Chola Dynasty

Osthe, not so much.

2011-12-15T15:53:00.001+05:30

Having not seen "Dabangg", I went to see "Osthe" last night. I liked a few songs and given that Santhanam and a few more comedians were present as the hero's sidekicks,it promised to be an entertainer. But the movie failed to live up to my expectations and the hype generated by the makers. The whole movie seemed like a one-on-one competition between the hero and the villain. Villain being named "Boxer Daniel" does not help either.

As in any movie the hero is "pure-at-heart", even if he robs from the villain (bad money, right) and does kill baddies at his will (and not having to explain to any).

Sonu Sood is like "water on a lotus leaf", when it comes to his character and the southern slang. The brother, the heroine, her father are all distractions that could have been done away with. The movie could have been a bigger entertainer had the lead been done by a bigger hero. STR, though tries his best to carry it off, the character seems to be too big for him. Reminds of the days when he used to sing "I am a little star". It is still too early for him to don this very powerful, superhero level stuff, his small frame doing further damage. The shirt ripping (tears all by itself) is almost laughing stuff.

Any successfull movie has a pattern, a formula, where the good fights evil, and despite the shortcomings, manages to win "fair square" or by "hook or crook". But the enmity and tension is built slowly to reach the cresendo only at the end. Here atleast the villain gets to show that he is a bad man and kills a couple of policemen before having to confront the hero. But the hero's prowess are being bragged about by the henchmen even before he makes an entry.

The punch dialogues need a special mention. It is equally irritating to see and hear the same set of dialogues over and over again, as it is to see numerous punch lines being belted out. make you want to punch yourself. It is best to leave Osthe alone. Don't bother the trip to movie hall for this.

Wallpaper Clock in Ubuntu

2011-10-29T15:47:00.002+05:30

I was looking for "ubuntu widgets" to have a clock hanging around in the desktop and stumbled on this. Wallpaper Clock.

It is better to have the whole desktop for a clock rather than a widget. See the screenshot. Note the time. Try it.

Never knew Billroth meant this...

2011-10-19T23:05:00.000+05:30

I have always thought that Billroth was a name, although not very Indian. But as I was reading Edward de Bono's How to have a beautiful mind I came to know that it was a kind of an operation done in stomach. Wonder why an hospital is named after Billroth in Chennai. The following excerpt is from wikipedia.

Billroth II, more formally Billroth's operation II, is an operation in which the lower part of the stomach (antrum) is removed and a loop of small bowel (jejunum) is brought up and joined to it in a (side-to-side manner) for drainage. The surgical procedure is calledgastro jejuno stomy.^[1]^[2]

Fill Cell with Colour in Libre Office - Keyboard Shortcut

2011-10-18T12:03:00.001+05:30

I do a lot of things in LibreOffice Calc and it involves changing background colour of cells. I needed some keyboard short cuts and found it here. Thought might be useful. Press Ctrl+1 to invoke format cells dialogue box. Use Tab or Shift+Tab to navigate. If you use it often it opens in the last tab you left, making it easier to use. Try keyboard short cuts. They make life simple.

Videos for Ipod Touch, IPad in Linux

2011-10-15T14:20:00.001+05:30

Apple may have blocked back porting of its pods and pads but that cannot change me from having Linux as my primary OS. So I use Handbrake to convert them to Apple compatible files (presets available) and use ITunes only to upload these files to my devices. Works great. No hassles. Give it a try.

Restart Numbering in Libre Office

2011-08-26T10:54:00.001+05:30

I was looking every where to restart numbering in Libre Office but could not find it. But it is available in their help page itself. On right click the option shows. But only if it is on the number itself. the link is here.

There is not enough room on the disk to save /tmp/anyname.anyextension.part.-SOLVED

2011-08-11T09:39:00.001+05:30

I received the above error message when trying to open a pdf document in Xubuntu. Ubuntu Forum here solved it for me.

sudo apt-get clean

tada, it's gone and pdf opened.

Compress here option in Dolphin File Manager

2011-08-08T09:42:00.001+05:30

Install "ARK" archive manager in Ubuntu to compress files through right click in Dolphin file manager. Earlier I used to open in Thunar just to compress files in an otherwise Dolphon as default environment.

Ubuntu tweak

2011-04-18T09:05:00.001+05:30

Been getting a long list of headers in boot menu. Did not know how to remove. Then I found this forum which gave a command line option to remove them. However it also had a link to ubuntu-tweak.com which gave an app that solved the problem. It has a lot of other options too which I am still to explore. Try it ppl.

Photography tip - indoor

2011-04-15T00:54:00.000+05:30

Try to deflect the light from flash upwards using a visiting card when shooting pictures indoors. Say a 45 degree angle, and see the results.

One and a half years....

2011-04-06T14:58:00.001+05:30

The last post is on 24th Oct 2009. The next one on 6th April 2011. One and a half years is indeed a long time.

Back after a long hiatus. Look to post more. This time around there will be more about linux.

Automatically insert signature in Evolution in Ubuntu 10.10

2011-04-06T14:34:00.001+05:30

I was having a signature file separately (sign.txt) which I was inserting every time I had to send a mail. I send out emails many times a day and this was proving to be quite a waste of time. Here is how you can automise (?) it. Well I have switched over to Ubuntu and am happy about that. More on that later...

Aadhavan? Asthamanam.

2009-10-24T11:01:00.000+05:30

Don’t. Please don’t get me started. Oh! This is my blog and how could you stop me. Such was the illogical movie Aadhavan is. The movie shows the acting (a - la - fancy dress competition) skills of Surya, at its best. We certainly expect more from KS Ravikumar. No spoilers or anything here. Because there is not going to be a review. This is only a warning.

DO NOT EVER WATCH THIS FILM.

Finally cracked the Wi-Fi encryption

2009-09-21T09:28:00.003+05:30

I know it sounds silly. How can something that's this simple elude me for so long? But it has. I have been having this Wi-Fi router (Belkin) almost forever and was using it as an unsecured network. I still have download limits so wanted to secure the same. Went through the manual and felt like a simple thing to do. But as I enabled encryption it would lock me out. Tried a million times and the same would happen. I'll reset and then try again to the same effect. Went on this way for a couple of years now. Finally I have cracked it.

I entered my pass phrase in a web site to find out what would be my key. I used the key to access my Wi-Fi network. I still don't know if this is how it has to be done. Can anybody clarify?

Mapping the mind of the terrorist and more

2008-09-15T21:55:00.004+05:30

The occurance of bomb blasts in the Indian cities have become common now-a-days, but still shocks us. It shows us that we are vulnerable. The latest in the hit-list being the capital city. The infiltration seems to be very deep. And their networks seem quite impregnable. From the recnt reports they are quite tech savvy as to hack Wi-Fi networks to remain untraceable.

So what exactly happens by these blasts? It kills innocent people, who have nothing to do with whatever is the demands / grievances of the terrorists. It serves as fodder to those politicians not in power to blame those in power, not that they would have done a better job. They are just happy that they are not in power now, but hope to capitalise on this. After all it is the same machinery that is at their disposal.

Why these blasts? In my opinion they don't have the military strength to take India heads on. India would certainly crush them in a matter of hours. They don't seem to have the support of the people either. But still they fight for their ideals, their ideologies. But we are forced to fight a war that is not ours. So it is an effort to terrorise the minds of the people and say that the government is impotent and incapable of protecting them. But the terror merchants should also understand that India is too big a nation to be torn to pieces with their bombs.

