Too Goodda

Some Times

2011-05-30T20:25:00.001+05:30

Sometimes I feel time is accelerating. The earlier years of my life were slower. Then they got fast, faster, more faster (now don’t crib about the grammatical error) and even more faster. This might be since I have a lot more do these days when compared to earlier days.
Is it just me or is it something the whole human race is going through?

The last two years of my life were happening ones. We were all warned it will be so. We were also told the two years will the most unforgettable too. Well, time will tell if that claim is true.
Yes, the 22 months were fast. Why was it so? Well when you have a lot to do and you get to meet a lot of people, time flies. Yes, it does.

At times, one might try to slow down things. Not talking to people, not doing projects and shutting oneself up in the room. Well, he/she ends up regretting more. For the next night in the mess, you meet passionate people talking about that guest lecture you missed, that learning at the consulting competition or the fun at the weekend workshop.
Having learnt the lesson, one ends up taking part in anything and everything. For you never know where you stand until you take part in the race.

To be named, been there done that
One likes to be photographed and tagged
One arrives at the month end party exquisitely dressed
Embrace the lady and high-five for him
Photographing the peacocks and the benches
Seeking 59 likes and 34 wow-comments
My brethren in high spirits and their sisters sloshed.

At the end of it all one is left with the contact details of about 500 people who are necessarily highly-motivated, sometimes hard-working and would probably compromise-on-anything-for-success.
Oh yes success. Whether you measure it by your monthly paycheck or the attractiveness/intellect of your life partner, you better earn that. For the world will respect you then and only then. And sometimes one feels, quoting a premium, success is overvalued in a B-school.
But if you are lucky you will end up making a dozen or so good friends, you will learn a little bit about yourself, a bit more about others and to please others by lying and name it being polite.

I consider myself lucky.

Always have been.

Having decided that my previous work was inconsequential I decided to take part in this race. When I started I didn’t know it was a race. As I finish now you can’t ask me where I stand. Well, my fellow students taught me everything in this human birth is a race. An eternal one.
So the race is still on. And the roads are aplenty.

After a hundred movies on my laptop, which includes 20 Malayalam flicks, a score more on the cable; 6 seasons of Friends; 3 seasons of That’s 70s Show; a dozen or so books; tens of hours of chatting and cribbing on GTalk the 70 day vacation is nearing its end.

To Mumbai!

P.S. The pics were clicked at the Palaghat Fort. And if you are touring Kerala
someday you wouldn’t want to miss The Rock Gardens at Malampuzha. Of which I have pics but am lazy to upload.

Unanswered

2011-02-17T04:00:00.003+05:30

I am in love with the character of the girl in the bus! Her looks are so intense. Damn.

What is the director trying to convey here?
I am wondering . . . that Khalujaan is in love, that he is feeling everything around him is romantic, blissful and nice. Even if the girl doesn't look at him lovingly the man in love will feel that the stranger girl is so fond of him. That you are worth a look and possibly a smile.
Why is the man who learns that Khalujaan and the girl exchanging glances, giving him his seat?
Since Khalujaan is old?
Or is he a romantic himself and he understands?

Its 4.00 am.
I have lot of unanswered questions including three essays.
And the song is in loop.

The Last Home Coming

2011-02-06T21:31:00.009+05:30

I just planned a 3330 kms of chiku-buku for 56 hours! (And I am only hoping it doesn’t turn to be 127 hours :) )

Lucknow-Moradabad-Delhi-Kota-Vadodara-Panvel-Magoan-Mangalore-Kozhikode-Shoranur.

And what’s the icing on the cake this time?

I will be along with a couple of works of fiction. Period.

