Kaleidoscope

NFL

2010-01-25T13:34:00.005-05:00

Have you ever felt bad that the team that you supported lost a match and then watched the replay of the match to accept that they deserved to lose? The replays atleast showed as though the Vikings were trying hard to lose the match. Five turnovers in a championship match is a bit too much to take. I was hoping that Bret Favre will have a fairy tale end to his career. But he has to end his career (again) without much funfare.

When I started watching the Colts Vs Jets match, the Jets were leading 14-3. A disappointing start as I was supporting the Colts. But Peter Manning and the team turned the heat on and won comfortably. I will be favoring the Colts to win the SuperBowl and I guess that will be the thought of most NFL fans.

London

2010-01-23T18:17:00.004-05:00

The Negotiator - Book Review

2009-03-05T00:23:00.002-05:00

After reading The Afghan, I needed one good Frederick Forsyth novel to boost my liking for my favorite author. The Negotiator did not disappoint me. Yes, the ending was a bit too fast and a tad bland without the usual great twist to the tale, but the novel is worth reading just for the first 300 pages.

The Negotiator has its share of layers that Forsyth is famous for, but the layers are not as differentiated as I have seen in his other novels. This results in us being able to guess to a good degree on the relationship between the threads. The threads in the novel are:
1) Oil resources depleting in USSR (yes, the book was written during the period of the undivided Soviet republic) and the army chief planning to launch an attack on a Saudi nation
2) Oil resources depleting in USA and an oil tycoon evaluating alternate options to get oil
3) The new US president getting into a demilitarization deal with his soviet counterpart. The arms suppliers in US, the army personnel in the USSR and few others preparing to thwart the demilitarization plan
5) The planning of a coup in Saudi Arabia
6) A student in a university in England
7) Mercenaries from Belgium
8) A negotiator

I found the vintage Forsyth touches in these places:
a) The title of the novel gives the impression that most of the novel would be about the negotiation. But the fact that the negotiation ended half way into the novel was interesting
b) The "introduction" of the president's son in true Forsyth style
c) The dialogues in the flight from USA to UK wh the negotiator meets the CIA folks

It is a good novel with fast paced action. But I am a bit disappointed with some aspects of it.
a) I was expecting all threads to converge at the climax stages, but some of them ended early. The story of the banker in Arabia had the potential to build into something great, but just frittered away.
b) Of the numerous intelligent agents from the US and UK, I expected some one to do something astonishing. But they too turned out to be like the cops in Indian movies who just watch the hero handle the bad guys.
c) What was the part of the KGB except for giving the hero a good shave and some money?
d) What about the protagonist’s friends in Spain. Poor folks were mercilessly wasted in the novel

LCD TV - US to India

2009-03-01T03:52:00.002-05:00

Based on my quick research (googling), following are some of the things to be considered in buying an LCD TV from US for use in India

US uses NTSC and India uses PAL: Options to solve this
a. Buying a PAL to NTSC converter
b. Having a VGA box. Dish TV in India provide a package with a VGA Set top box and it seems to work fine. All that is to be done is to check whether the TV has a PC Input option (VGA input).
c. Connect the video source to an external TV Tuner box. From the TV Tuner box connect to any of the input sockets on TV other than the cable input (RF). This is the best possible way since the Remote provided by the Tuner box can be used to change channels.
d. Other methods include using a DVD recorder with built in Tuner (PAL Tuner) and then connecting the cable directly to DVD Recorder, taking the output from DVD recorder to the TV. However, in this method the channels cannot be changed that easily.
220V in India Vs. 110V in US
a. Need to buy a step-down transformer for the TV
Warranty: Need to check if the warranty is international
Transportation:
a. Possibility: It is not possible to carry the TV from US to India. Need to check if the manufacturers will ship it. Amazon and Walmart don’t seem to ship outside USA.
b. Cost of shipping the TV
Customs: I heard that new TVs are charged at 30% of their price. Not sure if this is true.
1080p Vs. 720p: This is resolution (like the mega pixels for digicams). The question is, would we need 1080p for the transmission in India. I believe 1080p is more for blue ray discs. The next question is, how soon will the blue ray technology come to India?
Deciding on the screen size:
a. For 20 to 27-inch displays, you should be able to watch comfortably from 2.5 to 5 feet away.
b. For 32 to 37-inch TVs, you should sit back 6 to 8 feet from the screen itself.
c. For 42 to 46-inch TVs, you'll need 10 to 14 feet between you and the screen.
d. 50-inch LCD displays look best when viewed from 12 to 16 feet away.

Cape Cod - II

2009-02-26T16:29:00.005-05:00

(Part1 of this post is at http://ramanuj.blogspot.com/2009/02/cape-cod-i.html)

The next place in our itinerary was supposed to be our prime destination - the
Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. The wildlife had a different meaning from what we had imagined. I guess we should not have overlooked the statement in the website, "While the resident deer and fox may elude you, sanctuary wildlife also includes turtles, frogs and fiddler crabs". Frogs and Crabs for wildlife? Blistering barnacles! When I enquired at the front desk about wild life they said that we will not get to see most of them during the day, and that we will see birds and if we take the longer trail then we will get to see........ Geese! But the initial disappointment apart, the place is truly scenic. In the clutches of winter the sanctuary glistened with its frozen lakes and sheared trees. The evening sun provided a beautiful streak of light through the branches of the trees and the odd sounds from the birds added to the beautiful ambience. I only wish I could be here during fall.

A trip to Cape Cod without a visit to the beaches? No way. The kind lady at the sanctuary's front desk suggested the First Encounter beach to us. The beach had nice layers in the sand that looked markedly different from what I have observed back at home. Other than the beauty of the sun at dusk, the only other thing of note there was the water that gave us a lil surprise. We were standing close to the waters and noticed that the land where we were standing was fast becoming an island as water started filling the area behind us. But nothing to worry, it would have possibly raised to just about a foot. But then, was something to think back on.

All in all it was good trip and we were happy to hit the road after so many months of staying indoors. Cape Cod is good now; it would most probably be great during summer/fall.

Cape Cod - I

2009-02-26T16:12:00.003-05:00

Some trips are remembered because of the marvel of the places visited and some are remembered just for the travel and the friends. The trip to Cape Cod was of the latter type. After staying indoors for all of winter we decided to make a trip to any place to celebrate the last week of being together as one of our friends was bidding adieu. Well, I am tempted to say that it was more to console him than to celebrate as he is going to India to lose his bachelorhood. But then, that's a totally different subject.

We made the plans on the eve of the travel. Desperate googling revealed few places that sounded great and we made a decent plan to cover 3 of the 4 regions in Cape Cod (the upper cape, lower cape, mid cape and outer cape). The route to the different places was sandwiched between trees that would have looked astounding during summer or fall. They did not look too bad even in their winter outlook of baldness either.

The first place that we visited was en route in Rhode Island. There was a flower and garden show that happens only for 4 days every year, may be to mark the beginning of summer. The show was pretty good with nice arrangements of flowers varying from a simple bouquet to the garden in front of the Eiffel tower. There were also many vendor shops for garden set-up and maintenance and other miscellaneous shops. The place was good, but I don't think it was worth the $17 entry fee.

The second place that we visited was the Cape Cod natural history museum. The website suggested it would be a good place to watch the flora and fauna of Cape Cod, but we got a different opinion when we reached there. A discussion with the person at the front desk revealed that the place was not what we expected it to be and she was kind enough to suggest that we can go on the John Wing's trail at the museum if the exhibits do not interest us. The trail lead us through woodlands into a marsh land and then to the beach. The place reminded us of villages back home. Wonder why we do not make those as tourist destinations.

To be continued

Muslim Law

2009-02-20T18:57:00.006-05:00

The Pakistan government has made a deal with TNSM (a militant organization in Pakistan) to impose Shariat law in seven districts of the North West Frontier Province. The western nations are raising voices against the deal. But this blog is not about whether the deal was right or wrong. I merely want to understand as to what Shariat is?

Like Hinduism, Islam also has different variants. The major ones are Sunni and Shia. The Sunni Muslims follow an elected leader and the Shia Muslims follow a leader who is supposed to be appointed by God or the Prophet. Both the divisions follow the Quran. From my understanding the Quran contains compressed information and Shariat was formed to provide rules for all activities in life. But if Shariat is the Islamic law, shouldn't it be already active throughout Pakistan? What is this new thing about implementing Shariat in the north eastern province?

My guess is that Shariat is an old school of thought and was replaced by the Modern Islamic law, and that the Shia Muslims are trying to get Shariat back. Guess I need to do some background research on this.

Tit bit: India and the Philippines are the only countries in the world which have separate Muslim civil laws

Update (20-July-2009) based on inputs from a friend:

Islamic rules are based on 2 things - Quran & Hadith
Quran is revealed from Allah and everything in that is mandatory for a person to follow.
Hadith are the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) . Among Hadith there are few which are mandatory to follow and some are optional.

So Quran & Hadith together define way of life for Muslims and also Quran & Hadith lay down rules and regulations for an Islamic form of Government. Islamic form of governments donot have a constitution written by Human beings. Rather rules laid down in Quran & Hadith are followed for running the government (This is the basis of Shariat form of government).
Now coming to countries like Pakistan, they have their own constitution (which is not in accordance with quran & Hadith) . Hence it cannot be termed as an Islamic Country for their system isnot Shariat compliant ( i.e, based on Quran & Hadith).
So for a country to be termed as an Islamic country the constitution of the country should be in compliance with Quran & Hadith, that is, it should be shariat form.

Wheat Vs Rice

2009-02-08T08:53:00.007-05:00

Whenever the talk about fitness comes, my friends ask me to shift from rice to wheat. I have been curious for some time about the nutritional values of both the cereals. Few clicks in wikipedia gave the required values. The below comparison is on the expected lines except for the fat content, which is quite a surprise.

If we consider the Indian diet, apart from the above absolute values I guess we have to consider the fact that we would eat less grams of Chapathi than rice. That would be a substantial reduction in calories straight away.

Geography Bits

2009-02-04T17:54:00.001-05:00

Geography was always a subject of disinterest for me. Except for some amount of "Australia - Flora and Fauna" and "The South West Monsoon", I don't remember much from the geography classes of school. But God has been great in working out my travel calendar and has provided a good bit of opportunity to see places. This has increased my interest in the world and the different cultures. Of late this interest has still been increased by.... a game! The Travelers IQ challenge game has been interesting and educating to me. It hasn't thought me too many new things, but has served as a refresher, a sort of catalyst that helped fill the void.

My increased inquisitiveness made me research a bit on things that have confused me for years. Here are few things I learnt in geography recently, but which had known earlier
1) Crotia is a country that came out of the erstwhile Yugoslavia. I had somehow thought that it came from USSR. Frederick Forsyth's "Avenger" helped me understand that Yugoslavia split into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia
2) West Indies is not a country! It is an ensemble of countries like Jamaica and Barbados that play as a single cricket team
3) If someone had asked me for the countries in the Australian continent, I would have probably said Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and Papa New Guinea. Well, I am not sure of New Zealand anymore. Wiki says that New Zealand belongs to a continent called Zealandia. I get a bit confused in these kinds of trivia since I studied in school that there were only 7 continents and Zealandia is not one of them.
4) There are several countries that belong to multiple continents. My ex-colleagues from Alcatel who have traveled to Turkey have told me that Turkey is transcontinental. But I got to know of few more countries like Indonesia, Russia (though we all associate it with Europe, it is actually 71% in Asia!) and Egypt. Did you know that a part of Italy, Spain and Portugal are in Africa?

The Hot Seat

2009-01-29T19:07:00.001-05:00

The role of an MBA involves defending a presentation that was made by someone else. The role of an onsite coordinator involves defending the work done by the offshore team. The role of a manager involves defending some appraisal decisions on which you don't have much control.

When all these roles roll into one, it is hell. Well, atleast hell is not cold :)

The Last Anthem

2009-01-24T00:46:00.001-05:00

His vision started to render
Scenes that made the heart tender
How can the mind help
Do anything but meander?

The bad and the good
He saw whatever he could
He would have leaped ahead
If only he could

In his life set the sun
It was over, all the fun
In the moment he bore thoughts
A ton of thanks to everyone

God, for me you cared
Friend, for me you dared
Thank you all the people
With whom a moment was shared

All the struggles he bore
Vanished as the last tear dried of the core
No more sorrows and no more worries
For the material did not hold him anymore

Movies & Tastes

2009-01-19T13:23:00.000-05:00

Each person has his/her own tastes. Then how the heck do we declare some movies as great and some as pathetic? I guess it is based on more people liking the movies and the so called great minds' (critics) opinion. Over the past month I have watched a lot of these "good" movies and the only inference is that I am neither past of the mass nor am I a great mind. Movies like "No country for old men", "Pulp fiction", "Reservoir dogs" and "Usual Suspects", which are considered very good movies, failed to please me. The part that is sadder than the movies are the after-movie-day conversations that go like this...
A: "Hey, what did you do last evening?"
J: "Well, nothing much. Just watched a movie"
A: "Which one?"
J: "No country for old men. The movie was...."
A: "Man, what a movie! It won so many Oscars"
J: "Yeah, sure did. But...."
A: "Great movies like that come only once a blue moon. What a movie, what acting by cast blah blah blah"
Guess my opinion does not matter here.

With a membership at the library and an apartment mate with a Netflix subscription, getting movies has become lot easier. But my affinity towards movies is definitely going down. Not that I had much earlier :)

Déjà vu

2009-01-08T21:10:00.000-05:00

Over the past year every time I found the newspapers report something bad for the TATA group, it seemed like "Hey, didn't I read that few days back?" The poor company has had so many mishaps last year - The issue at Singur resulting in increase cost and also delay in the release of the Nano; the acquisition of Citigroup's BPO arm just before Citigroup lost its steam; the acquisition of the land rover and Jaguar which aren't doing well; and the bomb at the Taj Mahal hotel. And just when I thought that the New Year will turn out to be good for the Tatas, the news on Satyam comes out. Wait, the Tatas own TCS and not Satyam, right? Yes, that's true. But the Tatas own another firm, Tata AIG insurance. Guess who is the primary insurer providing Directors and Officiers liability insurance to Satyam? Déjà vu?

Asatyam

2009-01-07T23:28:00.001-05:00

There is news about Satyam everywhere. The company has gone against its name (Satyam means Truth) and lied in its financial reports with bloated numbers. It is weird to note that Satyam won the golden peacock award for corporate governance in 2008! That puts a big question mark on the process of deciding the award winners.

Satyam has been in the news in recent times for all the wrong reasons. First it was the bribery case with World Bank and then the controversial attempt to take stake in the Maytas (The reverse of Satyam!) companies. I was personally shocked when I heard the news of the bribery case. Now the financial misreporting is something beyond my wildest imagination. I might have been less shocked if this were with an oil or energy firm. But IT? Geez!