Their is an economy angle to the blasts. The blasts are yet to hit ant industrial establishments. As of now they are contained to hiting civilian areas. The foreign counteries may be apprehensive to send their experts to India. But India has no dearth for experts, and more experts can be made here. We have the best of educational institutions here. Investments will not drop drastically. As long as India handles other economic barriers like inflation and marches on its growth path, the investments are likely to sustain.

Tourism may be hit. Already the Autralian cricket team is speculated to drop the tour. But they do it all the time. Remember the cricket world cup 1996. In the western minds India is still a place where the nail bed trick and the rope trick are being effected. For such a colored mind the blasts could look larger than it really is. It would be difficult to instill confidence in their minds by any preventive / protective measures. The only thing that would convince them would be the reduced frequency of blasts and even better a complete end of these blasts, which is quite a non probility.

Google Chrome

2008-09-03T21:08:00.006+05:30

I downloaded Google Chrome and installed it in my laptop. Been giving it a run since yesterday. First impressions are that good. It is very "Google-like", i.e., it follows a very minimalistic design. The first time the homepage opens you virtually see a blank screen. Though later on the home screen provides you with the snapshots of most visited sites. This works very much like Opera's Speed dial where you get to choose the pages. I don't know still if we can chose what pages should be displayed in Chrome. Recent Bookmarks is also a cool utility, as I sometimes bookmark pages I want to see later and then forget. This helps me in finishing that task.

It has imported all the bookmarks, passwords from FireFox. It can do it for IE. No hassles there. But it will not work if you seem to be using any other browser. For example if you are using Opera or Safari (Apple's offer for browsing,) you will be left to help yourself. (been trying that too for a week or so. may review later).

The visual are pleasing and pages load quite fast. Not just that. Even the browser loads really fast. I always had to wait to see FireFox load. But I liked the addins in FireFox, especially Foxmarks. I browse in more than one computer and go on bookmarking in everywhere. Foxmarks was doing a wonderful job. As this is a open source offering I would like to see a ChromeMarks real sson, if I have to really switch over to Chrome. One thing I was able to do which I had trouble with in other browsers is that booking of tickets in www.thecinema.in was better where I was led to "generate ticket" page instead of the browser going dead. It happened in IE, FireFox and Safari.

Cookies.

2007-12-25T08:22:00.001+05:30

It is not about the cookies that we eat.

When trying to access gmail from a new web browser from linux 12 cookies were loaded before google would let me see the login page. I don't know how many cookies would be there in an hour's browsing. I had the misconception of cookies as objects that try to steal my data or those that would make my system more vulnerable to attacks. I regularly remove cookie manually. I had allowed them only because I thought them to be necessary evil which allowed proper functioning of a webpage. However this article at wikipedia says that "cookies are simple pieces of data unable to perform any operation by themselves. In particular, they are neither spyware nor viruses, despite the detection of cookies from certain sites by many anti-spyware products".

கற்றது கைமண்ணளவு; கல்லாதது உலகளவு. வேறென்ன சொல்ல.

Heavy Problem

2007-12-25T08:12:00.001+05:30

The third biggest problem that is facing the people of the world after the more probable global warming and the less probable nuclear flareup is weight / fat / cholestral/ obesity. There are a million websites offering "weight loss tips" [ well it is actually Results 1 - 10 of about 2,110,000 for "weight loss tips". (0.16 seconds) in google on 24/12/2007]. Reader's Digest covers Weight loss like nothing else with a cover story on weight loss every 3 months or so. Even I went on to cover my "7 day weight loss" program on a daily basis only to find out that it didnot work for me. But that was in February 2006. Now I am older and wiser(!) by almost 2 years. So I'm gonna give it another try. It'll start after Christmas and end on the second day of the newyear. This time I'm planning to have a close watch on the progress that I'm expecting to make.

PS:

Whatever you see above were written on 24th Decemner 2007 and the post was left in cold storage since then. So was the "7 day weight loss" program. I forgot all about it till today when i came back to see what's in my blog list.

Disposable email ID - Towards a spam free inbox

2007-10-03T17:18:00.001+05:30

Lifehacker has posted about disposable mail ID that can be created through Guerillamail.com. I used to wonder why my inbox gets more spam. This should help me reduce that.

Energy Savings - 2

2007-09-25T14:22:00.001+05:30

Usage of energy can be calculated through these energy calculators . It helps in monetizing your savings and motivates in implementation.

Template changes (again)

2007-09-18T14:26:00.001+05:30

Once again I have changed my template. The previous post on template change is here. This time for the betterment of the world. Not kidding. I wanted to go in for energy saving at my office and as a first step I changed the switch off monitor time from never (yes never) to 30 minutes and then to 15 minutes. This has been implemented in 6 PCs so far and I am trying to get this setting to be implemented in atleast 50 PCs in our office complex. For this I need to project the savings in monetary terms, not in power. As I did some research on it I stumbled on the information that even a white screen uses more energy than a dark screen. So I have started customising my computer to show a less bright screen in as many applications as possible and hence this template change for my blog. Now tell me. Isn't it for the betterment of the world.
More links.
See How you can save $25 to $75 per desktop PC annually here
Some questions on switching off monitors answered here
Energy Star
CIS Knowledge Base

Merge the csv files

2007-09-18T13:29:00.000+05:30

For long I have been processing the daily bank statements that we receive at our office one by one. I have always wondered if there is not a better way of doing it. I specifically declined a daily statement for another account fearing having to open multiple files with just a couple of lines to create a weekly or monthly statement. Finally I searched the internet and guess what it can be done through excel itself. No separate tool is needed. How to do it can be seen here. Happy merging now on.

Take "Ctrl" of your browsing / computing.

2007-09-14T17:47:00.001+05:30

"Ctrl" really helps in gaining control over the browsing and computing. There are somany shortcuts that make life easier. The ubiquitous "Ctrl+X,Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V" need not be mentioned as they are the most widely used controls next only to "Ctrl+Z. The tabbed browsing of IE has introduced the "Ctrl+Tab" to toggle between tabs. It did take me a couple of days to get out of the hangover created by firefox's "Ctrl+Page Down" to land at the correct shortcut to toggle b/w tabs. There are so many keyboard shortcuts put in place by every software maker to make life easier. Now a days I find myself using less of the mouse (so much for all the ergonomics stuff in it). (I'm planning to post on keyboard shortcuts and expecting it to be a learning experience for me too.)

--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

www.choladynasty.blogspot.com

Emails and Productivity.

2007-09-14T15:16:00.001+05:30

It looks like these two don't go together. Every productivity suggestion includes at least one point about email. Either it is "No email in the first hour" or "No email on one day of a week" or "Separate time slot for emails". In our office we are yet to embrace email for in house communication in a big way. So even internet access is still restricted to a few workstations and mine being one of it. So far I did not have much trouble with spending more time on email. However I used to spend more time on RSS. But once I read that a empty inbox does not help in being productive I made a point not to read more than 10 posts from RSS. I select using the search option (Thunderbird) for random words, read them and in addition something that catches my eye. That really works for me.

Fire safety in Chennai

2007-08-23T12:32:00.001+05:30

Yesterday while commuting to office I heard the siren of a fire engine going off. Ambulances are sighted more often in my route but not firetrucks. I tried to give way to the truck by slowing down to 25 kmph. But it took the truck close to a couple of kilometers to overtake me. The truck driver tried so hard to speed up but failed miserably. Chennai really needs to do something about it. In emergency conditions even a few minutes could be of great importance.