I have learnt that travelling alone is a unique experience and can be very rewarding, personally. Advantages of travelling alone are plenty:

It's easier to make friends with the other travellers. Yup, you got me. ;)
You only have to please yourself. You are not concerned about a zillion other people and their safety and comfort
Your time and budget. No excel sheets after the journey!
Your travel will be far more flexible and you take decisions on the spur of the moment
Opportunity for reflection and contemplation. This is no globe. This is required after two years of fast-paced b-school life :)

You might be thinking what an introverted moron I am. Yes, I am and always will be. And this doesn’t mean that next time you plan a trip you comfortably avoid me. I will bury you alive. :)

From the time I joined for my post-graduation I wanted to take a train from Lucknow to my native. And this is my last chance. I have heard that once you stay in a train for 2-3 days, even after you get out the hangover stays and you feel like you are shaking. :)
I have always loved travelling. That’s one reason why I had a great time during my summer internship. Memorable days!

And trains. You know how much I love them. And moreover this journey is going to be special. The final one after two years of so called academic rigour.

Honestly academic rigour is upto you. Its how much you want to do rather than someone imposing things on you. More about b-school system in another post possibly a month or two later. :)

P.S. I clicked these in my last journey on the Konkan rail-line. The next one should ideally have better ones :)

Thought Makes Character

2010-09-25T10:50:00.004+05:30

We are living in interesting times. Atleast I am. :)

Having learnt that economics and political sciences are based on the axiom that economic and political decision makers are motivated by self-interest the objectivist in me is tickled.

Philosophy as a study

Philosophy is nothing but man’s relationship to existence, how he should live his life. Philosophy as a study has five branches – 2 basic branches, 1 central branch and 2 derivative branches

Metaphysics – Nature of the universe as a whole. What is real? Are there more than one reality?
Epistemology – Theory of knowledge. How do you know you know? :)
Ethics/Morality – Code of values to guide human choices and action. What should be the goal of my life?
Politics – Nature of society and proper role of government. Should government spend on military?
Aesthetics – Philosophy of art. What makes an art work good or bad?

You cannot escape from philosophy. You may do so consciously but your subconscious will pick up from the world around you. All men/women have a view on all these aspects of philosophy. These views shape our life and character.

The collective views of all men and women on these aspects shape human history. And this is why philosophy is important. And that is why I study philosophy J.

Objectivism as a philosophy

Though I have blogged about objectivism long ago, I have not done justice to my favorite philosophy (though I don't have clarity on politics). Plato’s philosophy was almost diagonal to objectivism while Aristotle’s was pretty close in many angles.

I have tried to capture objectivism as a philosophy

1. Metaphysics – Reality: Everything that you can sense exists. The collective of all that exists is reality. Things are what they are. If you broke your leg playing football, however unhappy you are about it, you broke your leg. You can wish, desire believe that your leg is fine. But reality is your leg is broken. Thus human conscious cannot change reality. Nor can any supernatural power. Thus the rejection of Subjectivism and God hypothesis respectively. The natural world operates by cause and effect. One type of cause is human will.

2. Epistemology – Reason: Logic rules. No non-sensory means of knowledge like mysticism, ESP etc. We also reject skepticism (belief that there are no absolutes). Reason has 3 central elements –

Observation: Reason starts with the evidence of senses
Concepts/Abstractions: Our way of organizing sensory data logical
Logic: The method of reason. Nothing can be A and non-A at the same time. There are no contradictions

Every truth is an absolute, but we have to use reason to arrive at it.
Emotions follow from your convictions. Man should enjoy them as much as he can. But they are not means of knowledge.

3. Ethics – Rational Self-Interest: Each man lives by his own mind and for his own sake.From epistemology we learn that ethics can’t be based on whim. So let us reason it out.What gives raise to ethics? Man is a living being who needs to be selfish to keep him alive. You might ask then what the difference between man and animals is. Why does man need ethics while animals don’t? Animals don’t need ethics as they have no choice. They are programmed to support and keep themselves alive. But man can kill, commit suicide, etc. The primary virtue of objectivism is Rationality. Man survives by the use of reason. It’s a basic necessity. All progress that man has made is due to man’s ability to think. Other virtues are

Independence: of If you are not thinking independently you are not thinking!
Integrity: Acting according to what you think. Otherwise why think? J
Productivity: Using your mind to create physical wealth

You don’t sacrifice your life for others and don’t expect others (or coerce, force, kill) to sacrifice themselves for you.
If you practice this ethics there won’t be a dilemma between should I be moral or should I be practical. The only way to be practical is to be moral. The moral way to lead you life is to be practical.

