Two Five Six Nine Four Nine

That’s not my phone number


That’s not my annual income

Neither is that my email password

I’ll tell you what it is; read on

When the onion prices are sky rocketing and my vegetable monger says he does not give me a set of sambar vegetable for Rs 20, but may be for Rs 40 (the new minimum)

When we pay through our nose for those brinjals and ladies fingers and chillies and ginger

When there is no more money left to buy that promised candy for the kid after a visit to the local vegetable market

we don’t realize that the money we spent is not reaching the right pockets.

What else can justify the title figure? 2,56,949

Does adding one more to this figure make any difference? Not much.
But adding one more to this figure makes a difference to an entire family.
A huge difference.

Whoever discovered the use of exclamation mark should have had cardiac arrest by the number of its usage.

2,56,949 farmer suicide. India Shining.

I Hate To-Do Lists

True. I hate. I work for a big corporate, but I hate to maintain a To-Do List. I’ve attended numerous workshops which speak about the importance of maintaining a To-Do list. Most of my managers used to do that, and expect their team members to follow that practice as well. I am not blaming any one who maintains and follows such a list. It’s a personal choice, and I respect that decision of yours to follow your heart. But I’ve seen people (mainly those motivation speakers) give over importance to the To-Do list.



I feel claustrophobic in maintaining a To-Do list. I feel suffocated.

I feel some one is making me do something at gunpoint.


I prefer in following my heart to do what I want to do and when I want to do. I do keep occasional reminders to make a phone call or to meet some one, but most of the time I remember those things even before my mobile reminds me. Sometimes I don’t do things even if I know it needs to be done, just because I don’t feel like doing it then. For the same reason I am not able to make regular blog posts. I have also seen people promising to make one post every day. Some follow, some doesn’t. A promise made to self or to others is to be abided. The easy way out? Don’t make promises – to self or others.

A To-Do list is a self promise.


Following a To-Do list makes life so very mechanical and predictable. At the end of the day, our life seem like a big excel sheet after an audit, with those funny coloured rows and columns. I was supposed to do this, have I done this? What made me not do it? When else am I planning to do it? Aaargh! Give me a break.

I didn’t do it, because I didn’t feel like doing it. Period. Why digging more?


There are people who fail terribly even after maintaining and following a To-Do list, and there are people who do the right thing at the right time mainly because they don’t maintain a To-Do list. I strive to be the latter one.

Let life be enigmatic.



Touchwood : I have never missed a train because I did not maintain a To-Do list.

I am scared

(Just thinking aloud)

I am scared when everything falls in place


I am scared when there is no confusion

I am scared when I suddenly discover an important document which I have been searching for over 3 years

I am scared when I find out my almost-lost debit card

I am scared when I get all what I was looking for

I am scared when I unexpectedly receive some expensive gifts

Everything seems so perfect.

I am scared.

I am scared that after perfection comes chaos

So is the law of nature, I presume.

I am scared something is cooking, and would blow up at the wrong time

Let there be some imperfections, so that there is a balance.

I don’t want a full meal every day, every time

I would prefer to sleep hungry once in a while.

But sleep, I must.

Sleep peacefully.

I am scared.

I am scared of perfections.

Being me

I suffer from an ailment called “L'esprit de l'escalier” .

I know one other person who also has this issue - a character infact – Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan in ‘Youv’e got Mail’)

L'esprit de l'escalier (or l'esprit d'escalier, usually translated as "staircase wit") is the act of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late to deliver it. The phrase can be used to describe a riposte to an insult or any witty remark that comes to mind too late to be useful, after one has left the scene of the encounter. The phenomenon is usually accompanied by a feeling of regret at not having thought of the retort when it was most needed or suitable.

(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'esprit_de_l'escalier)

Many a times I am tongue tied and will not be able to say what should have been said, but later when I think about the situation, I can picture myself saying that and walking away in slow motion with an atrocious background music. But alas, time machine is still a dream.

I wish I had said ‘Go to Hell” many a time

I wish I had said ‘No’, when I actually just smiled

I wish I had said ‘That’s not a god idea. How about this?”, when I actually said “That’s nice”

Wish I had met a Joe Fox (Tom Hanks of You've got Mail again)

I envy people who say what needs to be said at the right moment, and walk away with a smile. They have an impeccable presence of mind, and not carried away by emotions or random thoughts.

But once I tried.

I spoke out at the right moment.

I thought that will be the suitable reply.

I thought after that I will walk away with a victorious smile on my face.

But no. Nothing happened.

I felt all the more worse.

I spend the entire night tossing and turning cursing myself for having said that.

I repented.

I still do.

I will never be the same person in front of that other person again.

I felt terrible.

