than him. The bank guy, impressed with our credit history (how would he know the history behind that payment), waives the fee for life time, and we freak out even more.

The story goes like, a Black trouser: 1500 rupees, a Checked shirt: 1400 rupees, a medium size pizza: 250 rupees, a coffee for 2: 100 rupees.

There are some things money can’t buy (thankfully!), for everything else there is Master Card.

Money Matters…No matter what…

2005-01-31T21:01:00.000+05:30

After relocating to Bangalore for work, there were a lot of rough rides I had to encounter, the biggest problem was conveyance.

Residing approximately 12 kms from my office, the autos were not a lucrative option; the eventual source was the BMTC busses. These busses, ornamented with hydraulic doors were terribly out of frequency and do not operate to all destinations.

From HAL Post at Airport Road to the commissioner’s office in Infantry Road, it takes me 2 busses and 75 minutes to reach, courtesy ever increasing vehicle traffic and never increasing infrastructure.

So, I decided to bring my bike to Bangalore. Soon, Inquiries began; The ABT guys quoted Rs. 650/- for transportation and Rs. 150 for sundry expenses while the Great Indian Railways Charged a meager 130/-. Like any normal person, I chose the latter option. The (mis)adventure started there.

I had my tour from Chennai to Bangalore that Sunday and intended to take my bike along. I refreshed it and at 3pm I took it to the parcel section of Southern Railway, where I found the so called “Railways recognized agents” in their lungies (designer dhotis) previously sitting in a dirty corner approaching me. He began talking rules as to what I should do, and what he’ll do to get my work done, and of course what he’ll charge for this self proclaimed otherwise difficult service.

Being Sunday, rules say the owner must travel with the vehicle, and wanted my original tickets. I didn’t have them but had a hard-copy of the confirmation email sent by IRCTC while booking the tickets through the net. But it won’t do :(. Aiming to complete my work on that day, I told him I’ll be back with the tickets, in 3 hrs. I took the local to a suburb madipakkam around 20 kms from here. It was 7 pm when I returned.

Work started straight away. First work was packing; Just 2 old gunny bags, a torn cardboard and a little jute rope, these were my vehicle's unparallel armor. And it costs 100 bucks. Next, to get the tickets for my vehicle, with all necessary documents, the ticket fee Rs. 130/- and fee for the counter guy 20 bucks (it’s over the table so, I call it fee). Third, entry of my vehicle into the railway station, despite having my gate pass and RC book, I had to pay 50 bucks to the constable outside. Now the to/from and the train number must be written on the gunny bag covering my bike, cost for writing those three things, 10 bucks. All formalities done, the bike must be loaded on the train, cost for loading 20 bucks and for safe journey of my bike without scrapes 20 more bucks. All done, now for guiding me thru all these (well known) processes, the agent gets 150 bucks, They don’t want money free of cost you see. This totaled to a well rounded to 500 bucks (neat mathematics).

Uff it was 8:20 already, I went home, and came back fresh to board the train leaving at 9:45 PM. The horn blew and the train began to move. In it was a tired yet contented guy happy to take his vroomer to Bangalore. Next morning, 4:45AM, the train reached the Bangalore Majestic station (Majestic is a misnomer). Me and Bhavanesh went on to the luggage compartment. My bike was still in and a porter gets it down, his fee, 50 bucks. To avoid any more squander, I did few things myself. I went to the luggage office to get a gate pass, his fee 10 bucks. Now there is a guy who checks of the number in the gate pass is the same as on the bike, and he charges 10 more. We unwrapped the bike ourselves saving 50 bucks. The total expense that morning 70 bucks. We finally got our bike out in one piece. The total expense Rs. 570/- and 6 hours of running the corridors of the Chennai city and Bangalore station.

My trouble ended here, but I was shocked at another incident at that time. There were 3 more bikes along with mine, and one guy refused to pay money to the porter for alighting his bike. He was literally manhandled and abused in the filthiest language and the only other witness for the incident - an RPF constable.

God Save, NO Re-Format India!!!

நான் இயற்கையின் வசம்.