Most media report on the attempted Maytas acquisition as a means to move money to the Raju family. But I seriously doubt it. Since Satyam had a huge deficit between reported earnings and the actual earnings, may be they were trying to correct the records with an acquisition. Something like buying stake in the company and transferring money only on the records. This would have accounted for the deficit in Satyam's records. Does this help the Raju family? Nope. The Raju family has only a 10% stake in Satyam while they have 100% and 40% stake in the Maytas companies. So if this was supposed to be a way to correct Satyam's records, then the family actually loses money in the process. I hate to disagree with the media, but my point of view seems to make logical sense.

All the focus is now on Satyam. But I would like to see the effect of this on PricewaterhouseCoopers. It is tough to believe that a scandal of such scale managed to avoid the eyes of the accounting firm. When Enron collapsed in a somewhat similar situation, Arthur Andersen went down with it. What is going to be the verdict on PWC?

New Year Wishes/Resolutions

2009-01-01T20:02:00.001-05:00

A new year is generally started with wishes and resolutions for the year. Apart from the usual generic wishes like "World Peace" (remember Miss Congeniality?), my specific list of wishes/resolutions include
a) Mental strength to force myself to exercise for atleast 4 days a week. I have read somewhere a phrase that goes like this - "It is easy to quit smoking; I have done it hundreds of times". I guess my form of it would be "It is easy to start exercising; I have done it hundreds of times". This year I want to keep continuing after starting.
b) A good work-life balance while in India. In blunt words, stop spending more hours at work. Push back when called for early morning and late night calls on the same day, meetings on public holidays, and the like.
c) Blog for atleast once a week. From about 15 blogs a month for 3 years, I fallen to a total of 9 blogs in the whole of 2008 (3 since Feb '08 if I have to sound even worse). I will like to make a comeback this year.
d) Read for atleast an hour over each weekend - could be a novel or even an insurance book.
e) Participate more in festivals. The idea is to plan ahead and look at things that I can do.

I am starting resolution c with this blog. Wish me luck to keep this flowing.

Road down to recession?

2008-11-17T18:12:00.000-05:00

After Sun microsystems news on laying off 6000 employees, Citigroup is now planning to down-size by 53000 employees. 53000! the size of a small town may be. It sure gets depressing to think of a small town of people without work.

Traveling around the city I find so many shops that have put banners that they are closing down. Even behemoths like CircuitCity have filed for chapter 11. I'm not sure how many financial companies could be saved with the $700 billion, or how many more automakers could be given a bail-out. Can US afford to support so many companies? Wonder how all this is going to percolate to the developing nations.

Vaaranam Aayiram

2008-11-15T03:10:00.001-05:00

All is well that ends well. I guess that's the only reason why everyone in the theatre was waiting. We were all waiting for a good ending to an average movie. But the ending "also" disappointed.

Instead of Vaaranam Aayiram, the movie should have titled "Oru Daddy-in kathai". Surya uses the word Daddy every minute for the whole 3 hours and the word starts paining the ears towards the end of the movie.

Surya has acted well and the story also sounds good, but the screen play is very sober and slow paced. It really felt like a documentary. I guess the director tried a different way of narration, which unfortunately did not click.
+ -> Surya, Music
- -> Slow screenplay

Surya has developed a good physique and his looks are making me think again about exercising. May be people will find me on the treadmill soon :-)

Learnings of the Past Month

2008-03-02T15:59:00.001-05:00

You never know where you would end up
Knowing Hindi helps regardless of whether it is Brussels or Newark
Minnesota folks will feel cold in Hartford as well
There are people who quit banks to become cab drivers!
Not having a mobile phone might be a blessing in disguise
Buses can come (and leave) early at bus stops
Married men find it difficult to make decisions
Bad food schedule can result in bad situations

Banking on standards?

2008-01-24T18:47:00.000-05:00

With the newspapers going gaga over the “issue” that might come up if Carla Brunei accompanies her lover the French president to India, the importance of the other French news seems to be subdued. The bank Société Générale has disclosed a loss of $7.2B due to an unapproved trade made an individual. May be the future b-school students will get to study about this guy in his “thirties, very quiet and a loner” rather than the usual stuff about Nick Leeson pushing Barings bank to sale with his $1.4B fraud. The bankers of the queen (Barings) were sold for $1 to ING after Leeson’s fraud became public. Let us see how fate pins on Société Générale.

It is really puzzling to see how fraudsters keep getting better at their work as the banks keep implementing rigid standards. It is another fact of the matter that most standards have been byproducts of some scam or the other. Société Générale has said “His approach was to balance each real trade with a fictitious one”. Isn’t this the same thing that Nick Leeson did 13 years back? Well, probably the specifics of the fraud are different. And surprise surprise, this person has also worked in the back office like Leeson!

Sports Center

2008-01-24T18:44:00.000-05:00

Waking up at 3 in the morning was worth it. Tsonga played an awesome game to demolish Rafa in the semis of the Australian open. This is the first time I saw Tsonga and it seems he has a very physical game dependent on his powerful serves and good forehand. But whatever his normal game plan is, he better have a backup as he would face either Federer or Đoković in the final. Today’s match was against my expectations. I was expecting Rafa to thrash Tsonga, but it happened the other way around. I am expecting a closer match tomorrow between the in-form Đoković and the scratchy Federer. But the king is a big match player and I expect him to change gears in the semis. However…I’ll be supporting Đoković. Monopoly is bad in any form, and Fed’s monopoly on Tennis needs to end.

In cricket, some of the buyers of IPL teams have come as great surprises to me. I expected Mallya and Ambani to buy teams, but not corporates like GMR and India cements. SRK and Ness Wadiya were minor surprises, but nothing to throw me off. It is interesting to see so many people having faith in cricket reaping profits. May be we should list and trade these IPL teams to get BSE back on track!

With the possible delay in my return trip to India, I guess I might get to watch the Super Bowl. Go Pats!

Pongalo Pongal

2008-01-15T22:19:00.001-05:00

It was a sudden decision to try making Sakkara Pongal to celebrate the festival of Pongal. A quick chat with mom and an online recipe made me understand that I did not have the key ingredients (cashew nut, raisins etc) with me. But I had decided to go ahead and make whatever I could. The initial part of keeping rice with water and milk was too simple. Then came the tough part - powdering jaggery. With the rule in this country that not much of sound should come from the apartments, breaking jaggery with a mallet was not the best of options. Still I started doing it till I felt like I was hearing shrieks from the below apartment. Then sprung the ideas of cutting the jaggery with knife, using a can opener to crush the smaller pieces, using the fruit juicer etc. Ideas came and ideas went, and so did 1.5 hours. Tired of the effort I chucked the process and used whatever small amount of jaggery powder I could make till then. According to the recipe I was supposed to put 3 cups of jaggery for 1 cup of rice. Well, I had put half a cup of jaggery for 2 cups of rice. Hmmm, too much sweet is bad for health I added rice to the jaggery paste and then added some ghee and cloves. Voila, sweet pongal was ready. Just that it was too solid to be called pongal and had too less jaggery to be called sweet. Anyways, I did not indulge in finding a new name for my latest invention.

My apartment mate liked it and so did I. The sweetness was less but I preferred it that way. The thing that took 2 hours to prepare was over in 15 minutes. Yep, satisfaction!

Bhasky reminded me of the Pongal that we celebrated 3 years back in Indore. Nostalgia -> http://sbhaskar.blogspot.com/2005/01/happy-pongal.html

திருவடிகள் தொழுகின்றேன்

2008-01-12T00:55:00.000-05:00

அலைபாயும் மனதினோடே
அமைதியில்லா இதயத்தினோடே
கவலை எனும் கடலின் இடையே
துடுப்பின்றி மிதக்கின்றேனே

குறைகள் இன்றி மனிதர் உண்டோ?
குழப்பம் இன்றி வாழ்க்கை உண்டோ?
உம்மையன்றி எனக்கொரு கதியுமுண்டோ?
எண்ணிப்பார்த்து சாந்தம் அடைந்தேனே

உலகத்தின் ஒரு முனையில்
உறக்கமின்றி தவிக்கும் நிலையில்
உன் நினைவு வந்த பொழுதில்
மனம் மலர்ந்து மகிழ்ச்சி கொண்டேனே

கருணை என்னும் விளக்கெரிய
கொண்ட கவலை விலக்கினாயே
நின் நினைவின்றி இருந்த என்னை
பெருமானே, நொடிப்பொழுதில் ஆட்கொண்டாயே

Things That I Will Miss

2008-01-05T12:36:00.000-05:00

With just about 25 days left for me in this country I wonder on what all I would miss of this place and its people. Let me see…

Library: A huge public library near office that has every book I would want to read and every movie that I would want to watch. That too for free! I am surely going to miss the Saint Paul public library.

Sports: Be it tennis or table tennis, the court is either inside the apartment or right next to it. And again, free! I’m not too sure if it is the availability of the court, or the availability of time that is differentiates US from India. Also the availability of treadmills in the apartment itself is bliss for people like me who are lazy to visit a gym. (Though unfortunately the treadmill in my apartment stopped working in October ‘07 )

Time: As hinted early on, time is a huge factor. In India I never felt as if I had time for anything. Long hours in office regardless of the amount of work, spending time with family, and the like consume time in India. All those things are absent in the US. Get out of office at 5:30 pm and think of something to do.

Change of seasons: Having grown up in the hot-hotter-hottest Chennai, it has been a revelation watching the different seasons in the US. Enjoying the different faces of nature in the same place is marvelous.

Traveling: Not that India does not have places to visit. It is just that I become totally lazy when I am closer to home. Also the lack of company matters.

Lack of pressure: I am pretty sure that the minute I land in Chennai the usual “You are still with the same company?”, “Your friend of a cousin of a friend of relative is XYZ in company ABC after being just a BSc” will all start. If I lose hair in US due to change of water, I lose more hair in India due to pressure.

Movies: With the amazing internet speed and time at hand, I can watch so many movies online. I don’t think I ever fancied movies back home.

Concern for the physically challenged: Everything in US is made with the disabled people in mind. The pavements have small slopes for wheel chairs to get in from the road, the restrooms have lower urinals for the handicapped, buses have lifts and wheel chair restrainers, doors have a button to open them automatically so that people in wheel chairs need not struggle holding the door and the wheel-chair at the same time. If not anything else, this concern is something that I wish India could ape from the US.

So, do I like US more than India? Not at all. The above are things that I like in the US, but there is surely lots more to India than what US can offer me.

Football - Not Soccer

2008-01-03T19:27:00.000-05:00

You cannot work in India and not know cricket. Everyone talks about it and you would feel left out if you do not have any interest in the game. A similar scenario prevails in the US with respect to American football. For a starter it is only Football and not American football anymore. The Football that we used to know in India and the rest of the world is Soccer here. Since I came to the US with the decision of not staying here for more than a year and since I was too lazy to start following a new sport, I was oblivious to football, NBA and baseball. The other 2 are fine, but not knowing football seems to be considered equal to blasphemy here. Good mornings are followed by discussions on the game and team lunches are filled with football opinions. Forget the Americans, even desi lunch and dinner chats center around football. I was still stubborn not to follow the sport but then the local team here, The Minnesota Vikings, started performing well during early December and the discussions in office became even more frequent. So I started learning the basics of the game and watched few minutes of some games.

As fate had it, the Vikings crashed out of the tournament as soon as I built some interest around the sport. Not that I am big fan of the team, I hardly know any player. It is just that the talks in office have reduced and following a sport is always easy when you support and follow a team. But let us see. With this new found interest I might follow the play-offs and determine a favorite for next year’s season.

Safar Ye Zindagi ka

2007-12-30T11:57:00.000-05:00

me chala me chala
har ek din, har ek gadi
samasyonko suljathe huwe
rastonko paar karthe huwe
Musafir me chalta raha

kahin door chala
koi manzil na soch ke chala
har ek samasyaa ki jawaab hai
har ek jawab ke aage ek aur samasyaa hai

me jo dhoondhoon wo kisi ke paas nahi
me jo maangoon usse mujhe koi faida nahi
ye daud nahi hai mere jindagi ka daud
is safar ki manzil nahi hai mera manzil

samjhana isse aasaan nahi
samajh jao to bhi kuch asar nahi
koshish bhi mat kar, koi nahi
mujhe jhelne do, aur koi raasta nahi

New York Trip

2007-12-26T18:17:00.000-05:00

The places that we visited at the big apple and my opinion on them:

The Statue of Liberty: It's a world wonder. What more to say? The statue and its ambience look awesome. The view of Ellis island on the way back is also good, though I did not step inside Ellis island and check what actually is there. There is also a good view of the New York skyline from the statue. Unfortunately it was too foggy when visited the place that the skyline was barely visible. Not too sure how foggy it generally is, but my guess would be that it could only be better.

Wall Street and Surroundings: The financial street looks like just another street. May be it looks different with the hussle and bussle of a working day. The bull in the adjacent street is also a tourist attraction. The trinity church and the adjoining skyscrapers are a good sight.

Ground Zero: What remains of the WTC building is a huge pit and heavy machinery working in it. The WTC station has a good design in front of it.

Brooklyn Bridge: This Bridge looks great. But the nearby bridge (don't know it's name) looks even better.

Saravanas: The saravana bhavan of TamilNadu fame is the one that I had lunch in. There are a lot of Indian restaurants in Lexington avenue and one needs ot be careful while selecting a good restaurant. There is a "Saravana Bhavan" which is not the one in Chennai. The one by the same name in Chennai runs here as "Saravanas". The food is tasty but a lil bit on the expensive side.

United Nations: The UN office has a guided tour every 10 minutes or so. They take us around the different chambers and provide us a lot of information. After a period of time the information that reflects off the brain but it is still a good place to visit. The sculptures and paintings are very nice to see.

Central Park: Just another big park. By the time I reached there it was too dark to see and enjoy the serenity. The rain also did not help much.

Times Square: If bright lights and huge billboards attract you then this is the place for you. But then, yours truly went there just to add it to his resume.

Ranganatha temple, Pomona: The Ranganatha temple of the Ahobila mutt is a beautiful temple. Atleast for a person of my background it radiated bliss all around. If my memory serves me right, the different sannidhis (sanctum sanctorum) starting from left clockwise are - Adhivan Sadagopan, a painting of Sathyanarayanar, Vedantha Desigan, Thaayaar, Ranganathar, Venkatesa Perumal, Aandal, Ramanujar, 44th Jeeyar of Ahobila mutt, Lakshmi Nrisimhar with Chakkarathazwar, Aanjaneyar, Garudazhwar. When we went there, Perumal was in kannadi aria (glass house) and a lecture was going on in front of the Sathyanarayanar painting.

Boston Trip

2007-12-26T17:54:00.000-05:00

Some people have all the luck with flights. Yours truly not being one of them, my flight got delayed again and I reached Boston at a better-than-usual 2 hours delay. Given my trysts with flights, a 2 hour delay is as good as no reaching early.

On Saturday (Dec-22) morning my cousin guided me around the city of Boston showing me the prominent places. We started off with a drive from Natick to Alewife. Then we took the famous Boston subway from Alewife to Harvard. So at last I got to see the place where all those HBRs are produced. Since it is vacation time, no students or activities were visible. All that was there were groups of tourists taking pictures in the synagogue for business studies. I too took few pictures to say that I am a Harvard passout.. err I passed via Harvard. We then took another subway train to Kendall and passed via MIT as well.