If you are of the kind who thinks giving a suitable reply not caring about the other person’s emotion, so be it. Or if you are like me, so be it.

The point is to be yourself.

Do not imitate, because if you do, you’ll end up acting stupid and won’t be able to sleep.

I have accepted that “L'esprit de l'escalier” is a part of my personality. I won’t feel bad anymore. I am me.

Peace be with me. Hallelujah!

Why grow up?

Me and a kid of about 4 years old got into a conversation

Me : What did you have for lunch today?

Kid : Nothing yet

Me : Why not?

Kid : Today we will all eat from the temple. There is annadaanam

Me : Oh is it? So what are you going to eat at the temple today?

Kid : Parotta and Chicken curry

Me : K

Trip to the past

Was away from the cloud for few days as I and family went for a trip to Thanjavur. Two years back, when I had just brought home the second hand car and when I could barely shift to the 4^th gear, if someone would have asked me to drive my car for more than 50 km, I would have dropped dead on the spot, but not any more. My confidence grew manifold when I covered about 500 km in less than 8 hours.  Yeah I know it is not a big deal, but for the fact that this is my first long trip in my 2005 model Alto LX, I feel happy.

Thanks to NHAI and Tamil Nadu Govt.for the excellent roads from the Aralvaymozhi – Trichy stretch. Made me wonder if it was really Indian roads – no potholes, no pits. For the major portion of the trip, I couldn’t drive under 90 kmph. It would be a crime to do so. My only fear was that the chassis of the car would fly off, unable to resist the speed. Wow! That was an experience, and driving long distances boosts your confidence.

 

[Image : http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article42611.ece]

Big temple, Thanjavur was a long awaited destination. We wanted to visit the temple and it was in our ‘To Visit’ list for few years now (since our courtship days ;-) ). Having seen a lot of pictures and read about the history, surprisingly standing right at the front of the temple did not evoke any emotions. It was perhaps because of the crowd. Few schools also chose the same day to visit and the entire place was buzzing with lot of children in various uniforms. But the time we chose to visit was just perfect. It was evening and the natural backdrop was excellent. What caught my attention was the 1000 (?) shivalingas sculptured around the main temple, of which no two of them are identical in size, shape or dimensions.

Well maintained premises, except for the roads in the Thanjavur town. Very narrow, congested and illogically controlled traffic adds to the chaos.

I wonder why do some temples (and churches) gets prominence compared to others. Is it due to clever marketing? Or the age old beliefs? Can't quite comprehend.

I also wonder there is a temple very much similar to that of Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Trivandrum,. The temple which I refer to is located at Thiruvattar, a small sleepy village in Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu. I have been there couple of times and the maintenance is pathetic, mainly because they do not have the funds to maintain. If I am not wrong, the temple at Thiruvattar was also built by Marthanda Varma.

May be temples are also just like humans. Some prosper, some wither. Sigh!

SOS

Honestly, I thought I was the only visitor to my blog and refused to open it for long. Today morning I was beaming with joy that some good souls have taken time to comment on my posts. Thank you.

But however, I might need some help here please. I am not sure how do I reply to your comments. I just get a static link which reads “Post Comments”. But it is inactive. Could any of the seasoned bloggers please let me know how do I enable it. What an irony, I don’t know how my blog works. Sigh!. Well, after all I am an engineer by education, you know ;-)
 Can’t believe I am this much technically challenged.

Update : RGB helped me enable comment. Thank you RGB.

Enjoying HR? Oxymoron (?)

“Oh! So you’re in HR. Enjoying huh? No work to do right?”

Asked my cousin, when we recently met at Bommanahalli to board the bus to Trivandrum. I tried to educate him “No No, we have lots of work to do..from manpower planning, to designing training programmes to statutory compliance to co-ordinating performance discussions to aligning salary to event management”. He wasn't convinced
“Ok, but still you don’t have any deadlines to meet like us right? Ha ha... You people are enjoying..” “No”, I interrupted him “We have SLAs and deadlines to be met as well. We are accountable for company operations..”
I could see him smirk.. and could read his mind
“Hmm.. whatever it is, you guys are a lousy lot. It is afterall we the software engineers who bring in money for the company to sustain. If it were not for us, you would have been jobless”

I am sure anyone in HR line of profession might have encountered the above situation atleast once. HR function is like a swan in the lake. It looks like the swan is floating, enjoying the surroundings and relaxing, but underneath it keeps on struggling with its leg to keep it moving forward. A home maker to a home is what HR to an organization. Ask the home maker not to do her job for a day and by the end of the day you will get to know her importance.