2004-12-21T11:16:00.000+05:30

தமிழ் - For a change.

Enjoying the breeze on the shores of Gandhi beach, I wrote this:

வானத்தின் வண்ணத்தை தன் உடையாய்ச் சூடி,
பிராணத்தின் வாயுவைத் தன் பாதியாய்க் கொண்ட,
பூமியின் முக்காலில் என் காலை நனைத்தேன்.

Those little moments

2004-11-12T05:38:00.000+05:30

Standing at the Paoli train station near Philadelphia waiting to pick my friend traveling from DC, I saw a new maroon Mercedes SLK convertible gently making a turn into the station. The covered car parked right next to our car. Soon the boot opened inwards and the hard top humbly folded inside.

In it I saw a middle aged couple, trying to get to terms with the car’s overwhelming controls. There were two cute black dogs in the back seat, sitting with discipline although un-tied.
Whilst I was ardently drooling at the car, the man from it walked towards me and started “Hi, how r you doin”, before I could react, he continued, “We would be doing something silly now, we planned surprise our daughter who’s comin’ in this train with this brand new Mercedes Convertible”, I replied “Wow! sounds great, all the best”.
He quickly went back to the car, and covered his, his wife’s and one dog’s face with paper bags.

Shortly the train arrived, and as the girl came out to the parking lot, she felt something inane looking at two human heads covered with bags, but the lone dog without a face-cover caught her eyes. And there she stood FLABBERGASTED, at the car. She took a couple of minutes to assimilate that it was all true, it was her parents and that ‘mean machine’ is all hers. They rushed to hug each other tight. The girl was jumping in ecstasy as she went around sharing her joy with everyone around.

After the euphoria diluted, the man came to me, and said, “This is why I work so hard, FOR THESE LITTLE MOMENTS”.

Niagara, not the fall but raise of water.

2004-10-09T05:15:00.000+05:30

Saturday 7 am, Sep 11th 2004, the third anniversary of the 9/11 incident here in US, we packed our bags, maps, directions and started our 400+ miles journey to Niagara falls, one of nature’s unparallel creation. Our car, a Mitsubishi Galant was quite spacious for 5 of us. Clocking an average of 75 mph and with a couple of stops for gas, breakfast and lunch, we reached Niagara Falls' city around 2 pm. Niagara city (or whatever its called), is a tiny city that boasts of having an International Airport is separated from Hamilton, Canada only by the falls. We had already booked our accommodation in Rodeway inn, one of the economical hotels in that area. Rodeway is run by a Gujarati family. We checked in, freshened up and off we went to the falls.

Niagara has two falls, the American falls that’s on the US side and the Horse shoe falls that separates US from Canada. I must say, it is really magnificent. The sight of water descending exuberantly from a great height with that extreme velocity resulting in tall fumes that instantly turn to vapors was spectacular. On a normal day the falls gives away 675,000 gallons of water every second. Enough to quench the thirst of whole of Chennai. We went on the "Maid of the Mist", a ferry that cruised past the American falls, to the Horse shoe falls and back. We were all given complimentary dark blue raincoats to avoid getting wet and from a far sight, the cruise boat with people in the coats looked like a basket of blue berries. First we went past the American falls; it was a dramatic view of the water dashing down and two clear and close rainbows that were ornamenting the falls. This was a starter, and now comes the main course, with water pouring at full 275 degree angle, the falls gets its name because of its shape of a typical horse shoe. Well, pouring is an understatement, it was a battle for supremacy between every molecule of water in which some succeed and jingle with the breeze as vapors, while others follow the monotonous path to the destiny. It is surprising to know that this relentless flow and the zeal is only for another month, soon there will be no battle, no pandemonium, and everything will be stilled by the unbiased yet ruthless winter. After admiring the beauty of the huge waves, tall fumes and vapor clouds, we walked up the hill to get closer to the falls.
Soon, we walked to the other side of the American falls, into the great island, near the caves. That place gave us an opportunity to get up close and personal with the flowing waters of the American falls, but somehow not feeling like getting wet, we decided to stay on top, enjoy the beauty, take pictures and sight birds ;). I had a wonderful close ups with a Russian made binocular that my dad gifted me.