The walk along river Charles would be scenic during most of the year. But given my timing I had to concentrate more on the ground to avoid slipping on the snow, than on the river and locale around. Still, it was nice to walk around the river and over the bridge.

We took the redline subway again to Downtown Crossing and changed to the orange line and travelled to the Hay market. We visited the Quinsy market, which is a big place with a variety of cuisines, and the Hay market, which is a farmer's market. The scene near the river was good with a view of the airport at a distance. We then passed through the New England Holocause Memorial. The memorial consists of glass towers with information on the holocause written around. Smoke rises from below the towers as one passes through them.

We ended the tour with a trip to the Prudential tower wherein we had our lunch at the Qdoba Mexican Grill. The prudential tower would have been a shopper's paradise, but then my cousin and I do not fit that bill.

The day was tiring with long walks, but was also satisfying given the extent of the city that we covered

Happy Birthday SuperStar

2007-12-12T18:07:00.000-05:00

Written in my broken Hindi... Why write a poem on the Tamil superstar in Hindi? Summa thaan

Janamdhin mubharak ho superstar
Tera agli movie ka hai intejaar
Poore hue baras sattaawan
Ab bhi dikh ta hai angry young man

Tujhe nahi pata ta teri hi taakkat
Isiliye banne aaye tu kalnayak
Ab janta ki mann me hai teri hukoomat
Ye chalega kaafi aur saal tak

Tumne Style shabt ko ek nayee arth diya
Sabke dilon me kushi pehlaaya
Ab sabko achi lagti hai rang kaali
Kyun ki us rang ka Superstar hai niraali

Tu nahi hai best actor
Tu nahi hai best dancer
Phir bhi tujh me hai aisi baat
Jo touch karein sab ki heart

Love Marriage/ காதல் திருமணம்

2007-12-09T23:20:00.000-05:00

An attempt at Tamil poetry. Tamil words in English script and inline English translation are at the bottom

Tamil Version/ தமிழ் வடிவம்:

எண்ணிப்பார்த்தான்,
இருபது வருடங்களுக்கு முந்தைய வாழ்க்கையை.

அவள் கண்களில் உருகினான்,
அவள் மொழியினில் தன்னை இழந்தான்.
அவள் இன்றி ஒரு வாழ்க்கை,
அவனால் நினைக்க கூட இயலவில்லை.

திரௌபதிக்காக பாண்டவர் போரிட்டனர்,
சீதைக்காக இராமன் போரிட்டான்.
இவனும் அவளுக்காக போரிட்டான்,
தன் பெற்றோர்களிடம்.

பெற்றோரை துறந்தான்,
சொந்த மண்ணை துறந்தான்.
உயிரையும் கூட துறந்திருப்பான்,
அவளுடைய ஒரு சொல்லிற்காக.

எண்ணிப்பார்த்தான், இருப்பதை
இன்றைய நிலவரத்தை.

அவன் தவறுகளை மட்டுமே காணும் அவள் கண்கள்,
எப்பொழுதும் அவனை வசையும் அந்த கோர மொழிகள்.
வருந்தினான்,
காதலியாய் பார்த்தவளை அன்றே
மனைவியாய் உருவித்து பார்க்காமல் போனதற்காக

Tamil in English Script with Inline Translation:

Ennippaarthaan, Irupathu
He thought about it
varudangalukku munthaya vazhkaiyai
The life before 20 years

AvaL kangaLil uruginaan
In her eyes he melted
AvaL mozhiyinil thannai izhandhan
In her words he lost himself
AvaL indri oru vazhkai
Life without her
avanaal ninaikka kooda iyalavillai
He couldn’t even think of

Draupathikkaga Paandavar pOrittanar
Pandavaas fought for Draupati
Seethaikkaaga raman pOrittaan
Ram fought for Seetha
Ivanum avaLukkaaga pOrittaan
He too fought a war
Than pettrorgaLidam
With his parents

Petrorai thuranthaan
He left his parents
Sonda mannai thuranthaan
He left his home land
Uyiraiyum kooda thurandiruppaan
Would have even left his life
avaLudaiya oru sollirkaaga
For a word of hers

Ennippaarthan, iruphpathai
He thought about what he had
Indraya nilavaraththai
The situation of today

Avan thavarugaLai mattume kaanum avaL kangaL
Eyes that are on the lookout for his mistakes
eppOzhuthum avanai vesiyum andha Gora mozhigaL
Words that always hurt him
Varundhinaan
He felt sorry
Kaadhaliyaay paarthavaLai andre
For seeing her as his lover then,
Manaiviyaay uruviththu paarkaamal ponatharkaaga
And not seeing the wife she would become

Not So Funny

2007-12-04T19:27:00.000-05:00

When I read the headline, I found it a bit silly. “FIR against Anil Ambani for mobile jokes on Sikhs” said The Hindu. I felt that it was a hyper reaction for people sending jokes over mobile phones. As it happens, these jokes are not sent by one person to another, but are sent by the service provider on a subscription basis. First things first, I don’t understand as to why people pay money to receive stupid jokes on the mobile phone. Do they think that there is someone sitting in a secluded place and concentrating full time to create jokes? Even the greatest of comedians repeat their jokes. If I can have my take on these mobile jokes, I would tend be believe that there is some silly guy sitting at his desk googling for jokes to be sent for this “value added” service. There is even a content service provider for the jokes!

I initially thought of the reaction of the Sikhs to be a bit more than what was called for. But thinking about it, if they don’t make their voice heard, no one’s going to heed to their requests. Talking on the subject of racist jokes, I saw Russel Peter’s “Outsourced” recently and can’t stop remembering and laughing on his jokes on the different races. If you haven’t heard of this guy before, then go to YouTube and check his 45 minute video (the one in which he is wearing a white shirt). I am being specific on this particular video of Russel as his other videos aren’t that great. Some of them are totally gross.

Black Friday Sale

2007-11-23T16:06:00.001-05:00

It was a tempting offer. Though the configuration was not what I desired the $300 price tag impressed upon me. I had decided to checkout Circuit City on the day after thanksgiving to checkout their laptop sale. As a good planner I enquired with my colleagues on their experiences with the Black Friday sale and deduced 11:00 pm to be the time that I had to reach the store. Yes my dear people who have had no experience of this sale, you have to queue up outside the shops well before midnight to get a shot at the awesome deals. None of my friends were willing to come to Circuit City as most their desired items were on sale in Best Buy. Staying outside a shop in the Minnesota weather for 6 hours in the night is no mean effort. I needed company! So I changed the plan from CC to BB.
The mercury scale read 18F (-7C) and so padding started. I had a jacket over a sweater over a sweat shirt over a t-shirt over a thermal. We reached BB at 11:30 pm and it was quite a sight. I felt like the most under-prepared person over there. Whoa! People were there with tents, fire, comforters, chairs and what not. The line extended to the side of BB and I lost most of the hope of getting the door buster deals. Still, we decided to stand in the line to experience the adventure. Few minutes in the line made us recognize that we were the only guys "standing" there. So we sent one of us back to get a comforter or a blanket on which we could sit. By the time the guy came back, the people behind us were joining the queue in their cars itself. Not a bad idea when the other option was to risk being held as part of the sale in the form of a frozen statue. When our friend retuned, we made him park the car in the queue and entered the comfort of it. We gave the chairs he got to the others outside and also had couple of them share the car space with us. One of them remarked “This feels like the pent house”. The other said, “From now on I am going to empathize more for the homeless”. Such was the cold outside. The temperature should have gone down by atleast couple of more degrees. I was thankful to God on the day after Thanksgiving.
At 3 am the shore keepers came out distributing coupons for the store buster deals. It was time to abandon the coziness of the car and enter the bitter world of bad weather again. Within few minutes I felt numbness in my feet that turned to pain even sooner. It didn’t take an Edison to deduce that people around were not dancing, but moving their legs just to keep them going.
Though there were about 60-80 people before us, we managed to get some sleek deals’ coupons. I got the Sony Vaio NR110E for $400. It is listed in Amazon for $800!

Success at the end of perseverance does taste sweet. After my friends picked up the things that they wished for, we stood in the serpentine line for about 20 mins just to pay for the items and get out of the shop. This is one heck of an experience that none of us is going to forget in a long time.

Malaria Country

2007-09-06T22:49:00.000-04:00

There was a blood donation camp in office yesterday. My only worry was that a person donating blood should show a form of identification and I didn't have any with me in office. Still I went ahead with a colleague of mine to see if I can go around the rule. But as it happened there was another rule that we were against. We were from India!

According to the lady from Red Cross, India has malaria and so people who have visited India cannot donate blood for a year. Since I had not just visited India but lived there, I cannot donate blood in the US unless I live here for 3 years!

The lady said "Meet you after few years" and I just said "Not Happening".

Lightning Though My Lenses

2007-08-13T23:45:00.000-04:00

Aug 11, 2007
I was reading till late as it was a Friday night. When I switched off the lights to go sleep, the place still looked bright. At 4 am in the morning, it looked as if God was testing his lights :)
Shot with a digicam and so the clarity is not that great.

Multicultural Adaptability

2007-08-04T18:13:00.000-04:00

Most IT folks from India travelling abroad for the first time would have had the experience of attending some kind of course to make them aware of the cultural diversity between countries and help them adapt to the new culture. It is quite interesting to note that even people in US get trained to appreciate the culture of the Desi folks they would be working with. A colleague of mine once explained how the course helped him in understanding certain things about India and Indians. It was pretty nice except for few things that he said that were not applicable to India. Seems his instructor told him that whenever he had to eat in an Indian's home then he had to leave some food unconsumed in the plate to indicate that he was full and satisfied. I have always known the Indian etiquette to make a person complete his food in entirety. In my first company there was a manager who used to tell me, "In a country where there is a pocket of people not having enough food to keep them active, wasting food should be made a criminal offense". Not that I waste anything, but then I was managing the social welfare committee of the organization and this dialogue came while discussing about the possibility of transporting the unused food in our cafeteria.

Coming back to the multicultural training given to the US people, some of my colleagues recently attended one of those trainings. I was very curious on what they learnt about India and enquired about it. I shocked to hear, "If we had not heard about India from you, then we would have believed all of what the trainer said". Seems the trainer was neither a person from India who would know the country, nor an American who would better appreciate the cultural difference. The trainer had showed some clips of India, all from the places exhibiting poverty. Just few weeks back I had shown my colleagues my presentation on India that we presented in a local school. After watching the natural splendour in my presentation, they were bewildered at the pictures shown to them in the training. I was heartened to hear from them that they understand that every country in the world has places with poverty. I was even more heartened to hear them appreciate the respect given to elders in India. A colleague said, "I give respect to elders, but am still instantaneous in my replies to them. May be if I had followed your culture, I would be more organized and thoughtful over my words". Definitely a different way of looking at things.

Most of my colleagues understood that they cannot generalize any set of people. A simple example quoted by them was the difference between the people in the east coast and west coast of US. Everyone's different, and my colleagues have a better understanding probably because my team has had people from the east, west and south of India. They recognize each of us to be a different kind of person, and I recognize them the same way.

Secularism Thriving on Castism?

2007-07-28T15:57:00.000-04:00

Secularism, by definition, rejects religion and religious considerations. But the secularism in India seems to thrive on religious considerations. Think about it, all the nominations for the psot of vice president have been from the same sect. Coincidence? naaaa, everyone knows that these candidates have been nominated mainly because they are from Muslims. The reason quoted is "secularism". Going back to the definition, secularism rejects religion. So how can looking at someone just as a Muslim be secularism? Am I against Muslim? Ofcourse not. I, like everyone else, admire Abdul Khalam. He is one of the best presidents India has ever had. When he became the president people spoke about a rocket scientist, a writer, and a great thinker. No one wrote about a Muslim. That's the way a person for a highly reputed position should be. Unfortunately we are in this junk politics of deciding over positions based on gender, caste and what not. My only hope is that one of these people can still turn out to be a good leader.

India is not alone in this issue though. The country that is supposed to be the most open to people's beliefs, is also having its own problems. The US election debate has a new angle now - religion. The mormon faith of presidential candidate Mitt Romney is making news. In a recent survey by the PEW research center 39% of the people said that they woud be more likely to vote for a candidate who is Christian. 46% said that they would be less likely to vote for a Muslim and 30% were against Mormon candidates. And this is in a constitution that bars any religious test for office!

Bone Marrow Donor Program

2007-07-22T17:52:00.000-04:00

For quite some time now people have been forwarding the link http://www.helpvinay.org/. I have heard of bone marrow transplants, but did not have much info on them. So when I heard of the drive in Minneapolis, I wanted to find out more. As always, Wiki had a good start into to the subject -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow_transplant
But I wanted to know more. http://www.marrow.org/ was the next stop, and it provided answers to most of my questions. I was a bit worried though when I read "Marrow donors can expect to feel some soreness in their lower back for a few days or longer." Having a minor back problem, it was natural for me to be worried. A bit more research indicated that unless a person has a serious back problem and has undergone surgeries, it should not be an issue. I thought of checking at the donor center. Yesterday I went to the donor drive at the Minnehaha park in Minneapolis and got all my doubts clarified with the representative there. I registered as a bone marrow donor and that should indicate the confidence that I got over the program.

The registeration is pretty simple. We need to swipe the inside of our cheeks with cotton buds (like the ones used to clean the ear) and give it back. There is nothing to it.

It feels so good now after registering for the program. I have taken my step towards helping someone. Hopefully more and more people participate in the donor program and Vinay and the others requiring a donor find one soon.

For information on a drive near you, visit http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=event
For more information on being a donor, visit http://www.marrow.org/DONOR/index.html

It is like blood donation, a donor's marrow is completely replaced within four to six weeks

LV to LA to MN

2007-06-10T23:56:00.000-04:00

We started from the Hoover dam at around 2:30 pm, a good 10.5 hours before the scheduled departure of our flight from LA. LV to LA is supposed to be a 6 hour ride. We had all the time in the world with us.... or so we thought.

The return journey was fine till we reached the outskirts of LA. One of the friends had to be dropped at his home near the Universal studios. The guy took the wheels and I had no idea that he was going to miss the directions. The poor guy, to his defense, had moved to LA only 2 weeks back. I, of all people, cannot blame him given my own directional sense. This guy missed the route, and circled around for a considerable amount of time. After enquiring at a shop, he was finally able to make it to his house. By this time, the tension had built up.

The guy who took the driver's seat next raced to his home. We had to pickup his car from his place, drop the rented car at the airport, and rush to another airport for our flight. In all the tension, the guy took I-5S instead of I-5N, and we were lost for the second time in an hour. When we finally got the right route and reached the airport, the rental office had closed. The instructions there said that we had to park the car and drop of the details in the envelope provided. Two issues - 1) There was no envelope provided and 2) the details asked for included the parking slot number and there were no numbers in the parking slots. We ended up doing some alter arrangements and rushed out of the place (a day later we found that we penalized a day's rent for returning the car late).