HR job is more like a double edged sword. We need to please both the management and employees. I faced it when my previous company announced a pay cut during difficult times (Although it was not called ‘pay-cut’, but 'salary restructuring'). On one hand we ourselves had to suffer the cut in our pay and on the other we had to explain to the grieving employees on the justification regarding the pay cut.

Ha, it takes a bold heart to be in HR and sustain.

I still meet my other cousins who are also in some software firm or the other. Perceptions are etched and can hardly be alterd. So I just let it be and have some fun in the process.. When they make fun of HR , I tell them back. ‘Shh.. quiet please. Let it be between you and me. It is true that we don’t do any work. Come in the morning, swipe the card, visit blogs, read newspapers, sip coffee, get into the chat messengers, walk around, meet other fellow HRs who are equally jobless, discuss about the latest movie, send some absurd mails and forwards and swipe out on the dot. Phew man. Pray to God that you be an HR in the next birth. We are blessed souls.”

I feel some sadistic pleasure when I say that.

The questions still vibrates.."You guys just don’t have any work to do and enjoy right?”

No work to do ? – NO , a big bold, underlined, italicized ‘No’. We have a lot of work to do my boy. That too not dealing with the deadwood computer and codes but human beings with flesh and blood. And brains. People like you. Right from the top of the organization chart to the housekeeping boy.


Enjoy? – Yes, a big bold underlined, italicized ‘YES’.

To be significant over successful

Chasing materials here I came
To this big place which made me discover
The unsatisfied fellows who worship
Those materials which they don’t need

I came running to this place
In search of treasure and wealth
Which would add some more glow
To my life; I was wrong

But I don't hate me for coming this far
To realize some more is no more
And that any more wealth I add,
will not be seeking the real pleasure

I now face a big white wall
The end of which I have no clue
But I drew my dream on it
The dream is not to draw my dreams

The dream is to live my dreams
And be significant; not successful
So I made up my mind
To take a leap across the wall

While I move back to gather the pace
And energy to cross the wall
Thoughts keep rushing and gushing to me
Making unseen dreams, uncertain

But fear I not, for I take a leap and I know
If there’s a river, I’ll also have my boat
If there’s a desert, I’ll also have my camel
If there’s a forest, I’ll also have my jeep

Gather courage, Jump over. NOW !!

Bulleting 'Elsamma'

• Mathrubhumi fits itself in almost all the frames – as newspaper, or calendar or even as a pillow cover
• Wondering what attracts Lal Jose to a human posterior! Since ‘Meesamadhavan’ he has this obsessive compulsion for bums; he has carried it to this movie as well – the mentioning of human geographic rear in multiple scenes.
• The scene on ‘Suresh’ is a flawed attempt of comedy and was an obvious one. Evokes no laughter. Felt like added later in the movie, as an afterthought.
• Jagathy Sreekumar fails to amuse audience, however Suraj Venjaramood is here to stay in the comedy track.
• ‘Elsamma the Saviour’ or ‘St. Elsamma’ could have been a better title, cos all what she does is for the overall wellbeing of the society. Elsamma is highly over rated.
• No songs are worthy for a second listening.
• Camera, cast and costumes are excellent.
• Ann does a good job and Kunchakko is amazing. Indrajith plays his role with ease. Not to mention KPAC Lalitha and Nedumudi Venu.
• Vijayaraghavan can be compared with ‘Ananthan Nambiar’ in Nadodikattu. A comical villain.
• Overall had a feeling of reading Balarama, which as such is good, but childish attempt by Lal Jose.

Just a mention about the theatre I watched the moview from. It was Screen 3 of Innovative Multiplex in Bangalore. This was the first time I watch in a multiplex (Ticket Cost Rs 150 for Silver class!). Believe me Kairali/Sree in Trivandrum does much better a job. The sound went off twice during the movie. The screen was smaller than the normal theatre. No refreshments. The show was at 7.30 pm and security guard wouldn't let us in until 7.45 pm. Duh!

Pray these multiplexes doesn't get popular in Kerala.

Goal? What Goal?

Almost all the motivational speakers and those management big guns often use this word call ‘Goal’. Personal goal, professional goal, spiritual goal, materialistic goal, blah goal, blah blah goal. Is it really important to have a goal? Is it so that all what education does is to enable a person to define a goal and spend the rest of the life in chasing the goal?

What if the person changes his mind in between and identifies and new goal in an almost opposite direction? Will he have to run back the distance he already covered? Is that what is called unlearning?

And what if the person attains the goal at a certain age? What does he do with the rest of his life? Identify another goal and run behind that? Or should he be setting another goal even before achieving the first goal? What if he has no further goals? Which direction should he move forward?