Brainstorming.

2007-03-09T07:27:00.000+05:30

Last week I got a hands on experience with brainstorming. So far it had been something that I have read in books. As a student I have always failed (not subjects) to see the benefits of brinstorming. In fact I thought that this could at best throw out some whacky ideas if we can find some one bold enough to cough out such crap. Researchers seem to think in a similar way as they have generally failed to find evidence of its effectiveness for enhancing either quantity or quality of ideas generated(wiki). But my experiences have been encouraging.

Situation 1: Accepting the responsibility of another department.
What we get: One "no- body wants" kind of employee.
Issues. Incompetent staff being diverted to us, Using a new system (software) and Trouble in man management.
We had a discussion with the Dy.GM and she wanted us to take this responsibility. Her argument was that we gain an additional pair of hands. However we were apprehensive of the whole proposal and could not find a way to wriggle out of it. Then back in our division we went on discussing about the various options and found out that we had none but to accept it. Without knowing we started brainstorming. We went on to ask why this step was taken. What is the need? It is because our old way of doing things was slow in updating. Many ideas started flowing from our staff to ensure that the data gets updated fast enough. Then we had struck the exact answer. Providing of data at periodic intervals. This way the other division need not divert their staff to us and we were free from all the issues mentioned earlier.

Situation 2: Extending a service to another product.
Issues. Non-compatible data, No support.
This too was not announced as a braintorming session but we were encouraged to offer ideas.It did lead to a solution whereby we can use the same data structure with a few substitutes. A field that is to denote invoice number was used to mean account number and so on. However at the end of the meeting I accepted to do something I do not do. I had to write a program. (FYI - I am an accountant not a programmer.) Anyway, I guess it helps me in my career as a person who takes on challenges and gets it done( Yes. I did it.)

The post may at best be rated as vague, as I did not divulge much of the information about the problems, making it difficult to see where is the brainstorming. The reason can be found here in an old post.

Finally, the reason why I feel that these are brainstorming is we did not arrive at these solutions thinking about it.

See Wiki, here and here.

Standing meeting

2007-03-09T07:21:00.000+05:30

I read a post in Lifehacker about conducting meetings without chairs. Seems to have helped them in finishing meeting in less than half the time. I wanted to try that out in our office. But then something struck my mind. The average age of employees in our organisation would be around 50. I'm not expecting a good response.

Things to come.

2007-03-09T07:18:00.000+05:30

Brainstorming.
Productivity.

Any requests?

Template changes...

2007-03-08T08:36:00.000+05:30

I'm planning to change the template so as to exclude the currently reading and just finished reading sections. Either I don't get time to update the section or I am reading a lot or nothing. This is not a very good combination. Especially the not updating as often can be explained like this.

The Personal excellence and goal were completed so long back and did help me. I exercise regularly (except for the ;last few days when I'm down with back pain), identified critical tasks in office and streamlined them.

But then I have read Cat-O-Nine tales by Jeffry Archer, பாரதி இருந்த வீடு, கற்பனைக்கு அப்பால், both by சுஜாதா and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The tamil books were completed in half a day. It cannot progress from currently reading to just finished. So this section is finished. It goes off the page tommorrow.

Update: Done. 9th March 2007 0715 hours IST.

அனைத்து வலிகளும்....

2007-03-05T20:31:00.000+05:30

தலைவலியும் பல்வலியும் தனக்கு வந்தால் தெரியும் என்று பழமொழி. அது உண்மை அல்ல. எல்லா வலிகளுக்கும் பொருந்தும். இன்று உடற்பயிற்சி செய்யும் போது கர்லா கட்டை (எம்.ஜி.ஆர் சத்யராஜுக்கு கொடுத்தது மாதிரி) தோளில் இடித்து முதுகு வலிக்க துவங்கி விட்டது. அடி பட்ட இடத்தில் ஒரு வலியும் இல்லை.ஆனால் உட்கார நிமிர முடியாமல் முதுகில் வலி. ஒரு வேலையும் ஆகவில்லை. Officeக்கு மட்டம் போட்டது தான் மிச்சம்.

Search skills

2007-02-03T10:44:00.001+05:30

Not so long before there lived a young man in India who had a thing for searching on Internet. He would search the net thoroughly and find answers for his questions, doubts and also for others (He wished all items in his home were listed in his computer and were search able digitally). Time passed by. Now he work in a company in the accounts stream and recently got a broadband connection for his computer. Then began trouble. The BBS would not work if LAN is connected. Every time he wanted to connect to the Internet he needed to disconnect / disable his LAN. It was a pain in the neck and also elsewhere. He decided to resort to his old technique. And he did. He searched the whole wide world but could not hit upon the right link. Whenever he said two connections the search term was taken to mean one to be wireless. Days passed with no answer. Then he knew that the rules of the game have changed and his rusty search engine cannot work here.

PS.1

His undying spirit helped him find an answer within. Not within himself but in the settings screens of his network connections. Stumbled upon the idea to add a port to exceptions list in window firewall and there it works.

PS.2

No need to mention that it is about me.

PS.3

The idea in PS.1 failed even before this post can get to the blog. But today both networks are co-existing as if there had never been compatibility issues.
--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

There is nothing permanent except change.

2007-02-02T14:16:00.000+05:30

“There is nothing permanent except change.”
Heraclitus of Ephesus quotes (Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, 540-480BC)

It is the most truest (is the emphasis enough) of all I have ever heard. My blog shows three suggested downloads which I don't use anymore. The first is "Post it notes for PC" which at one point of time seemed to be very important for carrying out my day to day work. The second is “FireFox extension for Time Management” used by me to track time spent on web (am I spiderman). More a tool to restrict my surfing time. Finally “A43 file manager” a replacement for windows explorer. That was expected to save time for me in opening command windows and searching file within a folder.

I am not using any of these today. Being organised does help. As I started to streamline processes in office by prioritising the tasks according to the urgency, pendency and importance monetarily or information wise thing began to fall in place themselves. Once the back logs are set right it is now really possible to go ahead of schedules by over a week. This has done away with the use of sticky notes on the screen.

This was a more simple one. Time management is done by me for the whole of my time. Not just surfing time. Respecting of the priorities I have set gave me little time to be on the web (mostly during lunch time). So I need not be looking at the bottom right corner of the browser to see when to stop ( usually how much time has been lost ).

The file manager is still installed in my PC, though it is not in the quick launch anymore. The credit goes to “Open command prompt here” tweak by MS. Moreover being organised has some thing to it. Now I don't need to search for files every now and then. I know where they are.

So why this title. Because only a few months ago I thought these tools to be indispensable, now completely dispensed with. And more changes are expected too. That's why.

Mysore Musings 2

2006-12-24T16:51:00.000+05:30

This kind of sign boards were seen all over Mysore where films used in cameras were given a role. It's usually the other way round. People play some role and get captured in the film. Now the film itself is getting roles. It stopped amusing me when I saw it like that almost in all places and came back home thinking if it is really "film role" and not "film roll".

Mysore Musings 1

2006-12-24T07:22:00.000+05:30

We saw this sign in Kesava Temple campus, Som nathpur. The first thing that came to my mind was why would I post my letters here if they'll get cancelled. Only then did it dawn upon me that they use a stamp made in that format to use on the stamp and that is called cancellation. Well I did not have any postcards ready as I had not seen this coming. So no pictorial cancellation for me.