4. Politics – Capitalism: Separation of government and economy. Foundation of the system is individual rights of life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness. Not the right of job, free education, social security, m etc. What a man earns by his own effort is his. No one can snatch his belongings. Also the government offers him nothing. No subsidies and price controls. Pure market determined prices. The government has 3 functions and only 3 functions

Police – To protect life and property from domestic criminals
Military – To protect from foreign aggression
Judiciary – To resolve disputes among citizens in a civilized rational manner

Government controls will take something from one person (group) and give it to other(s). This is against our ethics.

5. Art – Value Oriented: Art should present world as it could be and as it should be. As it could be as we want to stand with reality. As it should be as art gives man inspiration to fight through life and lead a better. Art what gives you values, elevates and idealizes the human spirit, gives you inspiration is called romanticism. This form of art is timeless.

One of the most debated aspects of objectivism is Self-Interest, often misunderstood as selfishness. Questions I have often faced are

Why do you help a guy who just fell from his bike?
Doesn’t a man love his wife? Where is the self-Interest here?

And we objectivists have rational answers!

Man lives by his thoughts and ideas. And philosophy is one of his basic ideas.

Drown

2010-07-09T22:26:00.004+05:30

Whom will I tell all my sorrows?

I want to drown them.

Who can I ask all my doubts?

I am pestered by so many.

Where do I wash all my dirt?
For the sink is clogged.

Poor Manager

2010-02-09T23:07:00.006+05:30

Finance Prof. says, "maximize shareholder's wealth"

Marketing Prof. says, "maximize customer satisfaction"

Human Resource Prof. says, "maximize employee satisfaction"

Operations Prof. says, "maximize firms efficiency"

When will a manager get to live his life?
He is always concerned about others.

When will he . . . ?

I need a copy of Atlas Shrugged!

Big time.

Point, CV Point

2010-02-02T22:33:00.002+05:30

First term at IIM was a replay of the final year at NITK.
All the movies that DC can offer.
Of course, minus the beach.
And the sunset.

How I miss the beach.
And the sunset. Rather the sun.

Second term came and along with it came Summer placements.
An eye-opener.
People are all-in-all.
They study, sing, dance, flirt, smoke, play, mug, drink, write, quiz, paint . . .
It doesn’t feel great to learn that there are 120 people ahead of you.
Or does it?

For you get the urge to study. To solve a few cases.
There are subjects in which you are good.
And there are others you are miserable at.
You feel, the subjects are miserable, the professors are miserable.
And you complain, “I am at the wrong place.”
Awaiting those month-end parties.

Hey, by the by, reading “The monk who sold his Ferrari” is not going to add a CV point. Why read it?
You are told you wasted 24 years of your life.
Be focused. Do things that add CV points.
Oh, the first scene of Modern Times.

"Its very difficult to get a good friend in an IIM"

"Why do you say that?"

"People are busy. They don't have time for . . . oh, just remembered, gotta rush for the baddy match, bye!"

Being at L

2009-06-28T14:25:00.002+05:30

All my IIML rantings at http://gettingeled.blogspot.com/
See you guys there :)

2 Springs in Bangalore

2009-05-29T19:00:00.000+05:30

There is only one season in Bangalore.

Pleasant.

And I have seen two of those. I wish I would see more of those in my future.

Quite a few things happened for me in Bangalore. One IPL cricket match, 2 dramas at Ranga Shankara (strictly watching :)), 3 places of stay, 4 night-outs, a couple of restaurants, innumerable movies, a lot of foolish shopping. And of course the acting workshop.

The importance of Bangalore for me is in the fact that it is here that I found what it feels to earn ones own bread, to send a monthly sum home, to buy clothes for my parents, to treat my sister. Like Ayn Rand would say, it is here that I gave my best abilities to earn my best and spend this money on the best goods/services that money can buy.

I have indulged. Lost me discipline.

And I believe its time for me to grow.

In the final year of my college I identified three main sets of people.