There is nothing better than feeling like home. And Niagara was the best. I haven't seen these many Indian families anywhere else. There were all kinds of mamas and maamis, mostly babysitting. Listen them talk was really simply recreating.

After some hot cappuccino and French fries, it was time for the light show. The view is best from the Canadian side, and it wasn’t a big deal from this end. I didn't enjoy it that much.

Once we were done, we had dinner in an expensive yet not worthy restaurant and drove back to the hotel. Not before getting lost a couple of times before we figured out our location.

I got to talk to Ashok, one of my very good friends from school who stays 20 miles from there, in State Univ of NewYork, Buffalo. But it was sad we cud'nt meet as I didn't have an IDP and he didn't have a car that day.

The next day, it was again a reverse of y'day’s route. We reached the hotel at 3:00 pm and I discovered I had a lot of laundry to do.. I was tired and had no interest to go to work the next day. But I don't have options :( .

Marketing Multifold!

2004-09-30T21:56:00.000+05:30

Selling one piece of scrap is more challenging that exporting huge chunks of quality product. We do marketing in India, but I was taken aback by the way the Americans do it. Every one in this country is born MBA graduates and all of them are authors of the book “To blow out of proportion”.

Last week I was in Washington DC, walking the cross sections of a city full of museums and monuments. Places including Jefferson Monument, Lincoln Monument, and War Memorial were in my Itinerary. But the hard fact was that these places have nothing great to offer. Lincoln is perceived as one of the greatest president of US of A, probably he deserved a monument, but there was a selling point, his monument (just a statue in marble that’s left dirty) is in straight line with the Washington Monument, and the Capital Building. Jefferson got Virginia from colonial rule into Independent USA; he now gets his own monument with 30 feet tall statue, gardens, lakes what not. Lal Bhahadur Shastri united entire India, I wonder if he has anything close! These places are now places of tourist attraction and millions of visitors make it a point to visit them adding revenue.

Their strategy is not limited to monuments; we were on my way back from Buffalo, NY to Malvern, PA when we crossed a tiny county, so famous that I can hardly recollect its name ;). On the interstate while crossing that county there were huge banners everywhere reading “Visit Ruby Falls”, “Ruby falls this, Ruby falls that”, just curious to know what was so exciting, we made a point to visit it. It was a tiny falls falling from 3 feet high into a long stream of water and “PLING” it’s the sound of getting a 1000 Watts bulb.

Its like saying:
A research team of two proceeded towards the apex of a natural geologic protuberance, the purpose of their expedition being the procurement of a sample of fluid hydride of oxygen in a large vessel, the exact size of which was unspecified. One member of the team precipitously descended, sustaining severe damage to the upper cranial portion of his anatomical structure; subsequently the second member of the team performed a self rotational translation oriented in the same direction taken by the first team member.

Instead of:
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

I was Airborne...

2004-09-27T21:38:00.000+05:30

Saturday 21st August 2004,
6:55 PM.

I was in the Chennai Domestic Airport, through-checking in my luggage at the Jet Airways counter to Philadelphia. I took the boarding pass confirming the only available window seat for me, despite it being the last one and it wouldn’t push back. I soon went through the screening test where some bunch of khaki guys insist you to keep my hands horizontally stretched, for a second I felt they were filming me standing at the nose of the Titanic. I was then waiting in the lobby near Gate 4, and there came the announcement. I, like all other passengers there moved steadily towards the aircraft. That was my first flight in 20 years. I was in some kinda excitement but couldn’t let it out. I’d been on fights when I was in my kindergartens, and I still have slight memories of that.

Happily sitting in the window seat, I was waiting for the flight to take off, and Ashwini from the boarding section came running towards me (I noticed her name while collecting my boarding pass), I was taken aback wondering if it was one more of my company’s tricks end my trip by showing me how the flight looks, but it was not so, she give me a new check-in luggage slip that accommodated a stop at Amsterdam.