Dharmapuri - borrowed review

2006-12-01T21:26:00.001+05:30

This review was forwarded to me by my brother. He received it from one of his friends. I liked it. Hence this post. I haven't changed a thing in the review. Just not revealing his name. Enjoy...

Pals if u r out of Diwali mood , read this review i received ..

After the major downfall of Ajith's tirupathi by its director..per ..per ..perarasu....he was thinking who could he terminate next and ..yes....he got our captain and that's the evolution of a legendary universal(tamil) film "DHARMAPURI"...

Precautionary steps to watch this film:
1.Four pieces of cotton...(2 to keep in ears...and the rest 2 will be kept in our noses after we watch the film fully)
2. zandu balm,tiger balm..if possible original time bomb.
3. itch guard (b'cos paadhi padam paarthu namaku udambellam pull'arikum').

Actors:
Captain Vijaykanth(3/4 screen...),Heroine-achacho paavam(not even 4 scenes including songs),comedy..all scenes where captain comes becomes comedy to the core.
All other vetti actors(donno what they do ½ time).

Moments of the film:
1.Captain's intro:----- NO ever Indian..oops..hollywood film could ever try such imagination to project his hero to this level as perarasu does.(u deserve an applause..).while all his partymen,first bench fans,wait for his entry in screen..there comes captain to save a minister's girl from a rowdy in rameswaram..rowdy threatens everyone including policemen nearby with his gun and no one goes near him(obvious..)Captain looks at him,goes nearhim barehanded. The rowdy warns him 3 times(Indian cinema rule..not more than 3) and then shoots at him..the bullet hits vijaykanth's chest...and reflects back and hits the rowdy's chest and kills him...Please wait...don't get astonished.then he takes out the "archani plate"he hids in his shirt(what a archanai thattu..if u can get for 10 rs.it acts as bullet proof and cd save ur life).
Advice to all military forces:please dismantle all ur bullet proof shields and get archanai thattu's for them. cost cutting one.

2.most of the film people are doing silly things and no body including captain doesn't understands why they r doing such thing.if time permits captain gets his costume change and start performing exercises..iam sorry..dances.. and 30 to 40 dancers surround him and shout"neenga thaan nallavar, neenga thaan vallavar, neenga naaliku CM, morningna AM,eveningna PM"...happa horrible torture and where on earth his costumes are picked up...fluorescent coloured shirt specially and he makes to a point that in all scenes including his duet or romantic scene his party's "flaming torch"symbol is projected well.And a grand make up like rajkiran with a big crown on his head and sandal on his body(weak hearted people pls omit the scene)

3. Half the film is like assembly meetings and virudhachalam campaign speeches.and everybody including the villain praises him .
"naan adangi poravan illai adakitu poravan"
"ivaru kootani vaika maatar,thani aala thaan irupaar"
"ennai nambuna nambikai..mathavangalukku etcharikai"
ivar naadodi illai....naadodi mannan"..

When u atleast have the peace that the director Perarasu didn't act in this film as he did in tirupathi....after interval even that dream goes crashed..oops.here we have his entry as "Speed"lawyer perarasu.he comes and says"naan porandha edam sivakasi, valarandha idam tirupachi, pona idam tirupathi,ipo nikaradhu dharmapuri"innum neraya idam poven....(oh god we are done for...mokkanayakanur,paanaampati,paradesipalayam..lots to come ). Soon he will become best competitor of T rajendhar.

Note:- don't miss the scene where captain hits 50 men in a row with a single kick which even matrix Keanu reaves couldn't get it right. And also the scene where captain blasts 1000 figure bombs(kanni vedi.he..he) with his small remote control which we use for MP3 players in car's.(technology drives...)

Last but not least "Dharma puri"---poisonous pani puri.

4/7

2006-11-26T16:30:00.000+05:30

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday...

தினமும் ஒரு பதிவு செய்ய முடிவு செய்து இன்றோடு ஒரு வாரம் முடிகிறது.

It has not happenned. Tuesday was too hot to handle. Friday shoppingla போச்சு. Saturday went back to office after 3 days leave and when I returned I had totally forgotten about the daily posting. In addition to it we had to go to a hotel to check out a party hall for the birthday of my daughter. So looks like I can only blog whenever time and circumstances allow. Cannot find time for the blog daily. No problem anyway. I still don't have regular visitors looking for a post daily. So i wouldnot be disappointing anybody.

ஈ

2006-11-24T06:19:00.000+05:30

A movie that is not a "must watch". There are rave reviews for this movie all over, but fails miserably in living up to the expectations. The director's previous offering "Iyarkai" was a good one but was a box office bomb. He seems to have come out with a vengeance in this movie. Though he has been appreciated for taking up a theme like "Bio-war" I feel he need not be. The undercurrent of the movie may be bio-war, but the movie would have been the same even if anything else was taken to be it. Even same old rowdyism in politics. Because bio-war is too much of an undercurrent that one cannot even feel it at most parts of the movie. The only silver lining in the movie is the boldness of Jeeva to take up such a character that is negative for almost the whole movie. He brings out a self centered person from a lower strata, and is disgusting in the way he conducts himself in the movie. Exactly what was expected of him. But the movie fails to enlighten us on bio-war except that it is discussed in a couple of scenes. There is not much to be said about the movie. Graphics in the climax scene could have been avoided as it does no good and is more comical in such a serious point.

Bottom line: The movie would be only as good as this review.

Down with fever

2006-11-23T12:22:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I couldn't post anything as I was down with fever. Here I would like to clarify two things to myself and the whole wide world.
1) I am not a compulsive blogger who has to blog every day. The reason for the above kind of introduction can be seen in a couple of posts before this. (Wth.. I'll say it here. I wanted to post to everyday for the next 7 days and it stopped on the very second day.)
2) This blog is not a record of my daily life.
The temperature was running up to 102 degrees Fahrenheit. I felt very weak to be doing anything. So took a leave and stayed at home. I was also shivering, so wore a sweater and bundled myself into blankets in the bed. And today I got to know something. All that I did yesterday were wrong. I found it out here. And it seems "Starve a fever, feast a cold" is not very wrong either. Now that I feel a little better I found something about the fever and tricks to handle it the next time around.

Cool tools

2006-11-21T07:34:00.000+05:30

Cool Tools seem to be everywhere. There is a site, reference in another and if you google it 14,00,000 results show up. But this is not about that. It is about a small shop in Chennai, where you can find things you can blog about in cool tools category. It is Sundar Metals. Situated next to a huge textile showroom it does look small. The name suggests that it is a vessel shop. But if you take a look inside you would notice that it isn't. Walk inside the store you will find many household items like brooms, mops, brushes of various kinds. The surprise packed in it is when you came to see the sizes in which anything is available. I found a finger sized duster to a palm sized clip there. As the owner of the shop would put it, You have to look for yourself to know what is in there. It cannot be said. The price is also quite less over there. The items found there cost at least 50% more in other places if you can find them there. Try it.

தினம் ஒரு பதிவு

2006-11-21T07:28:00.000+05:30

தினமும் ஏதேனும் ஒரு பதிவு செய்ய வேண்டுமென இன்று முடிவு செய்திருக்கின்றேன். ஒரு வாரம் எனது குறிக்கோள். பார்ப்போம்.

Speed test @ home

2006-11-18T20:55:00.000+05:30

Here are the results when I tested the connection @ home. Any comments....

you think your broadband is very fast. Really? Check it out....