GREy people with hopes of getting out of India realizing that technical education in India sucks big time.
CATaphilic, most of whom don’t know what to do with their life.
Ayn Rand fans who will work in MNCs. This group is also mostly confused and the members are very lazy to be part of the above two groups. People of category 2 ask the question what to do in my life and get confused, but people of this category are confused even before they ask themselves this question.

I fell into category 3 as I was at the height of my laziness. Luckily my company is a great place for a fresher. Amazing people and a great work culture makes this company a wonderful place. The counter-strike, the chess, the TT, the leg-pulling, the location of our office added spice to my life in Bangalore. Fooky the PJ king, Bassappa the self-posted bakra, and many other weird characters here brought in variety. I learnt a lot both professionally and personally. Except that we don’t get free laptops to take home, everything was just perfect at my office.

But the only thing that’s permanent is change.

Broadly intelligence is classified into four main spheres and each person has a score in each of these.

Analytical: The logical expert.
Sequential: The analyzer who breaks down a problem into small sequential steps.
Interpersonal: The communication expert.
Imaginative: The broad-minded holistic person.

As an R&D engineer who doesn’t deal with customers, I must have used the first two categories. I believe it is time for me to explore the other two spheres.

I shall be moving to Lucknow in the third week of June to take admission for the Post-Graduate Programme at IIM Lucknow.

Art - nothing but Experiencing

2009-03-17T10:30:00.006+05:30

If writing is a form of art, then I have known no better artist than Arundhati Roy and I have appreciated no better piece of art than "The God of Small Things".
I finished my second reading.

"That is their mystery and their magic.
To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child, of his own. He teases it He punishes it. He sends it up—like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a
sleeping monkey’s tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna’s smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory.
He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.
The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument. From the age of three it has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of storytelling.
He has magic in him, this man within the painted mask and swirling skins."
- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

My biggest learning last 2-3 months is that art is nothing but an experience. An artist undergoes an experience and presents it in a creative way in his work. The power of the art form lies in the fact that the artist has undergone a set of emotions during his experience and these emotions are bundled and arranged in a beautiful manner in his work.

This power inspires and touches.

Eyes That Behold Mine

2008-10-09T18:18:00.008+05:30

These eyes that behold mine

Why is it that they resemble
The ones, that I dream of

Why do I feel that they are
The ones, that shall stay with me

Why do I believe that they are
The ones, that shed my tears

Why do I dream that they are
The ones, that live my dream

Those eyes that behold mine.
For ... they ... no more, are mine.

Math, Beauty, Mind and Nature

2008-10-03T10:16:00.003+05:30

"In my entire scientific life, extending over forty-five years, the most shattering experience has been the realisation that exact solution of Einstein's equations of general relativity discovered by the New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr's provides the absolutely exact representation of untold numbers of massive black holes that populate the universe. This "shuddering before the beautiful," this incredible fact that a discovery motivated by a search after the beautiful in mathematics should find its exact replica in Nature, persuades me to say that beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound level."
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 1975

Mumbai Meri Jaan

2008-08-27T18:12:00.007+05:30

Right from childhood I was very curious of Bombay. I grew up watching Malayalam movies in which the hero goes to Bombay and struggles to make ends meet. I told Amma, one day I will go to Bombay and work there. But Amma hates Bombay and she has her explanations. But still I loved the concept of Bombay. I knew that many people, mainly businessmen/entrepreneurs have made it big in Bombay.
When I was a kid I read a magazine article about Bombay. I was very impressed. I read that on a day when the electric trains disobeyed to run, people walked 8-10 kilometers to their workplace. Their dedication and loyalty to their profession can’t be put down by an insane bandh declared by an insensible fanatic organization. I have always associated Bombay with enthusiastic energetic people. I am proud this city belongs to my country.
Achchan has been working in Santa Cruz (Mumbai) for the last three years now. I have never been to Bombay. While graduating I had a chance to go. But then I told Achchan that there are no tickets and other lame excuses. I preferred staying with my grandparents in Pattambi. I don’t know why, but that’s what I did and I was happy about it. Maybe be because I had this notion that I will go to Bombay only “after I stand on my own feet”. Thus in the summer of 2005 Amma and Ammu went to Mumbai to stay with Achchan while I had a great experience taking my Ammamma to her birth place.
Yesterday I watched Mumbai Meri Jaan along with two of my colleagues – N and H. N is a silent-smartie and H is a movie-addict-hunk. I have been to several movies at PVR, with H, all of them big flops.
MMJ was a different story altogether. There are quite a few things that I liked about the movie.