We reached the LAX airport at 12:40 am believing that we were well on time for the 1:00 am flight. But then, the airline rules had it that we were supposed to be there 45 mins before the flight departure. We were not being allowed to check-in and we had company on that count. The other guy and the girl who were in a similar spot were doing the fighting while yours truly was trying to figure out alternate strategies. As it turned out, a) there was no way to get into the flight, b) the best the airline could do was to put us in "standby" for the next day's flight, c) Standby meant that we would get our seats the next day if the flight had free seats, d) Airline staff do not reveal if there would be seats available in the next day's flight, e) a new ticket for the next day would make us pay an additional $180. We left the airport with the thought of having our bank balances reduce by the said amount.

I called up the airline reservation number as soon as the clock struck 3:30 am PST and told my story to the nice lady at the other end. When I told her that I wanted to book a new ticket to avoid the issue of not getting a new ticket the next day, she said "No need to, you are excellent'. I asked "Does that mean that there are many free seats in tomorrow's flight". The lady replied, "I can't say that but you are excellent". I remembered my services marketing class where I learnt that the good nature of one person changes the impression of the client on a company. My impression on the airlines just got a lot better.

This blog is getting too big. So I would just end saying that I finally reached home, just a day late, without paying a penny extra, and not feeling tired since I slept the whole extra day I had in LA. Happy ending!

The Las Vegas Trip

2007-06-07T22:05:00.000-04:00

I will remember the drive to Las Vegas for just one thing - getting up in between my sleep to see a guy glancing at me through the window of the car and turning back to my friend and saying something like "Sir, the speed limit in this city is 70 miles. You were driving at 85. I will issue you a ticket". He sounded as though he was giving a movie ticket. Anyways, not getting perturbed by such trivial things (?) I resumed my sleep.
We reached LV at around 3:00 am. Having had my sleep in the car, I woke up in time to utilize the complimentary breakfast at the hotel. Unfortunately the rest of the gang was ready only by 12:00 pm. There have been times in my stint in the US when I have repented not getting my driving license. This was just one of those instances when I had to stay idle for few hours just because of this handicap. One more issue was that each member of the team was of the opinion that someone else had planned the trip. There was no plan and hence no direction. So a pseudo-SUV and a 7 seater followed each other into the Las Vegas strip without knowing where they wanted to go.
We started with the MGM casino. Frankly speaking I did not see anything special. It had the usual stuff that I have seen on TV. Some people crowded around an enclosed area for the attraction of the casino which turned out to be couple of lions. We headed off to search for another attraction called the Mirage volcano. Our sense of direction took us through Harah's Casino and another place before we reached the Mirage casino. One thing of note is that the monorail journey gave a good view of the city. At the Mirage we got to know that the show would start only at 7:00 pm. So we ended up experiencing gambling in the casino while waiting for the show. Now you know why the casinos have shows, and why they have them only at particular timings. In the excitement of the slot machines and roulette we missed the 7 pm show and were in no mood of waiting another hour for the next show. After checking out the tiger reserve, we came out of the Mirage (get it?). The next few hours saw us roaming in the streets of Vegas visiting Caesar's palace, Bally's, Bellagio (the fountain looks great), and giving Paris a galnce from the outside. I guess we spent more time searching for Chipotle than any attraction in Vegas. Chipotle has been one place where I feel comfortable with the food. It tastes just like the food back home.
After a peaceful night's sleep, and once again waiting till 12:00 for the others, we headed off to the Hoover dam. The enormous traffic increased my expectation only to be disappointed on the sight of the place. While we were at the dam a damsel cried for help. she shouted help several times and said "someone has gone down". Quite a few guys looked down the dam with concern. But then, the guy who was being referred to had justed fainted on ground. Guys were smiling at each other while the cop car raced in with water.
After that, started the ride of a life time....

Memorial Day Weekend

2007-06-01T23:16:00.001-04:00

I have always been a bit lazy starting for a vacation. But once the journey starts I will be in it with all enthusiasm and the end of the journey would be marked by fatigue. This has been the case some time now. But the Memorial Day weekend vacation is something that differed in quite a few ways than my "ideal" vacation.

The plan was to go to Los Angeles, check couple of places in a day, drive to Los Vegas, spend a day and a half in LV, drive back to LA and take the flight to Minneapolis. Sounded a bit hectic, but the reality was more than just a bit. We landed in LA at 12:10 in the morning. To start with, the friend who was supposed to pick us at the airport had a production release issue and was still in office at the odd hour. He came to the airport directly from his office and went back as soon as he dropped us in the hotel. The next plan was to get ready in the morning and wait for the friend to take us to the Universal studios. Little did we know that the guy would spend the rest of the morning in his office. But the poor fellow did turn up at around 11 am and we took the "30 min" ride to Universal in about 1.5 hours as the city bustled with the long-weekend traffic.

We started our tour of Universal after some more delays at around 2:30 pm. A bit of planning inbetween the rides made sure that we covered all the major attractions there.

Shrek 4D
Pretty good if this is the first attraction that you see in Universal. Otherwise one might find it to be a dead horse after the other attractions. Also, since I had done some homework on the show, I missed the surprise element. While people were laughing or sighing when water was sprayed over their face when Donkey sneezed on the screen, I was left saying "Ok, wikipedia was right on that one"

Jurassic Ride
This was the ride for which we were in the queue for the longest time. But it was sure worth it. I was in the first row of the cruise and so had the surprises really surprise me. The dinosaurs came out of the water just when I neared them and sprayed water over me. Cool, literally. The ride ended in an awesome way with a near vertical 85 feet fall. When we came out of the ride there were pictures displayed taken during the fall.

Studio Tour
I expected the run of the mill "See this to your left, see this to your right" kind of thing. But the studio tour was very exciting. It did have the usual stuff of showing the studio, the sound stations etc. But it also had some excitement with the flash food, the tremor at a subway station, the "Jaws" shark coming out of the water near the tram, water bisecting and giving way to the tram, the dance of "The fast and the furious" robotic-cars etc.

Terminator 3D
This show was a combination of actors and animation. The 3-D animation part was especially good with the flying machines looking as if they are coming right in front of our face.

Revenge of the Mummy
After the Jurassic ride I was not expecting anything more exhilarating, but this ride went to another level. It was a high-speed rollar coaster that went both forwards and backwards. It was lasted just few seconds, but the thrill is worth....well, making me stay from roller coasters for some time.

Water World
Water World is a live show (no animations or rides). Actors perform stunts in and around water.I sat in one of the front rows not noticing the sign "Soak Zone". At 8:40 pm I could have lived without getting drenched in water. The show was good.

I guess all of us were satisfied by covering most of the rides in a short span of time. I was particularly happy that my planning had helped us in using time optimally. With this satisfaction, we left Universal heading towards Las vegas.

Divorce Rates Decreasing?

2007-05-17T21:57:00.000-04:00

When I heard the Fox news anchor state that the divorce rates in the US are decreasing, I was pleasantly surprised. With the increase in the corresponding rate in India being attributed to mimicking of the US culture, is it really true that the divorce rates are getting lower in US? Does that mean that the rates would become lower in India soon? While all these questions popped up in my mind, the next statement of the news anchor threw me back. She said "U.S. divorce rates are at their lowest level since 1970". That can surely not be true. I was sure I was missing something and the newsreader proved me right. The primary reason for the lower divorce rate - more couples live together without marrying. Well, now you are talking sense

Wazzup?

2007-05-08T23:22:00.000-04:00

Habits are die-hard. There was a time when I was habituated to write blogs and used to write one a day. Now I am into the habit of not writing blogs and I guess the time spacing between the previous post and this one stands testimony. Anyways I plan to get back into the habit as a) I like writing and b) I like reading my old blogs and I need to write to have blogs to read in the future.

Let me recount as to what all have happened in the past month or so, that I was out of the blogosphere. For one, while writing the last line I rhymed 'past' with 'cast' and not .... well, can't find a rhyme for the British pronunciation of the letter a in 'past' as all words like fast, path, half are said differently here. Nope, I am not trying to get Americanized. It is just the influence of some guys around me.

Also I got out of my stay-at-home syndrome and go out. The Chicago trip was hectic and enjoyable. We tried to cover as many places as possible in the available time and were successful to some extent.

Participated in a cultural fest in a local school in which we put a booth representing Indian culture. We decorated 3 tables with Indian items like rangoli, Indian sweets, sarees, small idols, and a carrom board. Yep, carrom is the Indian game that we were felt would attract kids, and also something that we could showcase. It was big hit among the kids. We also decorated a wall with collages representing India - the architectures, diversity, unity, fauna, etc. I had also made a ppt showcasing the things I felt would represent India well. Most people expressed awe on hearing things like the number of languages spoken in India (in one case a Gujju frined of mine and I had to speak a sentencein our mother tongues to show that the 18 languages and 1652 dialects do not sound the same!), the pyramid formation for janmashtami, the influence in Indian architecture by the various dynasties that ruled us, etc. There were a wide variety of questions that were shot at me like "With so much diversity, doesn't discrimination exist", I surely enjoyed the whole event. The school has made a PowerPoint presentation with some of the pictures taken on that day. It could be found at http://hs.forestlake.k12.mn.us/flas/festivalofcultures

Nothing else for now. Let me see if I can keep up the blogging interest.

Hindu Mandir - Maple Grove

2007-03-25T15:05:00.000-04:00

It was a sudden decision on Saturday to go a temple. I started off with my apartment mates to the Hindu mandir in Maple Grove, which is a 40 mile drive from my place. The drive seemed to take more time than it should have, but I am not complaining as it was pretty smooth and the natural splendour around kept me engrossed. The last 100 meter stretch though reminded of Indian roads with potholes ensuring a bumping ride. I guess that too added to the experience.

The temple looked good both from outside and inside. Though some of the sannidhis are still under construction, the general ambience inside reminded of the temples back home. The main sannidhi is that of lord Vishnu with the sannidhis of Thayar and AandaL on either side. To the left were sannidhis of Vinayagar and a Lingam. The entry to the sannidhis to the right was closed, probably due to construction. I could see one sannidhi to house a deity similar to Puri Jagannath. I could also deduce another sannidhi to be of Ram, as Shree Ram was written around it. The AandaL sannidhi has urchava moorthies of Ramar, Lakshmanar, Seetha, Anjaneya, and Chakrathaazhvar. I am not sure if the other sannidhis have urchavars.

There was Rama bhajan going on in one of the halls. I went for having lunch in another of the temple halls and found that they were celebrating Sri Rama Navami on Saturday itself though the festival is actually on Tuesday. Nice timing for my visit! The food was provided free on the occasion, but that just made me add few more dollars to the donation. The organizers are doing a very good job of running this place, and I feel that it is only fair that the devotees contribute to their capability.

All in all, it was a nice ride, good darshan, and happiness and tranquility to the mind.

Mall of America

2007-03-25T13:41:00.000-04:00

On Friday, I visited an interesting place - The Mall of America. The place is HUGE. I guess it would take 3 days just to look around the whole place. Unfortunately I had just couple of hours owing to my unscheduled visit. A friend had come to town for some official stuff and I had to show him around the city in the evening. Having been in this city for few months now, I am assumed to be the expert of the place. but my earlier posting would have sure conveyed the message to my reader that I haven't actually been roaming around the city to know much of it. So, I did few last minute enquiries on the places to visit in St Paul and found this mall of America to be the one that had most people interested. Understanding the mammoth dimensions of the place I also enquired for the things-to-see in there. Well, background work does help, and in this case lead us directly to the under water adventures aquarium

The aquarium is enormous with about 4,500 sea creatures in it. It was a different experience looking at the sharks and sting rays swim around us showing their fiery teeth. But still, at the end of it, I felt a vaccuum. Guess I was expecting some kind of surprise element to it.With the time limit dawning upon us, we decided to skip the fun rides and just roamed around the shopping centers in the mall. Nothing much to my interest there, but this place would sure be a shoppers delight. So all you guys with girl friends, come to this place if you want to see your GF really happy. Or skip the place if you are more concerned about your credit card bill.

Peer pressure?

2007-03-11T19:46:00.000-04:00

Location: Bala's home

Bala is in the middle of chatting with Sam over gtalk ...

Bala: hey dude heard that you moved to US recently. howz it goin?

Sam: well, nothing to complain so far
Bala: :)) where r u?

Sam: im in nb

Bala: <how am I supposed to what NB is?>

Bala: What is NB?

Sam: nebraska. surprised that don't know that
Bala: <man, this guy thinks that I'm an idiot. got to save some dignity>

Bala googles for the next few seconds on US state codes and then types.

Bala: just a bit confused on whether NB is Nebraska or Nevada

Sam: Nevada is NE man

Bala: <wow, this dude sure knows the US upside down. why am I so less informed? Sigh>

Location: Sam's home

Bala: hey dude heard that you moved to US recently. howz it goin?
Sam: well, nothing to complain so far

Bala: :)) where r u?

Sam: <Oh shit, i'm used to writing this place as NB. what does it stand for. hmmm, Bala has always been the nerdy guy. He will figure out if I give him just the code>

Sam: im in nb

Bala: What is NB?

Sam: <man, surprising.... even Bala doesn't know certain things. Oh, now I remember, this place is nebraska>
Sam: nebraska. surprised that don't know that

Bala: just a bit confused on whether NB is Nebraska or Nevada

Sam: <man, this dude is sure intelligent. Let me save some grace by finding out the code for Nevada>

Sam googles for the next few seconds on US state codes and then types..

Sam: Nevada is NE man

Sam: <I am such a pretender. I should be more informed from now on. Sigh!>

World Cup Fever

2007-03-09T00:11:00.000-05:00

With the cricket world cup approaching I am beginning to miss all the brouhaha that used to surround cricket back home. Reading about the event over the internet is no substitute to hearing people discuss about it whichever way that you turn, and watching so many TV channels dedicating most of their time to some thing distantly related to cricket. The Indians in US seem to be more interested in football (please note: not soccer), basketball, and sometimes even ice hockey as compared to cricket. I wonder how few months in a new place can change the passions of people so much.

Since the world cup is going to happen in the West Indies, the problem of time zone arises. Yes, the problem is that I am more closer to the time zone of the Caribbean. Matches will happen during office hours, which would prevent me from having the vicarious pleasure of checking the live scores in the internet. One positive aspect though is that I don't need to think about trying to get the channel that telecasts the matches

Movie day

2007-03-04T23:34:00.000-05:00

It should be a record of sorts. With nothing else to do, I have indulged myself in 4 movies today. The movies are Swordfish, The chronicles of Narnia, The departed, and Thiruvilayaadal aarambam (Tamil).

My opinion on the movies -

Swordfish - Stylish. Typical action movie.

TCoN - Nothing great

The departed - Wonder what the Oscar judges found in the movie

T.Aarambam - Nice time-pass

Chutti!