2006-11-18T14:00:00.000+05:30

I've been using a broadband connection that claims to be 256 kbps. After using dial-up for about 10years anything could look faster but I decided to test it. Here comes Speedtest. I took the test and saw the download seems to be pretty close. The upload is way off the mark. Can anybody explain the results to me.

Varalaru (Godfather)

2006-11-15T19:41:00.000+05:30

This Ajith starrer is a surprise winner from the deepavali releases. A movie that can teach a lesson or two to other actors who have taken acting too seriously than it actully is. The film has been in making for about two years and Ajith is the living example for that. He comes in various sizes and shapes. And in those shots where two Ajiths are to feature at the same time the whole screen looks like it is morphed. Even the dupe / artists who play as Ajith in scenes were poorly selected. He sports long hair for most part and those persons look so different.

The makeup is not very good too. In most scenes the old Ajith looks as if he is acting in a school stage drama. But whenever we see him we see him as the father. But we have seen Kamalhasan slog it out to look real. This movie can be an eyeopener of sorts for that kind.

Could not believe that A.R.Rahman composed the music. Innisai Alabadaiyae... is good, both as audio and video. The director could have done away with all the other songs. They are only that good. Ajith's performance is better than any of his previous movies. There is hope after all for Ajith (more so for his fans) in movies.

But all those glitches in the movie didnot hinder with the viewing pleasure of it. The suspense about how Ajith turns so unpredictable is reasonably maintained in the first half, though the number of incidents could have been less.

The twist towards the end is interesting.

***********

Spoiler Alert

***********

Its about the immobile Ajith getting on his feet, that came as a real surprise. But for him to fight so well, especially opposite a young person is, huh, cliche. Similarly trying to justify the old title “Godfather” was also unnecessary and artificial. The heroines play the usual role, glamour dolls. It's even less in this movie. A couple of dream sequences for Asin. Kanika has dialogue for one fourth of a page. Police have been reduced to a laughing stock once again in this movie.

The winner in this movie is Ajith, in the role of dancer. The grace, the mannerism, the way he walks, talks so feminine no body else could have done so well.

பகைஉணர்ச்சி

2006-11-04T20:16:00.000+05:30

மனிதன் பலவிதமான உணர்ச்சிகளுக்கு ஆளானாலும் சில மாறாது, மறவாது இருக்கும். நாம் பல முறை இந்த விஷயத்தை மறந்தேனா பார் என்று நினைத்து இருப்போம். ஆனால் மாறாதிருப்பது பகையுணர்ச்சி மட்டுமே. பரீட்சையில் முதன்மை பெற்றது, வேலை கிடைத்தது, பதவியுயர்வு இவையாவும் சிறியவயே. நண்பர்களுடன் களித்திருப்பதும் தற்காலிகமானதே. ஆனால் ஒரு மாற்றுகருத்தினால், புரிதல் இல்லாததினால் வரும் மோதல் சிறுக சிறுக பெரியதாக மாறி பகையாகும். ஒருவரை ஒருவர் பார்க்கும் போதெல்லாம் முகத்தை திருப்பிகொண்டு போய் முடிவில் ப்கையாளிகளாய் மாறுவர். இரு தனி மனித பகையே இப்படி இருக்கையில் இரு நாடுகளுக்குள் இருக்கும் பகை எங்கனம் தீரும்.

Barbarism in the name of caste. Two thoughts

2006-10-31T20:00:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I got an opportunity to see the way politics in Tamilnadu works. It is based on sects, caste, religion and all things that make no sense when it comes to well being of the people. It was a birth anniversary of a leader , a freedom fighter and parliamentarian, though remembered so strongly only because he belongs to a particular community, dominant in Southern Tamilnadu. It seems like they want to prove that they are getting stronger. The traffic jam due to garlanding of his statue in Anna Salai lasted longer than last year. Probably in the years to come the government might have to declare a holiday. I wonder if the youth who participated in the procession would even remember their parents birthdays. They not only wasted their time but of so many others going to work.
The government could bring a ban on celebrating anniversaries of leader in areas where it cause disturbance to public. But I doubt it. They also need the votes. This brings me to two very confusing conclusions.
First, the situation is created by the people themselves. People want their community / caste leaders to be respected. The way of showing respect is explained above. And they complain about mismanagement of every thing. So I guess people are really strong opinion builders and they control the psyche of politicians.
Second, there are simply too many people and the loud and dominant get heard and things happen their way. Others who are complaining are soft and docile. Probably like me.

Don't Quit

2006-10-23T12:57:00.001+05:30

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, when the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high, and you want to smile but you can only sigh.
When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest, if you want, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns, as every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about, when he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -- You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out -- The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -- It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

I like this blog thru' e-mail facility. Why should I say this?

2006-10-20T12:34:00.001+05:30

The last three posts were made through e-mail. And I most certainly like this utility. The reason why I say this is in my archives list. The last activity was during May. It took me as long as 5 months to re-enter the blog world of mine. In this intervening period I did send out a lot of e-mails to people I know. I can do the same for my blog also. However signing in and creating a blog was simply too much for me. This mail your thoughts to your blog works for me in another way too. I'm more of a spontaneous blogger who finds it difficult to prepare a post to blog. Now its just my thoughts, plain & pure. So I like it.

Tambaram - Tindivanam Expressway

2006-10-17T23:30:00.001+05:30

Today I had to go to our village for a function when i experienced the goodness of a well laid road. The 93 km stretch they call Tambaram - Tindivanam expressway is excellent. It is a part of NH 45 constructed in about 2.5 years on BOT basis. The toll collected is Rs.40/- for a single trip and will be continued to be collected for another 15 years. Though it was originally built to reduce congestion in traffic between Chennai and southern districts we are using it regularly to visit our native village in northern TN itself. While traveling in night, the road is a sight. Now they have come up with reflectors, white for straight road and yellow for curves. I wonder if that is an international standard or just something tried here.

Check list - For visting a drive in theatre.

2006-10-15T23:31:00.001+05:30

We are becoming regulars for the Drive-in Theatre in Chennai. We are 3 movies old now and would like to offer a few tips & tricks.

There are certain essentials you need to take.

A large mat. The floor has lot of smaller stones and this really improves the movie watching experience.
Bedspreads, we usually use a razai.
Pillows, for a group of three we usually take 4.
Snacks, the problem there is the options are quite less but can't say the same about price.
Water.
Take a foldable chair, if anybody in the group is not comfortable sitting down.
A hand fan. We are planning to take the rechargeable fan next time.

It really helps to book the tickets in advance. It's quite large and can accommodate about 300 cars. But still it is better that way. We even have an experience of going all the way only to return without watching the movie. It's quite far away for and takes about an hour to reach. The shows are only at 1900 hrs and 2000 hrs, which eliminates the option of doing something else too.

We have seen 3 movies there. Imsai arasan 13th Pulikesi was the first and we all enjoyed it. The next was Vettaiyadu Vilayadu, not a movie for drive-in theatres. The recent one is Lage Rago Munna Bhai. These are the kind of movies that suit best because a drive-in theatre is not just about the movie. It's a family outing and we don't want t get all that serious by the movie.

There is a restaurant nearby. I might write about it later.