All the characters have been well presented. The actors were just amazing and were at their best. I have always admired Kay Kay Menon and Soha Ali Khan. But I was never impressed by Irrfan Khan and Paresh Rawal before. I understand that its not they are incompetent actors, but it is lack of quality opportunities. They have done justice to their roles. Now, I love Hindi cinema.

Madhavan’s character (Nikhil) is my role model. I have always stood for public transport. I don’t own a vehicle although I think I can afford one now. Achchan also doesn’t own one, but he asks me to buy one. I am not very fond of auto rickshaw as well. I have always tried to avoid them. I look down upon people who use their private vehicle unnecessarily. I love BMTC.

Nikhil also preferred staying in India. When I go to Pattambi and meet a stranger this is what happens -
Stranger: Hi
Damn Good Guy: Hi
S: Working?
DGG: Yes
S: Gulf?
DGG: No, Bangalore
S: Working for experience?
DGG (totally confused): What? Experience...?
S: For going to Gulf I mean.
DGG: oh. I am not interested.
S: you are not interested??!!
S leaves with the expression of meeting the most stupid person in Pattambi. How I love Bangalore.

The movie has ripped the News media naked. Asking unnecessary questions and unnecessarily sensationalizing otherwise minor issues is not just a business tactic but a way of life for these professionals. I remember a very bad instance of asking really stupid questions. The CBSE class 10 results were announced. The topper of the Delhi region was being interviewed.
Press: What’s your favorite day of the week?
Topper: Wednesday
Press: What’s your favorite color?
Topper: Yellow
Wednesday and Yellow, my foot. What is a viewer of that News channel gaining from knowing the favorite day of a 10^th CBSE topper? How many guys had planned of proposing her on a Wednesday with yellow flowers in their hand? I love raping the media.

Coming from NITK to Bangalore has made me come face to face with the great economic divide in Indian cities. Any auto-rickshawalla\salesgirl in Bangalore will be able to relate with Thomas (Irrfan) the nomadic tea vendor. I remember the rubber-band theory in economics. The rich-poor divide widening is like a rubber-band expanding. It will stabilize in one of the two ways –
- The rubber-band snaps back. That is the divide becomes narrow by the redistribution of wealth
- The rubber-band breaks. This is equivalent to a revolution. The kind of thing that happened in USSR.
I love a little bit of Socialism.

Patil(Paresh Rawal)’s sudden realization that he has not done anything worthwhile as a constable and Paresh's performance is just great. It is an eye-opener not only for Patil but for all of us in different professions. Have we contributed anything worthwhile to the field we work in? Reminds me of Ayn Rand. I love Objectivism.

I am a big fan of movies like Amores Perros, Crash etc. All the stories in MMJ were related using the electric train bomb blasts. The individual stories were smoothly brought together. A commendable show by Nishikant Kamat. I love Brilliance.

I love being happy.

Loyal Me

2008-08-07T17:51:00.004+05:30

Some day I should not feel guilty of spending my company's bandwidth for my personal blog. So hear comes a little bit of NI patriotism.
If you want to program the graphical way, check out VI Mantra.
If you are impressed and want to know the rationale behind this, visit Growing the Pie.

Aren't They ?

2008-06-29T16:22:00.006+05:30

"Half-tea"
"Give me a Egg puffs as well"
It was drizzling. The half-tea was warming me up. Two guys and a girl, all aged around 10 years came by, bought a few toffees and started sharing.
There is nothing that you don't get at Jyothi Bakery, I believed.
The kids left.
I almost finished by puffs.
A 7 year old looking kid with no hair on his head came.
I and the shopkeeper thought he was a customer too.
He wanted to buy something as well.