The flight then moved, gradually towards the end of the runway waiting for the queue to clear. I never believed Chennai airport handled flights flying in and out every 60 seconds. As the flight clearly maneuvered to the end of the runway, the engine suddenly roared like a wild bull increasing aggression before it could charge, and it zipped from 0 to about 250 KMPH in a whisker. Guess what, Shumi does it even faster.

Sitting in, I didn’t feel that great, it was more like our TTDC’s 52 seats omni bus. But the flight crew complemented it; they were beautiful, ever smiling, and ready to help. (Well, that’s what they are paid for).

As the flight moved up, I cud see our Madras-namma-Madras illuminated with sodium vapor laps, it was sad coz I couldn’t really see much. As we were moving higher and higher, we reached 36000 feet with occasional jerks, we even went over the holy shrine of Tirupathi.

Dinner was served, it was good and I enjoyed it. At around quarter past 10 we reached “aamchi” Mumbai. The flight 30 mins late and with 90 mins for the next flight to leave, I was frantically rushing towards the international Airport. Unlike Chennai where the International airport is just a stone throw away, the Mumbai International Airport (ISO 9001:2000) is in Ahemdabad. There were few of them from the same flight who had almost the same route as mine (Don’t ask me how I found it). We had to load our luggage into a transition bus, and proceed to the international airport. That Volvo bus was more comfortable than the aircrafts I flew in.

I was deliriously awaiting my luggage to come out of the bus, when I acquainted with Anitha from TCS Chennai who’s going to Seattle via Amsterdam. The feeling that I had company suddenly made me feel as if I knew her for years. We went together searching for the KLM/Northwest boarding area. On the way, we noticed a plastic baggage wrapping section; we wrapped our bags completely, paid him and headed towards the KLM counter. At boarding time, there was this guy asking me all sorts of questions, including my pet dog’s name. After finishing boarding and scrutiny we left for immigration. The wrapper guys came around to me complaining that the girl didn’t pay and to her telling I didn’t pay. I some how got rid of them and went beyond immigration, into the Northwest NW041 aircraft. It was a Douglas DC10 that can carry 272 passengers and fly at a maximum of 545 miles/hour (some crazy statistics). In it I could see almost 80% were Indians, mostly mamas and mamis who going for jobs mostly baby sitting. By now I’d lost Anitha, and couldn’t spot her in that crowd.

As the flight moved, I was talking to the guy next seat. Basically an IITian, Amit, works for a company in Diamond District, the building shared by Covansys-Peoplesoft office, Bangalore. He is some kinda consultant, and claims to travel the world very often. We didn’t talk much and I desperately wanted to get some sleep. At around 2 AM IST, food was served, I am not too sure if I would call that dinner or breakfast coz I’d finished dinner and I was not fasting to break it, but I still ate it. It was some kinda bun with veggie and cheese fillings and a can of apple juice. Well I drink only Apple juice even though my dad doesn’t wear a tie and my mom doesn’t know a gown.

This flight didn’t even have a personal TV. I spent the night watching a documentary on Moscow played at the front (Hail Kremlin!). As the flight proceeded over 36000 feet at 900+ kmph, there were jerks often, the captain announced that the weather wasn’t good. I began praying god to cancel any appointments with me until I see America.

At around 9 am IST, 6:30 AM local time 22nd Aug, I was in Amsterdam, Holland. My first step outside India. Out there I spotted Anitha, and few others including, Harish, Anu and Raju all from CTS Chennai. We roamed the entire airport, and it was great being together. Anitha, is a diary writer, and she was making note of every incident, including, walking straight and turning left. We all jelled till it was time we leave, Me, Harish and Anu were heading back to the same flight to Minneapolis, while the rest two were on a different one heading Seattle.

We were airborne, flying over the gigantic Atlantic Ocean. The sky was bright and the base was blue, I was reminded of the helicopter of Jurassic park. Just because I was flying in the same flight again, doesn’t mean they must show me the Moscow’s documentary again and again :(. This time, my neighbour was Jon Well, a long gray haired old man from Las Vegas. He is (still) a bachelor and has his horse as his only company. With no one to save his money for, he travels the world often, this time he was back from Poland. We had a great time talking about almost everything under the sun. The flight journey was 10 hrs and we spent 7 hrs talking/eating/talking. We exchanged chocolates, currencies, stamps and what not!