Running away…

2006-10-13T23:52:00.000+05:30

I don’t know how people manage to run away from their home. They certainly don’t know the pain associated with it. One has to be in that situation to know how it really feels. I had an experience, something close to that. One of my batch mates went missing for a day, the anxiety to family and friends was not really proportionate. When he was not reachable through phone for most part of the day and that he had left his mobile at home added to the voes of the family. They got suspicious and started making calls. Having exhausted the ringing list we were forced to explore the tougher areas like police & hospitals. Before we could go any further there he was. Seems like he had some issues with the family and office. Tried to have a go at both of them. Did pull it off at office as he got a transfer to a place he wanted. I can't really comment on the home front. I think I’m straying off. The point is the few hours till he was back was really difficult for every one of us. Thinking of the possibilities was unnerving. I could not talk to his wife fearing I would say something that could make them emotional. So anybody who contemplates running away should think about the anxiety they would be causing, even to those they never even thought could get involved.

What do you think?

2006-05-02T19:49:00.000+05:30

You are in office, not knowing what to do next. It’s not that you don’t have anything to do. You do have a long “to-do list”. It’s just that you don’t want to do anything. You would be anywhere else than in your office. How do you tackle this situation?

I would rather raise a different question. Why does such a situation arise? The basic reason why you have a long “to-do list” is because you do maintain a “to-do list”. Jokes apart, a “to-do” list does get longer if you keep doing things outside the list. Try to add another column “What has been done”. Most people would be filling that column with tasks outside their “To be done” list.

A model “to-do list”

Date	To be done	What has been done	Remarks
02-05-2006	Check liability statements with liability bills		????
	Capitalisation of WIP	Half done. There are more items identified during capitalization.	We never get satisfied right.
	Broad band modem statement completion		I did start that. On a second thought did I?
		A discussion on FBT.	Went on so long “enriching” me with experiences of a superior that is not relevant
		A discussion with internal auditor.	There is a difference of opinion b/w my superior and the auditor. They don’t discuss directly for that might solve the problem.

If this is what that is going to happen what do you think is the use of a ‘to-do list”?

Faceless Enemies

2006-03-30T21:43:00.000+05:30

You might have heard this many a time when elders in our families say “Someone would say something”. Is there a more vague reason not to do what you wanted to do? These “someone” would never have a name and the “something” they might be saying is never verbalised. However they wield such a strong influence over our decisions. Its not just the untold but also the unseen is also to be feared.

Soda Bottle Enthusiasm

2006-03-23T10:56:00.000+05:30

I don’t know if you have heard this term. It is like the initial fizz while opening a bottle of soda. We would start doing a new project with lot of enthusiasm. We would be in a bubbly mood. However after some time we tend to slow down and before we even know we would have stopped.

It so happened to me when I joined a school to learn music. My cousin Anbu and I went and enrolled ourselves. In the initial spirits I went on to pay the fees for 3 months in the first installment itself. We were not asked to but I did. But we did not attend the classes beyond 2 weeks. Of the many such occurrences in my life another incident worth saying would be the joining the gym by two best pals. It’s Shankar and me. This time it was even better (or worse). In three days we were back to square one.
So at some definite point of time in the past I decided to get better of this phenomenon. How? I decided to take things slowly and steadily from the very beginning. But it totally backfired. I’m not even getting to begin anything new. I wait and wait for the right time to start so that I would have enough time to go on with it. Earlier it used to be the idea of powering through. Lets start and things will fall in place. However with out the SBE the initial momentum is missing making be idle. So I think SBE is good, provided you can get it going after the initial thrust.

What do I see?

2006-03-20T11:30:00.000+05:30

A corporation is like a tree full of monkeys.
All on different limbs at different levels.
Some climbing up, some fooling around, some simply just idling.

The monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces.
The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but assholes.

Praptham

2006-03-18T11:00:00.000+05:30

This was a conversation between my friend (with a tonsured head) and me. He is just back from Thirupathi.

Me: Nice mottai.

Friend: From Thirupathi. It’s a great experience. If the crowd was less I would go there every week. But the place is so crowded. This is my only visit in five years.

Me: I’m helping you by not adding to the crowd.

Friend: It is not so. He (Venkatachalapathy) sees those he wants to. “Namakku praptham irukkanum boss, Thirupathi poga” (We should be gifted (I don’t think that’s the word) to be there.) It’s not we who decide but him.

Me: Then I guess you should think again about your every week visit.

Mosquito Menace in Madras

2006-02-28T21:52:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was a day, no, a night I would remember for many days to come. It was like any another day at office and I was returning home. When I was nearer I could feel insects hitting my face. It was like riding in the rain. There was a distinct drop in the presence of mosquitoes a couple of days back. It seems like it was just a silence before the storm. There was so many that I wanted to bathe after the ride back home. I thank the person who invented the “Mosquito Net”. Without that it would have been very difficult yesterday. In the night it seemed as though the mosquitoes were trying to attach us. We could see them lined up in all sides, so densely. The picture is only a part of the mosquitoes that were out there. They were the deadones found on top of the net. I forgot to take my camera with me to bed. Or else I could have given a battalion of mosquitoes lined up for attacking.

On the work front

2006-02-25T13:59:00.000+05:30

I have always been a “believer” of sorts of the Murphy’s Laws. But there aren’t many that one can experience when studying. We tend to lie low during those days with not much happening except to be studying more and more books. It is only when beginning to work that we see it all coming back and wonder what great genius he is. I have a screen utility that dishes out maxims from Murphy’s Laws on Work and the one that triggered me to write this is

“There is never enough time to do it right the first time,
but there is always enough time to do it over.”

There are so many examples that I can site from my experience in this position. Any report that is asked is urgent and in most cases I get the communiqué only after the fixed deadline. People are so living in the past and we do yesterday’s job most of the time. We tend to get the figures wrong in the hurry but not to worry, there is always a reply stating that whatever we did was wrong and do it again. This time we would get a couple of days to get it right. Why can’t they give us that time in the first place? I guess I’ll find out when I reach the top.

PS.

(I don’t know if my organisation has a blogging policy. But have I gone overboard with anything?)

This bird never flu. err... flew.

2006-02-25T10:46:00.000+05:30

The recent bird flu caused by "H5N1 bird-flu virus" has been in news for quite some time. A google search on bird flu India returns results about dead chicken and how farmers and governments are clearing them. But do you know what I think about it. There is no harm eating chicken. After all this bird never flu. err... flew.

If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway

2006-02-13T20:04:00.000+05:30

It is just the way it is. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. Yes, tomorrow and we willl discuss that later. But now what am I doing in the office? I'm stuck here because we have a lot of unfinished job now. You might say that I'm grudging for wrong reasons or even worse no reason at all. But it is not so. I have been free on so many days. You should know my work nature for that. I work in the section where cash is handled. We collect money from customers 6 days a week. Of these there days when due dates arrive for different kind of customers and those days are spread over the month. There are seven such due dates. I'll be busy in the first week, what ever happens. Same is true for the last week too. But look at today. It is neither a due date or any where near it no first / last week. So I was thinking 'anything just cannot go wrong', and 'it did anyway'. There was a spurt of customers making payments and they having been counting money for more than two hours now. That brings me to another conclusion.

No matter how perfect things are made to appear,

Murphy's law will take effect and screw it up.

GM Diet - Day 7 [BROWN RICE, FRUIT JUICES & VEGETABLES] [10-02-2006 FRIDAY]

2006-02-12T15:33:00.001+05:30

What is brown rice? I have seen the Kerala variety of rice but it is more towards red than brown. Anyway that was what I had for the day. But how do you eat rice? So add to it some rasam. This is the difficulty in following the diet formulated elsewhere than the homeland.