2007-03-02T11:12:00.000-05:00

There was an announcement in office yesterday evening that the weather was getting worse and employees should make their judgement on when to leave. A colleague translated that "make a judgement" means "Stay in office". Anyways our floor was more or less empty by 3:30 pm. while driving back "P" and I were commenting that people were over reacting and that the place didn't look that bad. But then, there are times when you state, and there are times when you eat... your own word that is. Everything was fine till we arrived in front of the garage door. The car slipped sideways and stopped just short of hitting the garage card-sensor. The car was caught in snow and was not budging regardless of the amount of push on the accelerator. I got down to check if there was anyone around from whom we could borrow a shovel. The wind was strong, blowing snow and blindfolding me. P started shoveling with his window scrubber. After some effort we were able to get inside the garage with the car, but it took me few minutes to stop shivering.

Outside my apartment (Last weekend - before the snow storm)

The morning today started with the usual early rise and preparations to get to office. P was planning to work from home which meant that I was left to catch a bus to office. I called up the snow alert number at office to find that they would update the status only at 7:30 am. I usually leave home at 7:30 to catch the bus. But with the weather being bad outside, I would need atleast 5 minutes more. The main issue is that partners (offshore service providers) are not allowed to work, or even enter, office during holidays. So if I reach office and it turns out to be a holiday, then I might not be allowed in. The worst part of the scenario is that the first bus to get back from office is at 3:40 pm. What will I do in the roads, in this condition, for so many hours? I decided to check with the alert number once again, and, to my comfort, the announcement was already on for the office being closed. So here I am doing velagiri during day time while being paid a dollar salary.

Talking about salaries, the placement report from my alma mater is out and seems impressive.

Snowy Times 2

2007-02-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

It has been some time, but I will still go ahead writing about last Sunday's events.

Some of my friends and I had planned to go bowling on Sunday. By the time all of us got ready it was snowing heavily and we had to put our plans on hold. The snow abated by afternoon and we started off. This time around I was ready to face the stuck door and the path snowy outside the apartment. One of my friends had parked his car outside the apartment and I entered it with the hopes of having a no-adventure journey. But then, the same old villain - snow - had other plans. The heap of snow around the car was so high that the car's wheels were getting stuck in them and we were not able to get the car out. We abandoned the car and walked to the apartment of another friend who was to join us. His car was safely parked in the garage and he was able to get it out with less of problems. Thus began the day's journey that was good for the initial part. We went to the bowling alley and spent the next couple of hours trying to incorporate some style into our otherwise simple throw-it-in-the-center technique of bowling. Nothing much improved and I soon reverted to the simple way of doing it. The others kept trying new styles and maybe that's why I scored more than everyone else in 2 of the 3 games that we played.

We left the bowling alley with the intention of having lunch at an Indian restaurant. The next quarter of an hour was spent trying to find the restaurant that one of us had suggested. Then the cars turned towards a known Indian restaurant about 10 miles away. I guess I would not have thought of travelling so far just to have food, but then when you get a free ride why even think? On the way I suddenly heard the shriek of the friend who was driving. He was desperately pushing the brakes which seemed to be following the disobedience movement. Within seconds, our dear old friend ice (or sleet?) made sure that our car slid and banged into the rear of the jeep upfront. Suddenly all the bizarre American insurance stories came to my mind. Good time to think about work! Everyone except one person was in a state of shock. But the only person, the driver of the jeep in front, just drove continuously as if nothing had happened and drove into the gas station at the corner. Our car also followed to the gas station as we were running out of gas. I couldn't believe it, we were running into this person again whose car we just bumped and caused I-don't-know-how-much damage. But then my friends were polite enough to go to the other car and check for damages. The driver of that car, a lady, confirmed that there were luckily no damages. Both cars had minor scratches, but neither of them cared much. I guess I was the only hyper reactive guy in the scene. Anyways, my friend who was driving was also shaken and he was more than careful during the rest of the drive.

The lunch at Nalpak (Earlier called Udipi) was awesome. This is the second time I was having food at this place and it has impressed me both times. It is a typical Indian place with Bollywood film music playing in the background and cricket on all TVs, but the star attraction, atleast for me, was the food. The day ended with a return journey wherein we got lost on the road, went around a bit, and more importantly reached home in one piece.

The news as of now is that a snow storm is expected anytime. Looking forward to more exciting days ahead

Snowy Times

2007-02-26T00:18:00.000-05:00

It has been an eventful weekend considering my penchant to stay at home and celebrate laziness. On Saturday I was to help a colleague "P" in doing a half-a-day presentation. I woke up as usual, got ready as usual, and left the room as usual. But nothing after that was usual. The apartment door seemed to be reminding me of my need to visit a gym. But then, it actually reminded something else.... the heavy snow predicted by the weather men. The snowfall had been heavy enough to have the snow in the ground raise and block the door from opening. Anyways, the rice and dal cooked by my roommates for the previous night did have some effect on me and I prevailed over the door. The next step was to take about 50 steps to reach the road from where I would get my ride. My first step went into the snow... a bit too much inside for my comfort. Then the sight of few patches of non-snowy areas brightened me up. I felt that the snow might be slippery and the clear patches might provide me a safe route. The next step that was supposed to lead me to safety out of the slippery snow turned out to be the contrary. I am still not sure, but recollecting the way the patch shined it would not be a bad guess to state that it was ice. I guess you can imagine what would have happened. Well let’s just state that there were more parts of my body that were in contact with the ground. Anyways, a 7:40 am start meant that there were no kids (or girls) around to laugh at the incident. I gathered myself and made a conscious decision to keep away from the "safe" patches and into the snow. A colleague came to pick me up and, after his car came to a slipping stop in front of me, there were no incidents till we reached the presentation hall.
A week back "P" and I had discussions over the best laptop to buy among HP Pavilion, IBM Lenovo, and Sony Vaio. P kept insisting on Vaio and I still ended up buying HP. P is a proud owner of a Vaio, but fate struck when his laptop failed to start before the presentation. We were not carrying the presentation by any other means, and his lappy did not give even give a blinker of hope, literally. It had no sign of life. The minutes that followed were filled with plans B to Z that we never thought of earlier. Let me keep the specifics to myself and just say that the presentation went fine. And yes, breakfast and lunch also were fine. Can't help mentioning them as they were the second set of things that motivated me to the Saturday presentation. Oh, by the way, P's laptop started functioning at 2:30 pm. That's when we ended the presentation.
I spent the rest of the day with my own laptop trying to figure out as to how a windows file got corrupted in it. The good news is that the system is working now. The bad news is that it does not have any more of the contents that I put in it. Ofcourse, it was a conscious decision to chuck away my unfruitful attempts of repairing the system, and to revert it back to factory settings.
This blog has become big with just Saturday's happenings. I guess the Sunday events wouldn't mind waiting till tomorrow to enter the virtual world.

Rise and Shine

2007-02-19T21:29:00.000-05:00

The weather is changing for the better and it feels awesome. I never thought that I would find 3 degree celcius to be so comfortable. But I am not alone on that. Some of my colleagues also expressed their delight at the temperatures today. Well, having experienced sub-zero Farenheit temperatures for the past couple of weeks, the temperature outside is definitely a pleasant change. The best part is that things can only get hotter for the next week or so. With a new laptop, mobile connection and good weather, things seem to be getting brighter.

Renaissance?

2007-02-19T00:03:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time. I guess I would blog frequently now thanks to the new addition to my possessions - HP Pavilion DV6226US

Footprints 2006

2006-11-29T10:01:00.000-05:00

It was a trip down the memory lane when I visited the IIMI campus for the alumni meet. Though the meet was just for the weekend, the travel from Chennai swallowed about 1.5 days on either side making it a near 5 day vacation. It is not that great travelling for such long durations and waiting for greater than 6 hours at a station for the delayed train. But it was worth it. The happiness of meeting friends and the vellagiri playing cards in the train were a true breather from the corporate life.

The souls who were awake at the unearthly time at which we reached Indore would have been shocked by my first question, "Where are the badminton rackets?". But then, some things and some people never change What has changed though is the new construction that has obstructed our view from the mess. Some of the table top mountains are not visible anymore from the lovely marooned hill top.

It was refreshing to meet the new set of students in the campus. I only wish they stop asking questions like, "Do you have work in an IT company?" Ofcourse we do. No one pays for doing nothing. An IT job does have its ups and downs with periods of no work and periods of heavy duty stuff. The guys who are on their slack period seem to project the image that everyone in the IT sector is vela. But then I have been here and seen a sizable sample to argue otherwise. That reminds me.... I should get back to work now

Master of Masters

2006-11-20T01:19:00.000-05:00

He was surely a class apart. It was a treat to watch Roger Federer outclass James Blake in the finals of the Masters cup. As Blake commented during the prize ceremony, it was a Tennis lesson given by the master. All said and done, Federer's demolition of Blake was expected. What I did not expect was the way Rafael Nadal was dismissed in the semis. Nadal has been the only person in recent times to have shown the talent to beat Federer. Yes, Federer has also lost to few others like David Nalbandian, but those defeats have been too few and far inbetween, and the kind that do not get repeated. Nadal is a player who has shown the grit, the tenacity and the talent to beat Federer. I love Federer's game, but am not quite satisfied watching a single person dominating a game. Hope Nadal would give Federer tougher times in the future, or, may be, a new talent surfaces soon. Till then I guess I would just sit back and enjoy the artistic exhibition of tennis displayed by the champion.

EOD

2006-11-13T01:06:00.000-05:00

A long day
A lonely cubicle
A tired brain
The closest association of years
displayed a successful log off

Eyes filled with sleepiness
The lanky frame ambled across
To the elevator
To the exit
The long walk to the parking lot

A leg swirled over the bike
Suddenly the brain sent a panic signal
The heart refused to accept
The fact... The desperation
The pain of....
forgetting the helmet at the cubicle

Interviewee to Interviewer

2006-11-09T05:00:00.000-05:00

I have always wondered what it would be like to sit on the other side of the interview desk and ask questions. Well, I got to feel that yesterday. Since I was not aware that I would be conducting the interview, I went totally unprepared and feeling that I might not be able to test the fresh minds that are coming straight out of Engineering college. But then, I was proved wrong on two counts - a) I remembered more than I expected myself to, and b) The interviewees didn't remember as much as I expected them to. I am still puzzled as to why the interviewees couldn't answer simple questions on their final engineering project and subjects that they claimed to be strong at. May be it was just me. I guess interviewers are supposed to put the interviewees at ease before asking questions. I, on the contrary, bludgeoned them with questions the minute they took their seats. Anyways, I take solace from the fact that there was an experienced interviewer along with me giving some credibility to the decisions.
All along it was fun and I look forward to more such opportunities.

Writing to Good Fortune

2006-10-16T05:46:00.000-04:00

Recently I heard of the autobiography of the English cricketer Kevin Pietersen. It came as a surprise to me as Pietersen has been around the world cricketing fraternity for just few years now. A bit of searching in Amazon reveals that most English cricketers have authored a book or two. From Mike Atherton and Graham Thorpe to Andrew Strauss and Freddie Flintoff, all of them have books in their names. I can understand that there would be interesting aspects and lessons to be learnt from the lives of experienced people, but why are youngsters jumping in so early to tell the world about whatever little that they have experienced? An answer seems to lie at the money to be made in the biography books market. To take an example, Monty Panesar, the relatively new spinner in the English side, has got a deal of more than 300,000 pounds for his autobiography. I am not sure as to how much these guys make by playing cricket, but the money from writing is definitely something substantial to grab.

Moving away from cricket, the other autobiography that's making news these days is the one by the Pakistani president. I checked the price of the book in a book store and decided that there are many worth while things that I can do with that sum. Well, with the amount of money involved, the book is already going to make its Urdu debut

If only someone promises me a decent amount for my life's story, I might as well jump into the pool

The Afghan - Book Review

2006-10-11T00:50:00.000-04:00

"Disappointing" would be the right word. The book isn't too bad, but it just couldn't live up to my expectations. The usual twists to the tale in Frederick Forsyth’s novels are missing and the novel has a straight forward and dreary story line. The elongated descriptions on current world scenarios could have also been reduced.
The storyline is about infiltrating the Al Qaeda (blow me down! Microsoft word recognizes this word and does not through a spelling error!) by faking a British ex-soldier to be an Afghan, and thereby spoiling a major terrorist plan. I don’t intend to give off the whole story, but then, there isn’t much anyways to say. There is something about the base of the storyline that is troubling me. The hero’s mom is the daughter of a Brit and an India, and the hero is brought-up in Iran. How could this make him passable for an Afghan? I don’t think Afghans look like Indians.
I have argued with few persons on the greatness of Frederick Forsyth’s style. I am regretful in accepting that I am one down on the argument.

Optimistic Pessimist

2006-10-05T04:35:00.000-04:00

I guess it has been sometime since I wrote anything about my life. On the professional front, there hasn’t been much of a thing happening. The project that I was involved in got over and I'm experiencing a lull before the storm. But I guess I would prefer the storm to the lull. I have wasted a week doing nothing much except few odd jobs, utilizing the table tennis facility in office, and letting the idle mind play devil's workshop.

I believe that I was pessimistic last week. Or wasn't I? Since it is my belief that I was pessimistic, I should have been a pessimist. Or does my optimism on my pessimism make me an optimist? Whatever, I am now in the process of getting my mind back on track. I am true believer of positive thoughts providing positive results. Or atleast that’s my self perception (Isn’t “self-perception” an oxymoron?)

By the way, I celebrated a "Birthday vaaram" (Birthday week). As it happens, my Tamil and English calendar birthdays fell on the same week, but there was some confusion prevailing over the exact English date of my Tamil birthday! As a true consultant I chose the option that yielded the best result..... best result for me ofcourse. I chose to have my birthday celebrated on 3 days (albeit Mom had confirmed the exact Tamil b'day date).

I received an enormous number of birthday wishes in orkut. Though the pessimistic part of me keeps pointing to the hours I spent replying to each and every wish that I received, the optimist in me says that I should be happy about having so many friends

Testing Times

2006-09-29T05:01:00.000-04:00

There are times like these
When darkness looms large
When people seem evil
When the whole world plays unfair

There are times like these
When the brain exhibits fatigue
When dreams give way to nightmares
When frustration is what the face wears

And then, these are the times
That I succeed to realize
A pen over paper lightens the heart
A positive attitude changes the world

Enmity is all but a mind with rage
Smile and people will sway your way
Darkness is all but a mirage
Brightness is all but a thought away

Lage Raho

2006-09-19T05:04:00.000-04:00

Saw "Lage raho Munnabhai"(LRM) this Saturday. It is an awesome movie that no humour-lover should miss. Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Varsi and Boman Irani carry most of the movie on their shoulders and they have done a great job of it. I have liked Sanjay Dutt in only 2 movies - Munnai Bhai MBBS and LRM. The actor adapts to his role really well. But still, Arshad Varsi as Circuit is even better. His expressions in the scenes where he talks to the invisible Bapu are total fun. Boman Irani is the villain as Lucky Singh, but the movie is such that he is seen in more of a comedy than a villainous role. Well, that's something similar to the prequel.