The malayali shopkeeper asked in Kannada
"What do you want ?"
"I want work, do you have any ?"
There is something that you dont get in Jyothi Bakery!

--------------------------------------------

Sometimes I feel Kerala is a heaven.
I have seen very few instances of child labor in Kerala (this includes Cochin, Thrissur, the Palakkad District). Either I was not observant enough or I am right. When I moved over to Surathkal I was introduced to a world where kids below age 14 are employed in the Messes and Guest Houses of a college which is run by the Ministry of Human Resource Department, Government Of India.
The other students took it for granted.
I was perturbed. How could they do it ? Don't the college authorities atleast have a list of people employed in the institution with a column for their age ?

In Bangalore they are everywhere, doing everything.
Hotels, workshops, Industries. . . . everywhere.
They come from everywhere.
Sometimes as far as Jarkhand.

So what do we do ?
You can't just ban it.

These guys are earning a living.
They are feeding themselves and sometimes other mouths too.
They are better than educated home-sitting jobless elite who don't contribute anything to the economy.
Aren't they ?

So what do we do ?
Legitimize their employment ?

These guys are future citizens too.
They should know what is wrong and what is right.
They should be given the opportunity to try their hand in skills other than washing utensils and wiping tables. They are our future citizens too.
Aren't They ?

I Read

2008-04-17T17:56:00.005+05:30

The ones I want to read -
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond - Shashi Tharoor
A few I manged to complete -
Identity - Milan Kundera

The Pothunters And Other Stories - P G Wodehouse

Games Indians Play - Why We Are the Way We Are - V Raghunathan

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

The World is Flat - Thomas L Friedman

The City of Joy - Dominique Lapierre

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

The monk who sold his Ferrari - Robin S Sharma

The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger

My Experiments With Truth - M K Gandhi
The God of Small Things - Arundath
A Beautiful Mind - Sylvia Nasar
Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter

Deception Point - Dan Brown

Angels and Demons - Dan Brown

Digital Fortress - Dan Brown

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J. K. Rowling

Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

E-Commerce

2008-04-10T15:39:00.007+05:30

There seems to be nothing impossible in internet commerce. Today I found out that I can find, compare and buy a pregnant mother at shopping.com. This is what you see when you hover your mouse over pregnant mother in this news item. (Clic the Pic)

This is amazing. Isn't it. Everything is getting automated.

All those double underlined links give up these pop-up ads.

Left and right we have ads. Moneycontrol has the same crappy way of advertising and sometimes even worse.

Network 18.

Ya, I know.

They are making big money.

Paper

2008-04-09T19:24:00.005+05:30

As far as I remember, my family has been a loyal subscriber of The Hindu.

When I was a kid I used to wait for Saturdays. Young World was just amazing. Eureka and the column where we have to join dots and colour (Hope it was named “Colour Me” or “Crayon Corner” not quite sure) were my favorites.

I collected all the copies of Young World that I could get hold of, under my bed. Later (that’s after a year or so) I used to again read it. My collection became so big that it changed the shape of my bed. My cleanliness obsessive Amma one day sold it off to that guy who takes crap and gives money.

I was 10. I cried.

I again collected.

Amma again made money.

One day morning when I took up the paper, I saw that the font had changed. Every article had a tag beneath their Heading. I liked the new style of the paper.

Later, Know Your English, Opinion (on Wednesdays) and Magazine became my favorites. Opinion was a supplement then, which was later squeezed into a page.

When we moved over to Kochi, we stayed with mema (amma’s sister) and family. They subscribed The New Indian Express.

A piece of crap.

The same crap at school library.

Not only was the content crap. The newspaper was made out of cheap quality paper. Like that of P.C. Thomas’s. I hate cheap quality paper. An eye-sore they are.

I missed my paper.

Achchan used to bring The Economic Times from his office. I liked the color. The financial News made no sense to me. It had (hope still has) a glossy supplement – “Brand Equity”. I utilized it for covering my school notebooks. Notebook cover made out of glossy paper stays long. Common sense.