India

for its variety in culture and practices cannot do with one diet plan for the whole nation. That being the case to follow a western formula is difficult. (I have seen the vegetarian substitute for this diet somewhere in the net for Indians, but however I chose to follow the original as far as possible. Grape juice during breakfast and orange juice for supper were the juicy supplements. I took just vegetables for supper, not rice. So there it ended, seven days of a different experience. Tomorrow holds the promise of Tandoori chicken. Shouldn’t there be a celebration?

GM Diet – Day 6 [BEEF & VEGETABLES] [09-02-2006 THURSDAY]

2006-02-12T15:33:00.000+05:30

Today was pretty much the same as yesterday. The beef was prepared in the same fashion as yesterday, except that we added a little onion to it. And after two meals I quit, not from the diet but from eating beef. Supper included cabbage leaves, carrots, cucumber and guava.

GM Diet - Day 5 [BEEF & TOMATOES] [08-02-2006 WEDNESDAY]

2006-02-12T15:32:00.000+05:30

YUCK. That’s what I felt when I saw this. What kind of combination is this? Beats the milk-banana-soup combination fair and square. Add to this my lack of knowledge how beef is prepared in west. We use so much of masala in our food that without the knowledge of western recipes all I could think of is to cook beef and tomatoes together, add a little pepper to it. YUCK again. I know, but paathi kinaru thandiaachchu ( completed half of it) so let me carry on with it. Once again office makes things easier. Especially mine has an uncanny way of keeping me busy in things I’ve already done or things I would never do if given an option. But three meals with the same dishes (like this) is definitely hell. But I have passed this test also. Tomorrow is a new day and I can eat beef and vegetables in unlimited quantities, to my hearts content. Enakku periya manasu thaan, aanaalum beef in unlimited quantities. Paakalaam…

GM Diet - Day 4 [MILK, BANANAS & SOUP] [07-02-2006 TUESDAY]

2006-02-12T15:27:00.000+05:30

This might sound like a weird combination, but claimed by those who formulated the diet to be scientific, another claim being us not to complete the allowed 8 bananas. Clear this for me. What is a banana? It comes in various sizes and how am I to find out what is the banana he is talking about. I would not be able to eat even one red banana but can go on for a while with mountain bananas. Anyway I got some bananas usually sold by street side vendors and tried hard to stay within the limit. Soup was fine but not as good as Jose did when he went on this diet. But the day was comfortably completed. Tomorrow I can have beef.

GM Diet – Day 3 [FRUITS & VEGETABLES] [06-02-2006 MONDAY]

2006-02-08T13:56:00.000+05:30

I am happy that I came this far, as the last time I went on a diet it was a disaster ending on second night. Back to office and things became easier. A mixture of fruits & vegetables gives a variety to the bored taste buds. The lit included watermelon (again a huge part), grapes, carrot, radish and cucumber. There was some headache but was manageable. Tomorrow seems to be a difficult day. You will know when you see the title.

GM Diet – Day 2 [VEGETABLES] [05-02-2006 SUNDAY]

2006-02-08T13:55:00.000+05:30

Stuff yourself with vegetables was the slogan for the day. I was at home and had a lot of free time to think about what I was doing and that was the problem. Soon I developed a splitting headache. I had cucumber (once again a watery vegetable), carrot and radish (long, red ones). I wanted to add cabbage to the list but could not find time to include it, as there was no definite liking to eat anything at all. But all that matters is that I survived that day.

GM Diet – Day 1 [FRUITS] [04-02-2006 SATURDAY]

2006-02-08T10:44:00.000+05:30

All said, now lets see what I did. I bought some watermelons (some!). As said in the diet chart the chances of losing up to 3 lbs are good if I went on an all melon diet. So I did and certainly felt lighter. But I like watermelon a lot but I think I have developed some dislike towards it now. This day was not much of a problem and I had done this before. I had to go to office and there was not much time to think about it. This was the best time since the first week of the month is the busiest. The only problem being how to eat watermelon for lunch. Usually I take my lunch at office. But for this I went home in afternoon to have this. Tomorrow could be worse lets see.

GM Diet – Day 0 [03-02-2006 FRIDAY]

2006-02-08T10:38:00.000+05:30

I wanted to go on a GM Diet ever since I knew about it. Why? Because no matter how I looked I’ve always been described as the fat boy/man in my class. It goes like this as in the “Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” song.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
oh never mind;
You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you
and how fabulous you really looked….
You’re not as fat as you imagine.

In my case I was not as fat as they imagined. But still I was always a little overweight, crossing the limit by a couple of kilograms. So (see line 1), and I almost did it once.

We were then in Thanjavur. I had a good start enjoying ripe mangoes (it was the summer of 2003) for the first day and carrots and cucumbers for day two. But my plan crash-landed when relatives visited us. We were serving them with delicious food that my mother makes. Virunthombal Thamizhar panpadallava! There was crispy chicken fry and spicy gravy. It broke me down and I surrendered to my taste buds.

Now here I am wiser by the success stories of my friends (Arun and “Thanjavur” Prem) and my brother-in-law Jose. They managed to complete it and Arun does it any time he wants to do it. And I’m going on it now.

Andrew's Gunj

2006-01-30T11:51:00.000+05:30

What was the shortest time you ever stayed in a new house? I think nobody can beat our record. Read on.

We were then staying in Delhi. My Dad was working with the central ministry on deputation. One of my father’s friends told that he has blocked a 5 bedroom apartment for us there. But it did not turn out to be so. In total we did get 5 bedrooms. First a 2 bedroom apartment. And later a 3 bedroom apartment. It’s the 3 bedroom apartment that I’m talking about.

I was then preparing for my civil services examinations in New Delhi. My father is an IAS officer and something rubbed of I guess, I wanted to be one too. So on completion of my post graduation in commerce I went to New Delhi (most of the aspirants are way into the preparation by that time. They say that they start preparing by 12^th standard or so.). Anyway things worked out this way for me and when I went there my Dad also got a transfer there so I got to stay at home still prepare in Delhi (the place to be if one wants to make it into civil services).

We were staying in Sarojini Nagar, a calm place near Sanjay Gandhi Park and the Sarojini Nagar Market was only a couple of minutes from there. It did not take long to get to my institute also from there. But it was a small apartment. So when we got the house at Andrews Gunj allotted we readily accepted it. The reasons being....

1) Three bedroom Flat.

2) Three bedroom Flat.

3) Three bedroom Flat

I cannot think of any other reason why we would go for it. It was not near my institute. It had no parks nearby. Not a good market that I remember. We have been used to large spaces earlier and felt cramped in that other house I guess. Anyway we went ahead to shift our residence. We were yet to furnish our house then fully. But before taking the limited personal effects we decided to get the house ready for us. On visiting the house we saw that it needed to be cleaned. My cousin who had come there joined me in that effort and with the help of two persons arranged by my father we went on to clean it thoroughly. Then we called a person from a air-condition showroom and went on decide on the A/c that we would require. Decisions were made regarding curtains and we also went shopping for furniture.

One fine day (something that’s always used in a negative note), we started to Andrews Gunj. We handed over the keys of the old house to one of my father’s colleagues with instructions to submit them to the authorities. On went our vehicle to Andrew’s Gunj. We unloaded our things however little they were and got them arranged reasonably. We made friends with the people in the ground floor (we were in first floor). Then most important event happened. The day ended and the night began. Since it was the first day we bought dinner from outside and ate. We were happy to be there. Mom and Dad took a room. I shared one with my cousin since the furniture and A/c were yet to be delivered.