The mere concept of hearing Gandhi's thoughts through a Bhai in Mumbai (rhymes, doesn't it?) is crazy. Add to that words like "Vinamrataa" and "Durgati" coming out of Circuit and Munna, and we get a laugh-a-minute riot. I'm not sure, but may be the director also wanted to make people think in the Gandhian way. I guess people would listen to a Bhai talking about "Gandhigiri" rather than Mahatma himself talking about nonviolence. There seems to be a section of the society opposing the use of the word Gandhigiri in the movie. I guess it is ok to use it in a lighter sense. It doesn’t sound good only when used in official places like this.

Anyways, the USP of the movie is comedy and it is worth watching for that alone.

Chikungunya

2006-09-12T00:04:00.000-04:00

Over the past week I have heard quite a few people getting infected with Chikungunya. The name "Chikungunya" comes from Swahili for "that which bends up" referring to the positions that victims take to relieve the joint pain. Though the disease is not fatal, it causes body pain and makes the patient weak. Here is some info on Chikungunya that I googled out

There was a Chikungunya outbreak in India 32 years ago.
Wonder why no one seems to recognize the name!
Chikungunya spreads only through daytime mosquito.
Never knew that mosquitoes worked in shifts!
France says drug against Chikungunya available soon.
Why don't they just kill the mosquitoes? Wouldn't that be simpler and cheaper?
For all those who believe that only India has mosquito problems, news is that France is more affected that India. Estimations have indicated that 110,000 people may have been infected by Chikungunya virus since March 2005 in La Réunion

A search on Chikungunya also took me to the site http://www.cbwinfo.com/, which is the site for information on chemical and biological weapons. Wondering why a common fever like disease finds a mention in such a site, I browsed a bit to get to this statement: "The disabling joint pain and fever, the lack of a suitable animal reservoir in Western countries and its lack of lethality make it a very "clean" weapon that could be used against key civilian installations". I am not sure if terrorists know about this. But then, there are numerous sites in the net to give such useful information

Vande Mataram

2006-09-07T00:29:00.000-04:00

It is the centenary of India's national song and the feeling that it is evoking is anything but patriotic. Some parties are trying to make singing the national song mandatory while another section is raising its voice that the national song is against Muslims. The reasoning given by Muslims is that "Vande Mataram" is a praise of Goddess Durga and so they can't sing it. This seems to make sense. If they don't want to sing Vande Mataram, then let them sing "Jana gana mana" or "Sare Jahan se Achcha". When the intention is merely to hold our patriotic fervour, then any patriotic song should do. So, why are we getting into these controversial issues again and again? I see no reason but politics. But why does such politics exist? What makes politicians believe that they can garner votes of a particular section by going against another? Everything again boils down to the voting public's reasons to support a party. It is that bad decision that people make once in four or five years that fuels all these controversies 365 days a year.

"Nenju pOrukuthilaye inda nilai ketta manitharai ninainduvitaal nenju pOrukuthilaye"

- Bharathi

Avenger - Book Review

2006-08-29T03:54:00.000-04:00

When I read Frederick Forsyth's "Devil's Alternative", I admired the novel and felt that I might be disappointed reading another novel of the same author as my expectations had become very high. But "Avenger" definitely lived up to my expectations. The same style of weaving the story in different layers and then linking all of them together; dealing with terrorism around the world; providing well researched information on the politics of different countries; and the impressive twist to the tale in the last page. I have admired many authors till the climax of their tales, but my admiration for Forsyth increases with his climaxes.

"Avenger" is just a normal story of revenge. It is the power of narration that makes it a good read. The story is about a young boy killed in Bosnia by a gangster and his grandfather hiring the Avenger to get the killer to the hands of the law. The stories of the avenger, the kid, the grand father, and scores of other people have been narrated well. Forsyth's style of making pieces link using the minutest of links is admirable. The story takes us through the Yugoslavian countries (Serbia, Bosnia etc.), the Gulf countries (UAE, Saudi etc.), Afghanistan, the South American jungles, and ofcourse, the US and UK.

A welcome read to get my thoughts off the daily life and into the world of action and adventure.

What's in the Name?

2006-08-25T09:44:00.000-04:00

Whenever our dear politicians have found nothing interesting to do, they change the names of places. They do it with such rigour that we get a feeling that the places would cease to exist if their names were not changed. Let alone the big cities like Mumbai/Bombay, Chennai/Madras, Kolkata/ Calcutta etc., the names of streets and roads have changed so much so that there seem to be a expiry date associated with them. Even the names of government transport systems change, PTC (Pallavan Transport Corporation) to MTC (Metropolitan Transport Corporation) being one.
The name-changing bug seems to have bitten the likes of the astronomers now. I am not sure if classifying Pluto to be a "Dwarf planet" is going to change anything. But the International Astronomical Union (IAU) sure believes that it is important. Their reasoning seems to be that there should be some base on which planets should be called planets. Pluto does not conform to the basis that they have formed and so, should be relegated to a lower classification. Sounds good, that is, until we read the comments of other astronomers. The criterion that Pluto has missed is that a planet must have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit i.e., there should not be any other big land mass around it. Pluto orbit overlaps with that of Neptune and thereby it has been concluded that Pluto has not cleared its orbit. Just a sec.... doesn't that also mean that Neptune hasn’t cleared its orbit? I am also not sure of what they classify as clearing the neighbourhood. Does that mean that the planet should not even have satellites? In that case wouldn't most planets (Pardon my lack of knowledge, it could as well be "all the planets") lose their 'planet' status?
Checkout the comments section here. Some really funny comments.
Samples:
"I understand that the Plutonians are to downgrade Earth as they have realised from watching the situation in Lebanon that there are no signs of intelligent life here."
"George W Bush: ...does this mean I can push the button now to destroy Pluto? Because I'm running out of Earthling sites."

Am back

2006-08-23T11:26:00.000-04:00

It has been the longest break that I have given to my blog. I guess the main culprit has been laziness, but I do have few things to put the blame on. Firstly the work schedule over the past month has not been very kind. The good part is that I am learning a lot; the bad part is that I have been consoling myself with this "learning" part for a long time now. The second blame-taker is the blockage of blogging in office. While spending the better part of my 24 hours in office, where else can I blog from?
So what have I missed blogging? Well, may be the review of the one solitary novel that I managed to complete in this period; maybe my views on the cricketing events which are actually happening outside the cricketing grounds; may be my irritation at the office-of-profit bill and the 27% you-know-what. Whatever, it is not that anything would have changed by my blogs. The only thing that has been missed is the nice feeling that I get out of venting my thoughts and feelings. Hopefully I will be back to blogging regularly, though the frequency of the regularity might be less.

Football Mania

2006-07-04T07:41:00.000-04:00

With most of my predictions going haywire in the quarterfinals, I have started appreciating the game more. I have always loved the unpredictability of sports, and football is showing me its own version of the phenomena.
Over the past few weeks the general discussion topic anywhere is football. It is quite interesting to note that a cricket crazy country has something that would eclipse the Indian team's victory in the Caribbean. Yes, not many are talking about the Indian cricket team's victory, and the event that they are discussing does not have India participating! Is football really that attracting that people are wooed towards it? Or does it have to do with mere exhibition of knowledge in different sports? I don't know about other places, but atleast in Chennai it could just be attributed to the lack of transmission of the cricket match. In effect, the set-top box issue is popularising football

Ministers on Media

2006-06-21T00:08:00.000-04:00

Something that has been catching my attention recently is the airtime that some ministers get on news channels. No, I am not talking about Mr. Dhayanidhi Maran's daily appearance in Sun TV. Some ministers keep doing/ saying something or the other that the channels cannot afford to miss. Take Mr. Anbumani Ramadoss for example. He has bee in the news regularly be it for creating controversies with AIIMS or asking celebrities not to endorse for colas or banning smoking on the big screen. Though I can't agree with most of his moves I have to accept that he is being active. At least I can change my idea that ministers would spend all their time either sleeping or executing some scam.
Scam reminds me of another minister who is a favourite of the media. Mr. Lalu Yadav's name used to be in the news for the fodder scam, but is now there as a brand of fodder. NDTV says

"Farmers insist that cattle chewing on Lalu fodder give milk that's much sweeter than before"

Seems Lalu and fodder are inseparable words. What has been separable is the minister's bad reputation at work. Lalu now ranks high in the surveys conducted on ministers. Financial express says

"Lalu Yadav’s performance in Railways has been rated high. Improving finances while protecting consumers through productivity increases in wagon loading and turnaround time reveals the scope for replication"

Well talking about ministers’ appearances on TV, it has been some time since Mr. Arjun Singh made an appearance. Wonder what he is up to!

Indian Railways – Catering To Techno Clients

2006-06-19T02:43:00.000-04:00

IRCTC seems to have adopted internet pretty well (Check: Business Line). I have booked some of my tickets through the railways site and it is definitely very comfortable given that the ticket booking office was a good one hour from my place in Indore. Though the service is good, there is still scope for improvement. Few things that I can think of are
a) Provide a facility to book the to-and-fro tickets together. This would save half of the couriering cost (in case of 'i-tickets') as both tickets can be sent together. This saving when passed on to the passengers becomes very tempting.
b) Reduce the charge for e-ticketing. Why should a person pay Rs.25 extra when (s)he is actually saving the time of the reservation person? I can accept the charge for 'i-ticket' as the ticket has to be couriered in that case. But in 'e-ticket' the user simply takes a print-out of the ticket and uses it.

Still I am not taking the credit away from IRCTC. Their internet based services is a job well done. Checkout the following
http://irctc.co.in

http://indianrail.gov.in/
http://www.trainenquiry.com/
http://indianrail.gov.in/other_rly_sites.html

Deal At The Uppermost Level

2006-06-16T08:35:00.000-04:00

TOI says that the Daily Times newspaper

advised that Islamabad could "cut a deal" with New Delhi if it thinks it can influence the choice of the new secretary general

I seriously wonder what would be the purpose of colluding in fielding a person for the Nations Secretary General's post. Does this mean that the UN secretary general can do 'favours' for the countries fielding him?

Interesting, Inspiring, Indian

2006-06-14T05:56:00.000-04:00

Down-to-earth and Patrician are words that stand out in both the articles.

Hope you would enjoy reading them as much as I did.

http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501060619/tata.html

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2006/
mayjun/features/premji.html

The Minister's Request

2006-06-12T03:14:00.000-04:00

Union Health Minister Anbumani has listed some of the problems caused by carbonated beverages and has asked celebrities not to endorse the products. Just wondering... If the minister really knows that the drinks are injurious to health, then he can ban them. Otherwise he should just allow the drinks to be sold and advertised the way they are doing currently. Why should a minister take an intermediate route - allowing the drinks to be sold but raising his voice over celebrities endorsing them? The minister's concern is more on the endorsement rather than the drinks themselves. One more minister into a publicity stunt?

Mittal Vs. Arcelor – A Strategy Lesson

2006-05-26T06:26:00.000-04:00

The Mittal-Arcelor entanglement is a wonderful case of business strategy. Look at it this way. The steel industry is undergoing tremendous amount of consolidation. Both Mittal steel and Arcelor have been involved in mergers and acquisitions to build their potential. At this stage, how does one steel manufacturer get an upper hand over his rival? One way is to make sure that the competitor does not buy more firms. How to do that? Well, make sure the rival's money is tied up somewhere else so that he does not possess the financial muscle power to buy more companies. How is that possible, you ask? Look at what Mittal has done.
Mittal’s takeover bid on Arcelor would succeed only if a percentage of Arcelor's stock holders sell their shares to Mittal. So Arcelor's management is left thinking over ways to make the share holders happy with the current management. They give dividends and sport a friendly face, while at the same time erode their cash reserves. No more cash reserves - no more consolidation. How cheeky?
If that is some strategy by Mittal, then look at Arcelor's new strategy. Forget convincing your share holders not to sell and just make them a minority. If they are a minority then their intention to sell stocks wouldn't hit the management. How to do that again? This is how Company A takes over company S. Of the newly formed company A1, S's management is given a substantial stake with the agreement that they wouldn't succumb to M's offer. Now A's former stock holders become a minority though their wealth actually increases. Nice strategy, right? Except for one glitch. The takeover of Severstall has to be approved by 50% of Arcelor's share holders, and they seem to be getting greedy over Mittal's offer (Check: Arcelor shareholders urge Mittal talks)
Too much of strategy? I feel not. After all we have not considered the possibility that Mittal is genuinely interested in Arcelor

Reservations - Why not?

2006-05-24T07:01:00.000-04:00

The immediate effect of the reservation issue seems to be the split of our society based on caste (Check: Split in IMA over quota issue. Let me not get into debating directly on whether the quota system is good or bad. Let me assume that it is something to be implemented (though I definitely am in support of the notion against it). If reservation is to be implemented in the top institutes of India, I believe the politicians would be fair enough in implementing it in all layers of education.
I have heard that some of the top tier colleges in India shred the students who form the bottom few percentile of academics every year. I am not sure of this but let me assume that it is true. Then that means that reservation has to be introduced even for the students being left-off every year. If suppose a college of 300 students leaves 1% of its students every year. That means that 3 students have to be made to discontinue their course each year. If we implement the 50% reservation system here, that would translate to 1.5 students of the reserved category being thrown off. As is obvious, half a student cannot be dismissed. Since 50% has to be implemented, the number of "reserved" seats would be approximated on the upper side and so would be 2.That means that exactly 2 students of the reserved category would be sent home every year. Right? Well, not exactly. In the admission reservations, the high-scoring candidates are let-in on general category and only those who could not fare that way are shown the reservation option (hearsay and not something that I can prove). So even in the reservation for people to be dismissed, the lowest scorer would automatically take the general category slot to be thrown-out i.e., a minimum of 2 reserved guys would be shown the door. How does that sound? If it sounds bad to you, then I suggest that you re-look at the whole reservation issue.

Confusing Code

2006-05-18T01:54:00.000-04:00

It is a bit confusing. If the church is against the Da Vinci Code, then the book should have been banned in the first place. When the book, which would definitely be more detailed than the movie (See: Code is damned at Cannes), is allowed to reach everyone, then why is the movie being held-up? The movie seems to have no problem in Europe and the US where the majority of people are Christians. Why is there such a hue and cry only in India? I read somewhere that the only Christian country in Asia is the Philippines, and that the movie has not been banned there.
It is even more bizarre to ask for a disclaimer to be put at he beginning and end of the movie. I have never understood the purpose of disclaimers. Once in an interview, Shekhar Kapoor was asked about the issues he faced with the censor board for his movie "Bandit Queen". Shekhar said that he was asked to put a disclaimer in the movie stating that it is not a true story, and he did not mind putting it as people already knew that it was a true story! May be the disclaimers are there just to point to historians that the story is not to be cited anywhere
The only reason I see the movie being protested against is that children might learn history in the wrong way (or is that the right way?) through the movie. But then, to my knowledge, the movie has been ‘A’ rated and so is out of “harming” children.

Trading Secrets - Book Review

2006-05-17T00:49:00.000-04:00

A Wall Street journalist, a broker, and a scandal - it's a one line story that is given even at the back of the book. The interesting part though is the narration of the author who happens to be the journalist involved in the scandal. Imagine a villain of a story scripting it himself!