I remember reading an article about inflation. It had a still from Pukar. Anil Kapoor holding Ayshwarya’s leg. Her legs were perpendicular to each other. I assumed they are the X-axis and Y-axis of the graph.

Then I left for college. My first year room-mates - one Bangalore based Bengali and one Mumbai based Mumbaikar introduced me to another piece of crap – The Times Of India. This is the most circulated crap in India it seems.

From the second year in college, you can choose your room-mate. So you can choose your paper as well.

I got back my paper. My paper used to gracefully come in at 10:30 am, bringing along with it all the bliss into our room. It so happens that, in NITK there is a mafia for everything. Newspaper Mafia, Stolen Mobiles Mafia, Dhobi Mafia are examples. These Mafias have monopoly in their respective sectors in NITK.

Paper coming in at 10:30 am is ok with us NITKians. We kind of get up most of the days when we hear the paper-push beneath the door.

In the NITK saloon, I saw a copy of Tehelka for the first time.

I took it up with respect.

And put it down with disgust.

Thus I had 3 years of The Hindu in my college. I could easily relate to Slice of Life, The Shashi Tharoor Column was never truer, The Other Half was too complaining.
She said women are not properly represented in the Research and Development stream of the nation. I mailed Kalpana Sharma; women have better right brain while men have better left. I gave the example of my college (410 guys and 40 girls). She was not happy with me. This was evident in her column the next week.

Come to Bangalore. Every morning I get to see the TOI crap. My company does get The Hindu. But they keep it in the Fourth Floor. (Ya I do have a life outside my company, but I am a miser.)

I do it the Software Engineer way - get RSS feeds.

Now, if crap is indeed crap why is it circulated so well?

Let’s get things into perspective.

Vinod Mehta says it is profit making strategies.

Kushwant Singh tells us it is no more Political Journalism, instead Journalistic Politics.

Well as Magazines, I respect Frontline and Outlook.
For they are edited by real Men.

They say Newspapers is the mirror of the nation.
They are powerful.
They make democracy successful.
But we get to see that they are vulnerable as well.

Abdul Kalam says
“Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?”

My friend showed me this. I can understand that these are also supposed to be published in a neutral paper. I am concerned about the significance the paper gives to such articles.

Its not that The Hindu is an all time good newspaper. They once published a photograph in the front page. The body of a martyr Jawan being dragged by two other Indian Jawans. People sent in letters and the paper apologized.

I think Vinod Mehta has the last say,
“…. content is a calculated mix of what the reader wants and what he does not want. The trick is to marry the two to make great journalism and big profits...”

P.S. TOI has come out with this Unlock Bangalore thingee. I am quite impressed :)

The Pre-Degree

2008-03-20T15:37:00.007+05:30

Once decided on Engineering I opted for Math with Computer Science in 11th grade. My parents asked me to take Math with Biology. Just because they said so I thought I should not go by them. I was stubborn and took Computers.

This decision leaked out and all the babes in my school conspired against me. They all ended taking up Math with Biology. Well the Computer class had 7 girls and 29 Boys. It all started on that day – Dearth of women in my life. It is still present in all the ways it can manifest.

Lesson you can learn from my life: Your parents always give you the right advice (mostly it is indirect).

Then I thought of writing a letter to the principal of the school asking if I can move over to the Biology class! My friends were totally against me doing it. They advised me,” dey Kozhi, don’t do something stupid, Computers is the in thing, you are the ultimate programmer who is going to change the way the world is going to code.”

Friends are ultimate people, when they say something they mean it.

I tried putting forward another proposal. Why not, all three of us jump to the Bio class. This proposal was more welcome. But later I understood it is something which is not feasible. The Bio class already had more people than the Comp class and princi is not very happy in admitting more people. Moreover all 3 of us had opted for Engineering Entrance Coaching at P C Thomas Classes.

P C Thomas Classes is The place in Thrissur where everyone gets educated and illuminated. Let me explain.

Kerala is a place where no industry can survive. I don’t know how V-Guard and Milka Wonder Cake managed it. But there is one industry which can survive in Kerala – Education.