To begin with why do we need a goal in the first place? Frankly do we all have goals? I mean fixed goals and we wake up everyday devising strategies / tactics in getting closer to that goal, and every night analysing how well the strategy worked in moving towards the goal. Are we becoming a scientific calculator?

What if I don’t have a goal? Do I not have the right to live and enjoy my life? Will I be sidelined and be tagged as an aimless vagabond? Exactly.

Me thinks: we set up goals only to please everyone else other than us, I mean the real us.
We can’t have fixed goals. We will have short term goals the duration of which gets varied from a few seconds to a few years.

So is it important to have a goal? - No.
Can we have multiple goals? - Ofcourse
Can we live without a goal? – Yes
Can we change our goals in between? – Absolutely. Welcome to the club.

It is very easy to ask questions. Don’t believe me?

It's raining beans!

Gone are the days of people making money from getting into a career in Investment Banking armed with their degrees and diplomas from IIMs and ISBs and the ilk.
The in thing is Sports Management.

Do you know how to organize, manage and conduct a popular sports / games event?

Yes? Ta da ! You are a millionaire, next year same time.

Sports Management is a niche area where only highly competent minds can survive. Those people who don’t snore when they listen to CNBC or make paper rockets out of balance sheets are highly encouraged to take up this as their career. No you don’t have to walk in to the fields, you don’t have to know what the dimension of a basketball court is, and you don’t even have to play computer games. Infact a little knowledge of any of those is a disqualification. The only game you need to be good at is bean counting.

Do not wonder if Sports Management finds a prominent place in those fatty Finance Text books, or may be offered as a specialization in the premier B-Schools.

Dear citizens of tomorrow: watch out and keep a track of all sorts of sports and games events happening around the world. What if you missed the CWG, you still have Asian Games, Lot of Athletic Meets, Olympics and a zillion other small tournaments apart from the adopted national game of Cricket. Start building you personal currency chests. Right away !

Rainy days and Indoor Fun

On a rainy day when we were forced to sit indoors, we decided to play anthakshari.

It was my cousin’s turn to sing with ‘Ka’ as the staring letter (It was Malayalam)

He sang in tune with no second thoughts

Karutha penne… karinkuzhalee
Ninakoruthan…

And then he forgot what the next word was, and started repeating the earlier lines all the while thinking hard for the next word was so as to complete the line

He went on

Karutha penne… karinkuzhalee
Ninakoruthan…

After a pause, he sang with the same tone and with a straight face..

‘Muttayittu’

We were stunned.. after a couple of seconds, we were rolling on the floor laughing.

Oh my!

Karutha penne… karinkuzhalee
Ninakoruthan…muttayittu

(Rough translation : O Black beauty, your beloved has laid egg for you !! “)

The same cousin and another rainy day; this time it was not Anthakshari. We decided to play an intelligent game. “Name, Place Thing”, as we called it.

It was like, we select an English alphabet, by lot, and then write down a name, a place , an animal, and a thing (object) beginning with the chosen alphabet as the first letter. We made an inclusion to it, and decided, we will write down a cinema name also. To illustrate: incase the alphabet selected is say B, then we need to write down a name (Benny), a place (Barcelona) a thing (Bat), an animal (Bat) and a cinema (Boeing Boeing) using the letter B. The participants are expected to read out the words they have written, and the catch is the words need to be unique and if any two of them have written a similar word, that gets 5 points, else 10 points.

So we were participating in full swing and the chosen alphabet was ‘H’. We started reading aloud and we were waiting for my cousin to read out his set of words. He read ‘Harikrishnan, Haridwar, Hammer, Human Being and Hente Kaanakuyil’

Needless to say, we bursted out laughing again.

Wondering why? Not because he mentioned ‘Human Being’ to be an animal which was OK, but the movie he meant was ‘Ente kaanakuyil’. He added the special emphasis to suit the ‘H’ and made it ‘Hente kaanakuyil’ !

Of thesis and reports

How many of you really read a thesis or an academic project report? I have attempted few out of sheer interest in the topic, but frankly, I couldn’t read anything more than a couple of pages. Don’t you think it is so every irritating to read them, with all those superscript asterisks and numbers and all sort of funny notations which silently says “ Hey there, now stop reading this and bring your eyes to the bottom of this page, if you ever want to make heads and tails out of what follows”. Now we take a detour to the bottom of the page, printed in the finest of the prints or worse to the end of the chapter or even worse to the so called Appendix, get that clarified and get back to where we left.
By the time we get back we lose track of what ever we read and we might need to start from the previous paragraph.
This continues more or less like a cycle (like the infinite IF..THEN loop), until we finally get what the author means with the help of those references. These footnotes occupy about one fourth (if not more) of the page. When we proceed to the next page, after an hours struggle with the current one, there will be a reference to the Fig 2.1.4 (a). Now we will have to halt there and search for that horrible figure which might be in any of the pages. Same with the Table 1.34.4 and Illustration 17(w). The next sentence says ‘ As already mentioned in Chapter 2, Page 3, Sentence 14..’, which takes us to the said sentence and make us get back. Incase if the reader is still awake, there comes another reference in form of a superscript numeral, which makes us sift few pages to the end of the section.