Foster Winans, the author of the book, is a Wall Street journalist who is pulled into a scandal by Peter Brant, a stock broker. The plot is simple - Foster is to inform Peter on the article that he would write the next day in the journal. The stock market is a very sensitive animal that changes its mood heavily on good or bad news. So articles in a reputed journal like the Wall Street would make it swing by enough magnitude for a broker to make huge profits. It was a nice plan i.e., until the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) thought otherwise.

The novel is pretty nice and takes us through the lives of two distinct personalities. Foster's story of graduating from a small time column writer into becoming a well known face in Wall Street is nice. But the more interesting part, atleast to me, is the story of Peter Brant. This person was so much indulged at becoming a rich man that he started living the life of the rich even when he was poor, though loans. He dressed rich, learnt only those games that the rich play (golf, polo and the like), and even changed his name to suit his profile. Peter rose from very humble beginnings to become a leading Wall Street broker, so much so that his firm placed ads in papers with his photo.

Quite similar to "Liar's Poker" this book takes us through the rise and fall of people in the Wall Street. "Trading Secrets" is a good read for its narration, for showing the making of a top notch broker, and more than all of these, for showing the pains felt while being involved in a scandal.

(T)Axing Me

2006-05-13T07:08:00.000-04:00

It is nice to see election promises coming to effect (Check Source). But why should the rice scheme come to effect on the CM's birthday? For heaven's sake, my contribution as tax is more in that scheme than his! Ok, I guess that’s just my frustration coming out. After having paid a cool amount as tax every month last year, I still lost the whole of my March month's salary. To make things worse, 1/3rd of my April month's pay was deducted as tax spill over. May be that justifies my negative feelings on hearing politicians announcing freebies as though it comes out of their own pocket.

Freedom of Speech

2006-05-12T04:50:00.000-04:00

An actor viewed her opinion on women -> Some people agitated -> Newspapers blamed them for blocking the actor's freedom of speech

Sehwag viewed his opinion on the Ganguly issue -> The cricket board has warned him (Reference)
If my memory serves right, even Harbhajan and yuvraj have been warned earlier on similar issues.

Where is the freedom of speech now? Does the cricket board own the players' freedom of speech? Personally, I don't think Sehwag's comments would harm the board in any way.

Tag - Simple Pleasures of Life

2006-04-29T07:40:00.000-04:00

Tagged by Swas. I have been avoiding tags for sometime now, but this is a topic that I would like to write about.

Ten Simple Pleasures of life, not in any particular order

1) Hearing nice soothing music. As the new Airtel ad says, this is a "Nation that loves Music"

2) Making someone happy

3) Doing my own stuff like washing and ironing clothes. Though these activities are not pleasureful while performing, I like it when everything is done and I look back and feel happy about being self reliant

4) Coming back from jogging and taking pleasure from the fact that it was one of those days when I wasn't lazy

5) Hearing from/Meeting old friends

6) Solving a cryptic crossword clue or, for that matter, any puzzle

7) Someone praising my work

8) Sitting back and thinking over the difference between life 10 years back and now

9) Being in the last few pages of reading a big book and cherishing the sight of the finish line

10) Going home

What do they mean now?

2006-04-25T02:42:00.000-04:00

Few incidents in the recent past have made me wonder about the meaning of our activities in life.

Some of my class-mates used to copy in most exams in college. One of them has recently quit his job and is entering the enterpreneurial world (Since there are quite a few who have done this, I hope the name of this particular person would stay anonymous). I just wonder how the copying in college exams has helped him. Even if we accept that some companies do shortlist candidates based on marks, enterpreneurship definitely doesn't count marks for anything. So, what is the net result of the unethical practices adopted during exams? I believe it is nothing. Or maybe they have a negative impact in that the person's class-mates who could currently be in influential positions might not be able to place trust on the person.

Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were locked in heavy tension last year because of the RajKumar kidnapping issue. Same time this year, neither Veerappan nor RajKumar exist. Just the people who suffered the tension because of them exist. Would "Irony" be a better word for the situation?

Polemic Poll Promises

2006-04-21T07:26:00.000-04:00

When the political parties of TamilNadu gave their election promises, I felt something positive about them despite the promises sounding unrealistic. From weeks of playing the blame game, the parties at last started to market on their potential, if I can call that, rather than on the other party’s weaknesses. But then, the theme of their propaganda seems to have reverted this week. If last week's theme was "Poll Promises", then this week's theme is "Who broke the promise first". It is once again the same age old blame game with the parties saying, "They broke their previous election’s promise". Unfortunately no one is able to claim, "... and we haven't broken ours".

Thinking about it, isn't breaking a promise equivalent to cheating? Then why not make the politicians legally bound to their promises? Afterall they do swear in front of big audiences on their poll promises. I understand that the parties might end-up passing the buck to the externalities involved in implementing any policy change. But let them fight it out in the courts rather than taking comfort at the fact that their promises are currently written on thin air.

Books...

2006-04-20T04:13:00.000-04:00

Few lines on the recent books that I read

Alchemist - This was a book that cried to move out of my pending list. Atlast! I laid my hands on it and it turned to be one of the fastest books I have completed till date. Simple language, nice story and less number of pages. The book is good, but I'm somehow not able to relate it to my life as most people seem to claim.

Foucault's Pendulum - If Alchemist was one the simplest books that I've read, then FP was at the other end of the spectrum. I crawled through 100 pages with a part of mind begging to close the book and the other half raising hope that the book might have something later-on that I might miss. But sense prevailed and I've dropped the book. I'm not sure if the culprit lay in the original script or in the translation from Italian to English. Either way, it is definitely not my kind of a read. Wikipedia says, "It is full of obscure esoteric facts about things like Kabbalah, alchemy, and conspiracy theory. The novel is an encyclopedic work, with critic and novelist Anthony Burgess suggesting that it needed an index" (Ref). I agree.

Principles Put To Sleep

2006-04-18T05:25:00.000-04:00

Karthick was feeling uncomfortable. He was one of the many software engineers who alternate between Chennai and Bangalore on weekends owing to different work and home locations. He was used to planning his trips early and travelling by train comfortably, that is, until this time. Karthi's ticket was waitlisted for this journey and ended up becoming RAC on the day of travel. The price paid for being lethargic at planning was sharing a seat with another passenger.
The ticket collector came at around 11:00 pm and said that he can allocate a berth to Karthi only after checking for vacant seats. Karthi waited eagerly for the TC to return back and allot him a seat. There was a berth free in Karthi's bay and Karthi wanted to just get on it and catch some sleep. Time was passing painfully slowly and there was no sign of the TC. Karthi decided to board the free berth and rest till the TC came back. It was 12:30 am when Karthi woke up to the TC's call.
Karthi: "This berth is free. Can you please confirm my ticket for this berth?"
TC: "Sure. You need to pay a small amount for it"
K: "Pay? I guess you have mistaken. I have a ticket in RAC. I just want it confirmed"
TC: "Yes, but you need to pay for it. Nothing much, just Rs.50"
Karthi was shaken out of his half-asleep mode by the TC's “nothing-great” attitude towards asking for a bribe. He took his bag and moved out of the berth. Karthi woke up the person with whom he was sharing the seat earlier and requested him to sit. When Karthi explained the TC's demand for money, the other person gave Karthi an irate look and turned towards the TC. He argued with the TC for few seconds and then thrust 20 Rupees on his hands and left for the free berth with an askew look at Karthi as if to say, "Can't you afford Rs.20? Why the hell did you wake me up for this?"
Though Karthi was taken back by the behaviour of his fellow passenger, he had another dilemma at hand. Now that there was no one to share the seat with, can Karthi sleep in the free seat? Or will it be against his principles for which he had left the other berth?
Karthi’s brain was functioning slowly due to lack of sleep and he decided to think over his decision the next morning...... as he stretched into a full sleeping pose on the seat.

Srirangapatna

2006-04-16T05:18:00.000-04:00

Srirangapatna is the neighbouring district of Mandya. Sri-Ranga-Patnam gets its name from the famous Ranganathar temple in the town.
Srirangapatna is one of the Pancharanga Kshetras in the course of the river Kaveri. The other four are Srirangam near Tiruchirappalli, Tiruvindalur near Mayiladuturai, Kumbhakonam and Koyiladi near Tiruchirappalli all in Tamilnadu, along the Kaveri as the river meanders in an easterly direction. Srirangapatna is also known as Aadi Rangam, Srirangam as Antha Rangam and Sivasamudram in Karnataka as Madhyarangam.(Ref)

History has Srirangapatna as the capital of Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali. The town has now turned into a tourist center. I could see bunches of people here and there circling foreign tourists. May be it is the "Athithi devo bhava" mentality.

Ranganathaswamy Temple

A Glance of the Fort

Sceneries on the Way

Maddur

2006-04-03T04:03:00.000-04:00

Maddur is a town part of the Mandya district, which is about 90 kms from Bangalore in the Mysore-Bangalore highway. I couldn't help but notice the numerous colleges in Mandya. There was a college per 2 minutes of drive. Anyways, our destination was the Narasimha Swamy temple.

Ugra Narasimha Swamy Temple

Frescoes on the Inner Walls of the Temple

Ugra Narasimha Swamy Temple - Side View From Inside

Ramar Temple

Some Info (copied from http://deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb052004/metro12.asp):

Maddur is also referred to as Arjunapuri after a legend from the Mahabharatha, according to which Arjuna once requested Krishna to display the Ugra Narasimha avatara. Krishna felt the avatara would be too powerful to see directly and created the image in stone. The temple of Ugra Narasimha is an example of architectural splendour. The seven-ft tall image of Narasimha in shining black stone, with eight hands and three eyes, slaying Hiranyakashipu and wearing his viscera as a garland is fearful indeed. There are numerous shrines in the temple complex and the inner walls are decorated with attractive frescoes. The sculptures in the temple are also in fine shape, a reflection of the craftsmanship and skill of the creators.

Mysore Trip - Doddamallur

2006-04-02T03:53:00.000-04:00

Couple of weeks back (18th and 19th of March) we went on a trip to Mysore. More than Mysore itself, the places on the way were very interesting. I'll post some of the photos in the next few blogs.

Let us start with Doddamallur.
The Ramaprameya swamy temple of Doddamallur is on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, about 60 kms from Bangalore.

Temple Gopuram

Sculptures in the Gopuram

Temple Side View

Purandaradasa Mandapam at the Entrance

Some info (copied from http://www.doddamallur.com/topography.htm):

Legend has it that Lord Rāma stayed here, in Dakshina Ayodhya, for many years and during this time, he worshipped Lord Aprameya. Hence Lord Aprameya is also known as Srirāmāprameya. Lord Rāma also performed Homams and other rituals in this place and even to this day, there are remnants of the structures where he conducted the Yagnams.

The specialty of the temple is it is standing on sand and not on any solid foundation. It appears from the style of construction of the temple, that it was expanded during the regimes of certain kings who ruled Mallur in the past.

Facing the Rajagopuram, is the Purandaradasa Mantapam, a tribute to the composer of the famous krithi “Jagadoddharana Adisidalu Yashoda” which immortalizes his ecstasy on seeing the Navaneetha Krishna here, for generations to come

B-School Entrance Interview Experience

2006-03-28T05:29:00.000-05:00

A look at Balaji's B-school interview experience reminded me of my own interview few years back.

My interview happened in IIMB, and I reached the institute at 12:00 pm for a 2:30 pm GD. As it turned out, the previous batches of GDs were running late and the place was full of people who were tensely awaiting their interviews. Couple of them even said that they did not get much of a chance to speak in the fish market (It is another matter that they made it in the end and were my batch-mates for two years). So I was there just listening to the people awaiting their interviews and those who had completed their interviews. I was a bit tensed hearing that some of them were questioned on microprocessors and stuff which I had long forgotten.
My GD started quite late but I was by that time acclimatized to the environment. I had spoken to most people outside the GD and had a feel of everyone's background. Our GD topic was a case study. It was nice case with personal and professional dilemmas covered well. I spoke to my satisfaction making enough points and not being too aggressive. We were asked to wait outside the GD room and the interviewers started calling us one by one. At the sight of every single person coming out of the hall, I would get ready hoping it would be my turn. But I was the last person to be called in. While the interview of the person before me happened, I kept wondering why I was left to be the last. I consoled myself saying that the interviewers might have been overwhelmed by my GD performance and probably want to spend more time with me. Yep, I am a positive thinker!
When I took my seat in front of the interviewers the first question that came my way was, "Why do you think you were called the last?" Surprise, surprise, I had my answer ready. "Sir, I am not sure but it could be because you liked my GD performance and wished to spend more time with me in the interview". All three of the interviewers started laughing. One of them asked me, "Is this the answer that they teach you at the coaching centers?" "No sir, it's just a thought of mine"
The interviewers started taking turns then on. The first person questioned me purely on telecom concepts like PABX, ADSL and exchanges. As it was my forte (then!) I answered with full confidence. The second interviewer questioned on current affairs. Questions were on the Iraq issue, Cauvery issue, GK stuff like countries in more than one continent etc. The only blooper in there was that I said that Krishna water (instead of Cauvery) was the major problem between Karnataka and TN.
The most interesting questions of the lot came from the third interviewer who questioned in spirituality. His first question was, "Tell me a sloka from Bhagavad-Gita". My brain went blank. I couldn't remember any sloka and said that openly. But the interview kept on forcing me to remember some sloka and even pointed to the many certificates that I had received in school in Gita recital competitions. Luckily, I did manage to remember one sloka and felt relieved. As they say, every answer in an interview is a source of a new question. The interviewer wanted the meaning of the sloka, the context of it and my beliefs on what the Gita preached. We diverged into other topics like my belief of life that gave me enough room to use my creativity. In the end I left the interview hall content on my performance.

Alcatel in News

2006-03-24T03:31:00.000-05:00

Alcatel and Lucent are planning a merger again (Check the News). This news takes me few years back in the memory lane when the talks happened before. It was 2001, the year of the recession. Both Alcatel and Lucent had descended from the high levels that they had seen earlier and were doing pretty bad. The main topic of discussion in office used to be the fall in share prices of the companies, and how the fall of one of them was much more than the other. The company that fell the most paid it's employees twice of what the better-off company was paying. I'm still not sure if they planned a merger or a take-over then. But the end result was the calling off of the merger with rumours that Alcatel demanded more people in the management than Lucent, while Lucent looked at it as a merger of equals.
Anyways, things are different now. The economy is booming and so is the telecom sector. Alcatel is posting good results and Lucent is also improving. This seems to be the period of mergers and acquisitions and this deal might also happen.

A coincidence - I came across another news article on Alcatel today. Alcatel has got a contract from BSNL. But the interesting part of the news comes from the statement,
"BSNL has made it mandatory for the bidders to set up a local unit either on
their own or through contract manufacturers who already have a base in
India"

Once again, this reminds me of the past - 2002 to be specific. It was then that Alcatel started "Alcatel Shanghai Bell". According to the company's website, "Alcatel Shanghai Bell is the first foreign invested company limited by
shares in China’s telecommunications industry. It was born through the
integration between the former Shanghai Bell and Alcatel’s key business units in
China."