After some time we felt as if we are lying in the middle of the road. Did I mention that the house was in the inner ring road? At night it was swarmed by lorry traffic. We could feel the floor shaking when every lorry went by. My room was nearer to the road than other. I ran into the hall / living room to lie down. I could not catch any sleep that night ( I had spent the whole day loading, unloading and arranging things).

The first thing my Dad did next morning was to call his colleague (remember the Key Guy) and stop him from proceeding to submit the keys. We raced back to our old, humble abode and lived happily ever after (for about a year before my Dad got transferred to Tamilnadu).

Now in a move to improve traffic conditions, those houses were razed down to extend the road. This would not happen to any one else any more. Later on I wondered how it was possible for others to live there. The main reason could be that we planned to get all the furniture but all would only be delivered there. So it was practically empty as it was much larger than where we used to live.

About the record. We stayed a little over 19 hours.

Ashrita's First Flight

2006-01-30T11:48:00.000+05:30

January 19,2006. We had to travel to Coimbatore for a family function. After consulting with our doctor we decided to fly to Coimbatore with our daughter. The tickets were, so we decided II A/c and the travel time is so less, so we decided that it would be best for Ashrita (we hope), to travel for lesser time than to spend the night (when she is most active) in train.

Opening up of airways has seen a spurt in the number of flight operators. There are so many of them that I didn’t even know most of them. There were so many counters, each having a small walkup (what else do you call the area of about 4 ft where they lay out a carpet to make you feel “so special and welcome”). The people manning those counters do their part with their so artificially accented English (an apparent effort to make you believe that no body belongs here, neither you nor them.

The flight was officially delayed by 30 minutes and unofficially by another 25 minutes. We were asked to wait in Taj Lounge and offered a complimentary buffet (Cheese puff, paneer cutlet, medhu vadai and chicken “something”, something we never got. The fresh juices offered were not so fresh either.)

Security check was another episode of the journey. First tour hand baggage was scanned and we were frisked. (Two security women commented on "How dangerous it is to carry infants in flight as we have a chance to carry weopons / explosives in the cloth used for wrapping the child" This comment was made by them in Hindi, apparently thinking most people in Tamilnadu wouldnot know Hindi.) Then after another episode of waiting we went through the gate to finally get into the bus. But it was not over yet. There was another round of frisking and checking of baggage physically by airport staff.

From one bus to another. Then we got into the bus. Did I say bus? Yes, it was a bus. They were just a little more than the “airbuses” that were plying on Chennai – Trichy roads. They were “more” in length than those “airbuses” by a couple of rows and were a little bumpier during landing. We took the steps to enter into flight and saw it having seats just like a bus and we took ours. The food that was offered had two chicken patti rolls, two aloo bondas, one paneer cutlet and one black forest (which was really good).

We had taken a number of precautions for a safe and comfortable journey for Ashrita. We had her ears plugged with cotton, had her to wear a diaper, sweater with head gear to protect her from cold and finally wrapped in a bag meant for carrying babies. The journey was uneventful expect for a little crying during landing. Otherwise she slept through the whole journey.

Night Shift

2006-01-30T11:47:00.000+05:30

The night shifts have begun. Our daughter has found out that I get to stay home only in the nights and so tries to make the most of it. She has not been the crying kind so far. She just starts to get disturbed and wants someone to hold her in their arms. She does not even want to be rocked. She just stares at us and stays awake. Once it is time for me to get ready to office she goes to sleep.

29th Chennai Book Fair

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

This book fair is as old as I am and growing stronger by the year. It has become a huge one lately and the crowd that gathers is only becoming larger. The only larger book fair that I’ve been to was in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. I don’t remember police force being deputed here to oversee the proceedings and last two years a school nearby has been converted into parking space for the visiting bookworms. The BAPASI, organizers of this book fair have taken a very important decision so as to reduce pollution to the Quad-e-millet college campus. The pamphlets usually given away by the stalls have been banned in an effort to reduce the garbage that gets accumulated. Refreshments are arranged through restaurants and ice creams of different varieties were made available. The book fair offers 10% discount on all the books irrespective of the publisher. Even e-books, CDs that were sold were given the same discount.

I was there on 8^th of January with my cousin Anbuselvam. We have been a regular for so many years now, and been buying books on a regular basis. We used to buy more books when we were preparing for civil services examinations. Now that we are out of that field we are exploring other arenas. I’ve always liked Sujatha’s writings on science and his sci-fi books. I even had an argument with my teacher that his writings are better than another contemporary writer. Uyirmai Publications have come out with a series of books by Sujatha and I’ve been a regular to their stalls every year. I bought Kadavulgalin Pallathakku, Therntheduthha Sirukadhaigal and Marma Kadhaigal all by Sujatha.

I also did buy a lot of books for my niece Abirami, who likes to read story books. Unlike her elder siblings she has developed a liking for books, which I am trying to encourage. I also bought books that say what to expect in the first few years of child birth. We also saw a “Child’s Album” in which we’ll be able to document the important events of her life. I’m looking for a better published album. I need to check out Landmark, Odyssey and Higginbotham’s.

Significance of the number 3.4

2005-12-30T09:15:00.000+05:30

How does a number gain any significance at all? It is from what it represents. A sprinter would know the significance of 9.77 seconds. A pole vaulter (???) would know about 6.14 meters. In today’s competitive scenario 100 % in a couple of subjects do not matter anymore for high school students. They want that score in every subject and still be one among many. But 3.4 has become the most significant number for me from 13^th December 2005, the day my daughter was born. And she weighed 3.4 kg.

My Daughter

Just browsing and ended up here.

2005-11-27T22:44:00.000+05:30

Go there. You might be seeing interesting things there...

Your Birthdate: September 27

You are a spiritual soul - a person who tries to find meaning in everything.
You spend a good amount of time meditating, trying to figure out life.
Helping others is also important to you. You enjoy social activities with that goal.
You are very generous and giving. Yet you expect very little in return. ( Ennannvo Solrango)

Your strength: Getting along with anyone and everyone

Your weakness: Needing a good amount of downtime to recharge ( No amount of time is enough)

Your power color: Cobalt blue ( I do like this colour)

Your power symbol: Dove ( Samathana pura ???)

Your power month: September (nge!!!)

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Hi !!!

2005-11-27T05:06:00.000+05:30

This happenned when I was trying to post a picture in my profile. Could not get that one to work. Still working on it.
Yaaravathu josiyam paathu sollunga... Naan eppa sariya en profile-la photova poduvennu....

Genesis

2005-11-20T21:26:00.000+05:30

That's what I think. This is Not Just Another Blog. But I don't even know how long I'll continue posting. However this looks like a good thing. Let me see if it's as good as I think it is. I've been here a few times before, always wanting to start blogging. I've been here even before this was called blogging. It was Weblog then. But it has taken me so long to post the first one. My brother has already been posting like a postman.

Now what do you do in a blog? Tell me. Why does one write a blog at all? Is there a reason? A purpose? Why am i doing this? Is it that I want to be a writer? Or that I want to reach the whole world. I don't think so. Actually I'am not thinking anything at all now about it. If you do tell me.

And I'll try to make this as promised. Not Just Another Blog.