By the time you finish the first few chapters, you would not be wondering how did you manage to pull out few strands of your own hair.

Seriously, if the real intention behind a research is sharing the newly found knowledge and for the benefit of he majority of the society, why on earth can’t it be in simple language? Why do academicians want to insist on following the above fashion? Mostly because, “Well, it has been always done this way”.
On second thought, may be those reports are made in such a way that only the deeply dedicated and genuinely interested people go through it completely, and still be sane.

Don’t you think this need some refinement and make it more readable?

With the advent of putting up research papers on the Internet as web pages, this could be reduced to a great extend. Those horrendous detour symbols can be replaced by hyperlinks, which could also have some pop-up (like a tool tip) on hovering the mouse over the link. Long live www.

The career fixation crisis

“A drastic shift appears in everyone’s career somewhere between 5 and 15 years of tenure (let’s say X)- a shift which forces her to toss away her (mostly well paying) job and look out for a career which offers better satisfaction. Some follows their heart and be successful in their own way, while others who decide to continue with their line of job, would most certainly leave by the time they reach double the tenure (2X) or will be sacked by then”

- her to be replaced with his wherever necessary. I am not responsible for difference of opinions regarding the gender differences in the above hypothesis.
- the figures are on an average. This could as well range between 2-12 or 4-14 for that matter

Wow! Did I just speak my mind?

Remember : You read it here first. Now don’t blame me if you have to teach this to your kids when this gets printed in one of those management books. :-p

My experiments with theatre

I was reading this blog and tripped over the mention of Dr. Faustus. I quickly fell down a cozy velvet cushion called memory and it took me back to my school days. There was a reason. I enacted Dr. Faustus in the drama for our school day. Little did I knew about the character or the storyline then, but today wiki says Dr.Faustus is (was) a significant character in the world of drama.

Well at the naïve high school level enacting a drama means bunking classes with permission and off to rehearsals. It feels so good when some odd person come and asks for me for drama practice. And all eyes would fall on me and I would royally walk out from the class, amidst the envious looks of my classmates. Well, it was very few in our class who regularly got summoned for drama rehearsals during the class. The directors of the drama (the teachers in respective languages – English, Hindi and Tamil. No we never had a Malayalam drama for the School day), considers me to be a good actor and I would totally enjoy when teachers would bargain and fight for some of the people (including the humble me) for their drama. It would typically go like this

English Teacher : Hey, this time we need Albi
Hindi Teacher : No way, I have made a role keeping him in mind.
Tamil Teacher : Hello.. Albi was there in English drama last year, remember. He will be with me this time.

And the argument continues. Well as far as I was concerned, first come first serve.

The first time I got into drama was while at 4th grade. That was by accident though. I was this super thrilled to be in drama and went on to witness a drama (Tamil) rehearsal during one of the holidays. A guy who was enacting a small role couldn’t do it as the teacher (director) expected it to be. Not sure how, but somehow I stepped in and said ‘ Hey, I will show you how to do that’ and I did it. Teacher was expressively happy and she suggested me to take up the role. No, that guy wasn’t abandoned – he was given another role which he played well (His role had no dialogues nor enactment, just to be on the sides with his spear :-p). Ok, so that was my first ‘drama’tic moment. Before becoming an actor, I had written a script too. The first script I had written for a drama was when I was at 4th grade again. That was something about Gandhiji’s salt satyagraha. But that never appeared in the limelight. Some other scripts I wrote was enacted not in school. But in my neighbourhood, with some of my friends. We used to have regular rehearsals and costumes, although there were no audience.

Later when at 5th (or so I think) I along with 2 other friends directed and enacted a 10 minute comedy mime. That went on to be a big hit. On a sidenote we were the second most seniors in the school, and while we were at 5th grade the maximum our school had was 6, and when we were at 6th, the maximum was 7 and so on. So most of the audience were junior kids who laughed their guts out seeing our silly mute shows (slapstick comedy). We (me and 2 friends) almost were a brand, that we were approached by representatives of various literary associations of our school to perform shows. Some of which we did (I could recollect and Doordarshan Show, News reading and some other miscellaneous comedies, which were mostly modified version of something we had seen in some movies or so). What more I was even asked to create a script for a comedy show for some other school !. I was just flying.