It was 1.30pm local time and I was now in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is my port of entry and I was waiting for the Immigration, a bit nervous. I came to the officer and requested him 4 weeks of stay, he asked me if I was sure, and I said yes, he asked if I was pucca, confident and if he could lock my words ;-), and I said YES, and he stamped me 3 months. I was exalted, as my visa was expiring in a month, and now my I94 makes me stay longer. The customs was again a cake walk. I was pinching myself to see if this was real.

After this long journey, I’m still not done. I had to catch another fight from Minneapolis to Philadelphia. Wondering if I was crazy to catch a flight via Minneapolis (in the mid) when my destination was Philadelphia (in the east)? That was the cheapest deal my company could get. I walked the huge Minneapolis airport for a while before I could spot my gate. From now everything was dollars and I was still not used to spending dollars.

The flight to Philly was nothing of a great sort, it was 2 hrs of idle time and I was busy reading “Windmills of the gods” by Sidney Sheldon. At around 6:30 pm local time I reached Philadelphia, and was happy to see my baggage safe and sound. I reached the ground clearance section, booked a shuttle to Homestead studio suites, Malvern, around 33 miles from Philly.

The Shuttle was a Dodge van that links major Hotels and inns with the Airport. This was my first direct view of American roads; they are awesome, huge, clean and well disciplined. And the cars that zoom! I could spot every brand, including, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Volvo, Ford, Jaguar, Mazda, Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, Lincoln, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Kia, Saab, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Nissan, Infiniti, Toyota, Lexes, Honda, Acura, Suzuki, Hyundai, Isuzu, International, Mack, Peterbilt … I am tired!

I was sitting in the van along with three other passengers. One of them was going to the Day-inn, one to the Sheraton and one more the Hilton. Though I was the first into the van and though my place (“Malvern”) was crossed 3 times, he dropped me last. That’s when I realized whatever your nationality is, all are humans.

I checked into the Homestead Suites, and went into my room (no. 200). The studio apartment was a well furnished full kitchen hotel with no restaurant. After all this travel, I had to make my own dinner because, to buy anything outside, I need a car. There was nothing in walking distance and most in most roads pedestrians are prohibited.

Now the time is 8:30 PM, Sunday 22nd August. (6 AM Monday in India)

The Sigh Of Relief!

2004-08-19T15:22:00.000+05:30

How do I define Relief? Can I call it as the state of euphoria, when a person gets what he wants? Relief here is happiness. Or is it the peace of mind that he gets by doing something he wants or getting away from something he doesn’t want? Here relief is alleviation.

Well, Relief is relative, and it could be short or long term.
For a student, securing the maximum in a paper is excitement, for a sportsman, winning a gold is elation, for a mother, seeing her kid back home is joy. Meaning happiness, excitement and joy are all kinds of relief.

For a commuter in a crowed train or bus, alighting safely and breathing fresh air is alleviation, and for a kid, getting its favorite toy is reassuring. I can go on adding illustrations for relief and for a blog writer this is gratification.

Speaking of gratification, I remember a story from the Tales of Thennalirama, where, once the King K.D Raya called on his ministry and asked them what is the most satisfying thing in this world. Many of his courtiers replied as “having all the wealth in the world”, “eating the best cuisine”, “owning the biggest palace”, and then came our hero T.Rama, and he proudly told the king, that “Answering nature’s call is the most satisfying thing”, the entire court flared into laughter.
Embarrassed with this, Rama decides to educate the king. The next day, early morning, he made the Royal loo indicate a busy signal (Hm.. Sad the Palace had only one). The king and the queen frantically took turns in separate iterations to check for availability, and the indication showed “BUSY”. After making them run for a while, Rama decided to free the room, the king felt so relieved that he called for Rama immediately, affirmed his thoughts and apologized.

Well this is a story, and if you are tired reading this article and happy it ends here, that’s the best Sigh Of Relief...