Back then there were apprehensions in the Indian unit of Alcatel that A-S Bell was set-up to take advantage of the cheap Chinese labour, which might result in layoffs in India. The fears were allayed by the news that A-S bell targeted only Chinese clients and was setup because there was some rule that the Chinese contracts could be given only to companies that had some base in China. Now, does that sound familiar?

Strategy?

2006-03-17T08:25:00.000-05:00

I found similar sentences in the past few post-listing strategies given by ICICI DIRECT. I'm copy pasting one from the strategy given for Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services ,

"short-term investors who have got an allotment may consider booking profits on listing at around Rs 240. Long-term investors may continue to hold the stock"

Where is the strategy in this? Isn't this the definition of short-term and long-term investors?

Still Me

2006-03-15T23:01:00.000-05:00

When a child's blunder
evoked mental thunder
A voice came so slender
"It's ok. He is still tender"

When things went bad
Making me feel sad
A voice uttered, "Don't be mad;
There are other thoughts to make you feel glad"

When misunderstanding mounted
Even those akin shouted
Then a voice reminded
These are people who really counted
Their anger is just to be discounted

The inner voice that spoke
Does make the thought evoke
Regardless of the outer cloak
It's still I rewriting my own horoscope

Locus of Control

2006-03-11T02:30:00.000-05:00

I wanna wakeup early everyday
But endup having no time to even pray
Who's the person behind this play?

All my rage, I wanna erase
All souls, I wanna embrace
But somehow anger keeps showing its face
Who's behind this disgrace?

In all work I wanna be sincere
But can't help but build some arrear
Who's behind this scheduling failure?

Into these questions I poke
A thought does evoke
Regardless of the outer cloak
It's I who rewrites my own horoscope

Alliances

2006-03-06T06:48:00.000-05:00

The news of V joining hands with J has been the highlight of newspapers and channels in the past few days. After opposing J for so many years, after being arrested by her government under POTA, after cursing her even last week, V has joined with J.
For a minute let us forget whether the goals of their parties match (as if people actually match goals before making alliances). Let us forget if it makes sense to their political beliefs. Let us appraise the alliance merely by a political standpoint assuming that the sole intention is to win in the election. Does the alliance make sense now? Definitely not. What have these guys achieved? Let me draw a parallel for this scenario with the job hunting scenario. If suppose a guy has switched jobs very recently and gets an even better offer. What will be the major deterrents in his taking the offer? a) His resume would start looking bad with too many switches in too less a time - losing the confidence of future takers b) He wouldn't be able to make another switch immediately. This means that the guy has to spend a considerable amount of time with the new company. What does this give to the new company? A very strong hold. The new company can make the guy work like hell as it knows that he doesn't have any move to play for some time. This would be the same case with V. knowing that he can't go back to his previous alliance, J can dictate terms here. I bet V wouldn't get as many seats in J's alliance as he was about to get in the previous alliance. I just wonder how V missed noticing this big a goof-up.

On a lighter note, I see 2 new theories evolving from this extremely surprising move in the TN political scenario.

a) V's theory of relative attraction:
A political party's attraction towards an alliance is directly proportional to the number of seats allocated by the major party in the alliance to the prospective party, and is independent of prior relationships held with same or other alliances.

b) J's theory of black hole:
All parties, irrespective their past (including yesterday), will be absorbed by the black hole that is called the acquiring party
I) if the prospective alliance party exhibits friction in its current position/ alliance
II) definitely if the combining party is willing to have no will of its own

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

2006-02-27T05:34:00.000-05:00

The cover of the book says "Soon to be a major motion picture" but I have no idea how. Ninety percent of MSF (I will use the abbreviation of "Monk Sold Ferrari" as the abbreviation of the full title is pretty long) is the conversation between 2 persons on a single night. I can't imagine how a motion picture could be made of a conversation.

The gist of the story (not much of it anyways) is that a highly successful lawyer gets tired of his life and goes to India to understand his purpose of life. After many years, he returns to the west to pass-on his learning to his former colleague and friend. This is what the first 10 pages of the book have, and the rest is pure preachy stuff.

MSF is a book full of advice on how to lead a balanced life. Instead of giving direct advices as in spiritual books, Robin Sharma has adopted the story approach wherein the advice seems to go from one character to another. Somehow all the things in the book seem way too familiar. May be because I've listened to innumerous tales of wisdom since childhood. Or may be because my mind is blocked with the view that I know more about India than some foreign_firstname_Indian_lastname guy who wants to make money by using the fame of his ethnicity (baseless accusation; it’s just my feeling and might not be the fact).

MSF is not a book that I enjoyed, but it is neither something that I detest. I liked the book in parts and especially some of the phrases that sounded good. The one liked the most is
"The purpose of life is a life of purpose"
There are more like
"The best time to plant a tree was 40 years ago
The next best time is now"
If you are a person like me who likes quotes, then go ahead with the book. If you are a person who is not able differentiate between the words "life" and "work", then go ahead with it. But if you are not in any of these 2 categories, and have some other interesting book to do, then MSF could be safely bypassed. I read it only to satisfy my curiosity over hearing its name in many places. Well, curiosity could only kill my time

Are you Educated?

2006-02-23T06:12:00.000-05:00

They keep their cubicle clean and
Dirty the streets

They walk with grace in their work place and
Barge through people in the trains

They tip the waiter in hundreds in front of friends and
Feel happy bargaining for a single Rupee with the grocery vendors

They remark "How unclean this country is" and
Just contribute to the dirtiness of their environment

They give lectures on how to improve India and
Evade from paying their taxes

These are the uneducated literates.

Checkout Swas explaining the difference between literacy and education .

Also, if you can read Tamil, checkout Pradeep’s view on people being dishonest and producing false rent receipts to evade taxes.

Bollywood - Believing the Legal System?

2006-02-21T03:10:00.000-05:00

I wrote sometime back that there is no news on the Salman Khan case and he seems to have evaded justice using his contacts. As the justice department has proved, I was wrong. The Bollywood star has been sentenced for a year of imprisonment. Justice prevails? May be; May be not. Industry experts opine "Salman will go in appeal against the judgement and the matter will drag for years together" (Source: Hindustan Times)

Couple of things that bother me -
1) The "confidence" shown by the industry experts on our judicial system
2) The fact that new movies were started with Salman when the case was still in court

I hope no one would object when I say that films are nothing but another form of business. Like any business, the motive behind films is to make profits. Like any business, the people behind films will play their cards with market sentiments in mind. Then why, unlike other business minded people, did these people put their money over disputed property? I'm no big Bollywood buff, but I can see around that Salman is not the brightest star around. The why bet on him given that he has a court case that might prevent him from acting in the movie?
Confidence in our legal system? Or confidence in the power of money?

Killer Serials and Pleasureful Ads

2006-02-15T01:47:00.000-05:00

It's a fate that most Chennai youngsters might be facing. It irritates me but I can't avoid it. The devil called mega-serial haunts me every evening. I can't help it because the elders of the home prefer to watch it, and because the sound doesn't die when I close the door of my room. There are few things about these mega-killers that puzzle me
1) Why should people face only bad situations in mega serials?
1a) How does the bad period sustain over hundreds of episodes/ many years?
2) Why should the hero of every serial be a lady?
3) Why should these serials be named mostly with some sort of relationship - chitthi, appa, kanavan, manaivi et al?
I guess as the relationships get exhausted Tamil viewers will get to watch onnu-vitta-tambi, naathanaar magan etc.
4) Why are the police always cruel in serials?
5) Most important of all, how do these mega borers sustain interest with the ladies of the family after being so insipid?

Trying to divert my mind of these serials, I've been trying to concentrate more on solving Sudoku puzzles while they run on TV. Has it been of help? Yes and No. Yes because I'm not getting irritated at the serials as I don't see them. No because the audio still gets into my brain though not registering at that moment of time.

While gleefully watching advertisements in-between these serials I noticed something interesting. In-between all the Tamil ads, there is one fully English ad, that too in such a way that people don't actually notice that the ad hasn't been translated. It is the Hero Honda 'Pleasure' ad with the catch phrase "Why should boys have all the fun?"
http://www.magindia.com/adweek/awkdisp.html?2006/03feb/06.jpg

Things that interested me in the ad are
1) The only fully English ad in a Tamil channel
2) Clear targeting - girls
3) Kindling the complex of girls feeling that boys get more enjoyment in life. The ad makes a statement here.
4) Ofcourse, the ad looks good
5) Cool background score

A pleasure to watch something "feel-good" amidst the sad serials.

On Wings of Eagles

2006-02-09T03:28:00.001-05:00

"On Wings of Eagles" (OWOE) is a real life story that feels like a fiction novel. My guess is that the author of the novel, Ken Follett, has introduced some amount of exaggeration/addition into the events to dramatize the whole sequence. Anyways, even if that is the case, it has only added to the attractiveness of the book.

The background of the story goes like this. EDS, one of the world's oldest IT outsourcing companies, was doing a project for the government of Iran. The government ran out of money to pay EDS and the company halted its work. Couple of EDS' top executives are arrested by the government in a bid to make EDS continue the project (A good example of game theory?). EDS' head Ross Perot uses his influence and network to try and get his men out of Iran, but the political turmoil in the government make his attempts fail. Ross then decides to take a big gamble by sending a group of men, lead by an ex-army general, to rescue the 2 prisoners by any means. For the rest of the story, I suggest reading the book.

The book has a good fiction-like real life story, a peek into the politics of the 1970s both in Iran and in the USA, and nice narration except for the parts where Follett goes into explaining the personalities of each character. I got a bit bored with the superfluous details in the descriptions. One other thing that I couldn't bear with is the excess adulation of Ross Perot. Something tells me that the novel would have been sponsored by him I can't believe that a capitalist could go to the extent of gambling his company and himself for the sake of two of his employees. The events in the novel were too much dependant on lady luck, but I guess most real life events could be attributed to just being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time.

The novel is called "On Wings of Eagles" as the employees (or just the high-flyers?) of EDS are called Eagles. It seems the novel came as a story -> IMDB Ofcourse, the novel has all the ingredients of a typical US army-based movie.

Revenge

2006-02-06T04:18:00.000-05:00

J was known to be a calm person. He seldom fought over anything. It's been years since he hurt any of his enemies. But his enemies were always looking for an opportunity to strike. The enemies were intent at striking J while he was asleep, but that was not quite possible as J had his body guard on patrol whenever he went to sleep. However on Saturday the 4th of February J slept without putting his body guard in action. The blood thirsty enemies saw their opportunity and started attacking J. J couldn't get up and the pain caused by his enemies was increasing every minute. After hours of resistance and struggle J raised. He had enough of suffering. He wanted his enemies to suffer; to die. Then started a half-an-hour battle. Well, it wasn't exactly a battle as it was only J who was attacking. The enemies flew to all corners and tried to hide. J was intent on getting them out of their hide-outs and killing them. Yes, he was merciless. There was blood all over his hands and the only trace of his enemies seemed to be their lifeless bodies lying around. Tired of the battle, and with the content of destroying his enemies, J went to sleep. He was about to get into his dreams when the sensation ran to his brain. "Aaaaaaaa", he shouted. "Another mosquito? shucks. How can I get rid of all of them?" He once again activated his body-guard - "All Out".

A Small Step

2006-02-01T04:02:00.000-05:00

An update on the Choices blog is that I couldn't go to the temple last week, and I didn't find any wrong parking yesterday. Sounds as if I'm just finding a reason? May be the incident below might change that perception.

Yesterday there were too many lights switched on in our office reception area. My estimate is that there were about 20 lights of many sorts - tube lights, focus lights et al. May be I would have marvelled at their beauty and brightness on an evening. But on a typical Chennai noon? The reception was well illuminated with sunlight, and it was so bright that the other lights looked like plain orange balls and white rods (The mere fact of having both orange and white lights in the same place by itself disturbs me). The power that these lights were consuming was enormous. On a rough estimate, assuming that the focus lights are 5 times powerful than a normal 60W bulb itself makes the power wastage substantial enough to cause concern.

When I sat at my desk thinking about this, I received a forward from a friend on saving power. I couldn’t control cribbing to him about the power wastage our office. His enthusiasm made us meet the security person at the reception.

Me: Why are there so many lights on?
Security Person: There is a client visit
Me: So, why do we have so many lights on?
Security: glares
Me: We are wasting too much power
Security: Client visit
Me: The client would think that we are idiots to have this many lights on when it is already so bright here
Security: Sheepish smile
No use talking to him. My colleague and I went for a tea break and discussed on what could be done. We once again went to the security person and got to know that someone from the admin team had asked for the lights to be switched on. We called the admin help-desk.

Colleague : Why are there so many lights on in the reception?
Admin person : What is the problem?
Colleague : We are wasting lot of power
Admin person : Silence
Colleague : We should switch of some of the lights
Admin person : Are the lights causing inconvenience to you?
Me: No, but we are concerned that we are wasting so much of power without any use
Admin person : ok. Please give me your name. I'll follow it up.

The lights were still on when I saw them in the evening. I understand that there was no use of my actions, but at least I'm happy that I took the right step

May be, with someone else at the admin phone, there might have been a change.

Paritrana: A IIT-ians' venture

2006-01-25T01:59:00.000-05:00

Five guys from IITs of which some have done their post-graduation in foreign universities have started a new venture. Going by their backgrounds we would expect the venture to be a highly technical business. But actually, these guys have started a political party. When most people are happy in making money and achieving personal success, these products of India's esteemed colleges have decided to give something back to the society. Well, someone finally felt that cribbing about the political system is not enough and decided to jump into the stream to clean it.

Quoting them from ET, "We are not here for the power game. We are here to deal with the grassroots issues of each and every small village that we come across". Nice motto, nice initiative. Best wishes to them; we do need better people at the helm who would worry more about the country rather than their alliances and ways to win elections.

Choices

2006-01-19T04:05:00.000-05:00

Everyday when I go to the temple the first thing that strikes me is.... not God, not the beauty of the age-old temple, not the fact that the temple has few takers in the mornings. What strikes me is the row of two-wheelers parked in front of the "No Parking" board. I don't know whether to blame it on people's ignorance or on the dusty board that most people wouldn't even notice. The problem created by overlooking the sign-board is that the big vehicles carrying utilities for the temple are blocked from coming near the temple.

The question however is, "What have I done about it?" Every time I see a person park his/her vehicle in the no-parking zone I feel the urge to ask him/her to park it somewhere else, but am always taken back by the fear of facing some ugly words. It is now a regular occurrence of me pausing for a minute, thinking about pointing to the sign-board, rejecting the thought, feeling happy that atleast I'm not one of the rule-breakers, and leaving the place. So why am I writing about it now? Couple of reasons - a) So that I have a better reason (now that I've made things public, my friends would keep asking me if I did the right thing), b) Because I'm wondering whether I'm the right kind of guy to write in Arise,Awake.., a blog intended to make people do their bit in bringing up our society.

Everyday we face simple situations, like the one that I have explained above, which question our role in the society. As SRK said in DDLJ, there are always 2 choices in front of us - one easy but wrong, one tough but right. And as Dumbledore said in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", it is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.