Lots more dramas, mimes, declamations, flower-arrangements, fancy dresses and elocutions later, it was time for my final drama at school. That was the most enjoyable and saddening one. Enjoyable because we got some of the ‘best actors’ of the school in that drama and being with them was a great experience; sad because that was my last play at that school (They admitted no boys for 11th and 12th grade). I was all thrilled for the drama because I played the main role. And that was Dr. Faustus. Oh my! we had so great moments of our life during the rehearsals.

I would cry aloud when teachers (directors) wanted Dr. Faustus to cry that once our ayah came running wondering what happened. We had to memorise dialogues (not only ours, but others' also). Mine were the lengthiest, and I remember me memorizing the dialogues for nights together. My parents were very supportive and never asked me to concentrate on studies (although it was my public exams that year). I had monologues which went on for 5-6 minutes. It was real fun learning it by heart and expressing it with the right emotions. I also remember one of my friends who was playing a significant role in the drama got affected by chicken pox a week before our final play, and we had to run around to find a replacement and teach the person all the dialogues. Boy, it was fun.
Oh how much I enjoyed.

Given the right push, would I have seen my name written on the silver screen?
Alas! creativity has taken a back seat in this big money-chasing world. Sigh!.. some day.

Only Abuse

In this part of the geographic area where I am currently, people use almost all sentences ending with ‘only’. Wonder if ‘only’ has a different meaning in here.

“ I missed my bus yaar, I came by auto only”

Err.. ok, but why do you want an ‘only’ to support the above sentence?.

“ That is nice, you need not have to worry about rain only”, told my colleague, when I told her I have an umbrella, just in case if it rains.

“ Oh yeah, I knew about her engagement through facebook only”

Am I missing something or growing too old?

Anyways, I am posting this only.

When else do I?

When I was 3, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, once you go to school, you will have lots of friends to play. Now don’t shout’

When I was 5, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, once you go back home in the evening, you can play’

When I was 7, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, did you finish your homework?’

When I was 9, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, can’t you see we are watching news’

When I was 11, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, look at your brother, see how quiet he is’

When I was 13, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, you’re now grown up, and don’t fool around’

When I was 15, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, did you learn for your board exams?’

When I was 17, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, you people need to be role models for the juniors’

When I was 19, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, is this the age to play around, when you’re in the college?’

When I was 21, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Stop that now, Now that you have got the offer from that MNC, behave responsibly’

When I was 23, when I talked aloud and laughed and played, all said, ‘Ah ! he was such a nice boy. Pity, that his happened to him’

Then I did not talk aloud, laugh or play.

But people, please tell me, when do I talk aloud, laugh and play?

Trapped... Oops! Tagged

‘Just a mother of two’ asked anyone who read her blog to continue the tag. So here I go. BTW, this is the first tag, I am attempting in my blogolife

1. What curse word do you use the most? – kOppu

2. Do you own an iPod? – No and I don’t want to. I hate the earphones.

3. What person do you talk to on the phone the most? – My wife (at present)

4. Do you still remember the first person you kissed? – Oh yes. Now stop right there.

5. Do you remember where you were on 11/9/01? – Yes, I was at my home in Marthandam, TamilNadu, wondering what do I do to complete the Power Electronics Engineering Assignment.

6. What was the last movie you watched? – ‘Pattanapravesham’ (Malayalam). Actually, parts of the movie, not entire one. The entire one was ‘ Theeratha Vilayattu Pillai’ (Tamil). No wait, I watched that out of desperation and not that I am a die hard fan of Tamil movies.

7. Has anyone ever called you lazy? – Yes, I have called that myself, several times.

8. Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep? – No

9. Has anyone told you a secret this week? - Err… No

10. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? – Won’t say ;-)

11. What are you looking forward to? – a chance to do what I love

12. Do you own any band t-shirts? – NOOOOO. I hate it.

13. What will you be doing in one hour? – Reading another set of blogs

14. Is anyone in love with you? – Ofcourse. Lots.

15. Last time you cried? – Don’t remember

16. Are you on a desktop computer or a laptop? - Desktop

17. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos? - No

18. Would you ever date anyone covered in tattoos? – I don’t mind

19. What were you doing before this? – Having Curd Rice and Pickle

20. When is the last time you slept on the floor? - Yesterday

21. How many hours of sleep do you need to function? – 8 hours. No compromise

22. Do you eat breakfast daily? – Yes, I do.

Now no escaping. You continue.

Great Job!

Although a bit late, I chanced upon this interview of Steve Jobs. A whole lot of insight. Regarding primary education; his early days in Apple; how he penetrated into the Big Blue dominated market; how he started the NeXT, Pixar; why WWW is here to stay; of death being the greatest invention; on being an entrepreneur.

I have listened to Steve on the TED website, regarding the ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’ concept etc, but this is a very descriptive one and an equally amazing one. It is worth a read, and a re-read a hundred times. Don’t just read, imbibe.

It’s excellent !

My Key bored

As always while I was whiling away my time at office browsing through odd blogs and websites, suddenly my keyboard stopped functioning. I infact did not have know when it stopped working, until I tried Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V option (obviously trying to copy and paste something from a blog, sorry not plagiarism, just a decode business). Alas!, the keyboard went into a sleep mode and refused to paste the contents into MS Word, blank document.

Well, as any other person, I tried hitting the keys hard, trying various combination keys, typing out asdf etc, but no way. I thought now I have to seek the help of professionals to get it working or may be replace the keyboard. I checked with my colleague, what was the number of the technical support team, which he shared. There goes, I started trying and trying and trying.. No luck. I felt like a housewife making frantic calls to ‘Dial A Song’ programme in Kiran TV.

Armed with my engineering degree, I thought I will check out the issue. I heard from experts that most of the issues with the computer get solved if it is restarted. So I did. I restarted the computer, and it did restart too. But no, the little LED on my keyboard still didn’t glow up. Instead I got a message on my screen that ‘Keyboard not detected, Press F1 to continue’. “Err.. well may be the computer is a super genius and only the F1 key might work”, I thought, and gently pressed the F1. Hell.. nothing happened.

So there again, I started making calls to the help desk, where no one bothered to take my call or all what I got it an engaged tone (which sent shrills down my cochlea). So I decided to go and meet them, salute them and plead for help. I climbed the stairs and went to the floor above mine and met those revered people. There were about four of them, and I wondered why no one bothered to take my call. I did not make a fuss out of it. I politely informed them that my keyboard is not working. One fellow (who turned out to be a helpful chap later) asked what my cubicle number was. Well, does the cubicles have numbers here..while was I feigning to recollect, another guy announced that it was ‘5’. Oh my ! I never knew I was this famous, that people even noticed what my cubicle number was. I wanted to ask if he knew my bank account number as well. But as the person who required help, I thanked him and turned to my savior. He asked me to go back, while he would come to my seat in some time. When I was about to leave, he called me back and asked me to raise a ‘call’ (A call is a service request an employee is supposed to raise to get a problem resolved. It helps in better tracking.). ‘ May be I haven’t really heard what he said’ I thought and asked ‘What?’. He repeated. Well it is my keyboard which is not working, and please beg your pardon dear highness, I will not be able to type out a ‘call’ without my keyboard being functional. He quickly understood my dilemma and said ‘Ok, Ok. Need not raise the call, I will come’. I thanked him and went back to my cubicle number 5.

He came in few minutes as promised carrying a keyboard along, in case my present one needs to be replaced. He did what I did, tried hitting odd keys and pulling the cord etc, and then he read out the instruction which was still on my monitor ‘ Keyboard not detected; press F1 to continue’ He tried hitting it too, as if he has some magical touch and the computer would recognize his touch. But boy, it worked !

It took 9 seconds for me to close my mouth which was wide open in bewilderment and embarrassment and mixed feeling of lot other emotions.

It was a loose contact and he just touched the cable and lo! It worked!!

Do you know any place where I can surrender my engineering degree and get back 4 years of my life?

INR gets a new avatar

Folks, our keyboards might have a new key soon - a symbol representing the Indian Currency. The cabinet has decided to finalise a symbol today, which would now on be the official representation of the Indian Rupee or INR. They have shortlisted five symbols which is more or less similar to those of $ or €. View them here.

Does dollar hear its deathbell in the near future? Well may be.

Thanks Kiruba for indicating.

My two nights with Sofiya

Ok, now that I have grabbed the attention, let me clarify, before your thoughts go wild. Sofiya is the name of the AC VOLVO bus plying from Bangalore to Trivandrum and back. I usually take this bus for my travel because of few reasons. It starts at 6.30 pm, which mean I need not have to apply for a half day leave to catch the bus. They give free water and food and a pillow. The bus pass through Sreekariyam, so that I can get down at Sreekariyam, once I board the bus from Madiwala. They show Mallu movies (comedy, most of the time) and play beautiful songs.
First Night:
This weekend, the movie was Robinhood – although it was not a comedy movie when originally released, it turned out to be a comedy movie. First ROFL event was when Jayasurya appeared as the Asst Police Commissioner. Oh ! It was hilarious. Whenever I see Jayasurya, I can only relate him as a ‘mandabuddhi’ - no offence meant, I feel I can appreciate his acting skills when he does ‘mandabuddhi’ type of roles. For such person the police dress did not suit at all in the first place, and when portrayed as ACP, it was too much to control. I get pissed off when someone uses wrong words or grammar. Twice in the move (the well educated) Prithviraj used the words ‘mediums’ and ‘medias’ – both are wrong. The character of Samvritha Sunil was unnecessary, and the producer could have saved some money eliminating her from the movie. The way the electromagnetic signals transmit from the ATM to the small ‘chiratta’ like dish antenna, placed inside a cab was hilarious. Prithviraj is shown as the Entrance Coaching Centre tutor, but he lives in a posh apartment which in Kochi and by today’s standards do have a minimum monthly rent of Rs 20000. Wonder which is that coaching center which pays him that much.
Ok, now for the most funny part. The ATM did not have camera, until Narein (the detective) comes up with the brilliant idea that placing a camera would be helpful in identifying the robber. Reminds me of the scene in ‘Pattana Pravesam’ where Sreenivasan asks the police if they have a photograph of the person who did the crime, so that it would be easier for them to identify the criminal. Narein played his role well as a detective, but his portrayal of being a ‘vaayunokki’, didn’t suit him. All said and done, I couldn’t help but appreciate Biju Menon’s character in the movie. He was an excellent choice for the character – otherwise usually done by Rizabava or Siddique. Biju Menon looked a tailor made fit for the role and played it very well, with all the proud and pomp it demands. Appreciate the choice and the outcome.
Movie was interrupted at some place when we halted for dinner. The guys in the bus would hand over a Rs 50 food coupon in exchange of which we could have dinner. Now, that is a nice gesture. A guy who was having a ‘Masala Dosa’ along with me was wondering does one masala dosa cost Rs 50. I said ‘No, the coupon is worth Rs 50 and you can have anything as long as it is within Rs 50’. They guy ordered for another plate of Masala Dosa. :)
Somewhere the bus got delayed, blame it on the road condition or occasional drizzle, the bus reached Sreekariyam only at about 8.30 am
Second Night:
Boarded the bus from Kazhakuttom. They played beautiful songs
‘ Aathamaavil mutti vilichathu pole..’
‘Olichirikkan Vallikudil..’
and few other nostalgic melodies. It was so good, especially for a person like me who always board the bus with a heavy heart. The movie this time was ‘Thommanum Makkalum’. I remember watching this movie at some theater in Kochi on the same day when India was playing against Australia in a one day cricket match at a stadium nearby. The movie is a good watch especially while on the move. The dinner was at a place called Ootupura at Haripad. The waiters were running around to fetch orders and the food was tasty too.
Sofiya then went on non-stop, to reach Bangalore on the dot which was promised. I got down at Silk Board when it was 6 AM. Did I say, PERFECT !!
Thank you Sofiya, for giving me two memorable nights with you. I enjoyed, although you were a bit costly ;-)

Let the game begin!

Ajay was bashing the media for not reporting the inauguration of the Technocity with the importance it deserves. I echo him completely. I checked the websites of the Malayalam dailies and hardly found any news item on Technocity inauguration. This is a major phase in the IT world of Kerala, and has the potential to change the image of Trivandrum, not to mention the revenue it brings in and the job market it opens up. Well..on second thoughts may be all is for good, because most of the projects which were hyped up have not moved an inch further, post inauguration.

When the first phase is getting ready, the think tanks need to device a clear strategy of marketing the project to get the buildings occupied.

Let the game begin !

What 2 mins of idle time can do to you..

I am a thought
Your formed me
And made me run
With no rest

I am making rounds
In between your ears
Oh when will you let me out
So that I can enter more ears

You are my father
But what use am I
If I don’t serve the purpose
For which you created me

So let me out
Let me go
And trigger the process
Of making my siblings

I cant be alone
For I am scared.
I need company
To travel new heights

A year or is it an year? !!

It’s been really long. An year past by. Did something happen during this year?
Yes .. yes
I changed jobs..I came to a new location.
But now I hate both.
I learnt that boredom is directly proportional to the size of the organization.
I learnt that I can cook and eat it too ! and SURVIVE too !!
I learnt that ..
No, I don’t intend to write a poem.
I would like to remain jobless for few weeks. Just for the heck of it, to be myself, to know what on earth keeps the world busy, to watch the cat which runs around the courtyard, to watch the squirrel.. oh wait wait.. the poet in me is waking up. Stop right there…
It is exactly 8 minutes back, I discovered that I can publish my posts from office. He he, don’t tell anyone. Now that I got a door open, I can let my thoughts flow freely and fingers hit the keyboard on its own. Lemme see how long can I sustain.