It is basically that Demand-Supply funda of economics. Demand - Everyone is educated and everyone wants to get a degree. Supply-Number of colleges and the seats they can offer is few. The tunnel connecting this demand and supply is obviously the KMEEE (Kerala Medical Engineering Entrance Examination)

Dr P C Thomas was a smart dude. I was told he is a doctor, “the kind that helps people”. (Hope you have watched this and if you haven’t, I would recommend it.) He (henceforth referred as PC) lit the demand-supply gap tunnel with his Entrance Coaching Classes – The P C Thomas Classes.

I don’t know the authenticity of this, but I have heard rumors that he is the person in Kerala paying the biggest amount as Income Tax. And one more rumor. Because of his strict rules, many students cursed him. This is believed by many to have resulted in his daughter being mentally retarded.

For me, the Sunday classes were a kind of picnic and pilgrimage. For I am very positive-minded. R and I had to catch the first bus to Cochin North railway station. We used to be at the Chittoor Kshetram (Temple) bus stop at 4:45 am.

Imagine 4:45 am on a Sunday!

And every Sunday!

It used to be a KRSTC bus packed to its limits. We used to squeeze in with our bags filled with lunch and the PC books. The PC books were all very thin, long and made out of recycled paper. The businessman he is.

We used to get down at the North bus stop and walk the 5 minutes to the Railway station. Most of the times, this walk was a run. The KSRTC bus used to be late. Somehow we used to reach the railway station and man, how can I forget those long queues for getting that Rs18 ticket to Thrissur. Often, we used to help each other by getting tickets for other PC-classes-going-groups.

We get onto Platform 1 and study the crowd waiting for the legendry train – “Push-Pull”. The Push-Pull is the morning train (with just 6 coaches, in which 1 is ladies) from Cochin to Guruvayur. Thus the Push Pull is crowded mainly with two kinds of people –

Teenagers on weekly pilgrimage to Thrissur.
Elderly on monthly pilgrimage to Guruvayur.

The first few weeks we were not successful in securing seats. We stood throughout the journey pushing and pulling. But by the third week we were professionals. Our plan was just amazing. Two guys on one side of the rail and two on the other. The two people on the same side are a strategic distance apart. Thus we used to attack one particular coach (the one next the ladies coach, this is exclusively for identification purposes) from all the four entrances. From then on we never had to stand on Push-Pull.

We knew pretty well that passing the entrances of Push-Pull coaches doesn’t mean we will get a pass in the Kerala Entrance Exams. We were supposed to do some homework every week. As we were a very diligent group, we never used to do it. So in the train, it was kozhi-kirukal (translates to Hen-Scribbling) in the PC workbook (another thin long recycled crap, you have to buy giving Rs10).

The Push-Pull was a very fast train. It used to cover the 76 kms in like 2 hours. The Japanese and the French will be ashamed of this fact. We used to utilize these 2 hours for completing our homework in 3 subjects.

The train gets half empty at Thrissur. Then there is another mission- the autos. There will be limited autos parked at the railway station. The demand for these autos is great. It was a run from the train to the station entrance. You have to say “PC” to the auto-drivers and sometimes you don’t have to do that either. They know where to take you. While getting down pay him 15 if you are 3, 20 if you traveled with 3 other guys\girls. (Ya, ya, I know probability of traveling with 3 girls in an auto is a limit tending to 0).

The PC buildings are I suppose designed by Howard Roark. They are optimized for space, money, light and all the other resources involved. The stairs are made of aluminum. The generators of these buildings are custom made for him. They are painted green, huge and bulky but surprising make no noise.

Once you are inside the class you start sweating as you are involved in the thermodynamic process of increasing the temperature of the class along with 99 other students and 1 prof.

Some teachers at PC classes are dumb while others are unimaginably brilliant. Until I joined college I strongly believed that no man can be more brilliant than Sunny sir. My world was small then.

Four hours of technical torture used to render us terrifically hungry, we used to eat the recycled paper from our notebooks by the end of the 4^th class.

After lunch it was time for IIT special classes. By the time these classes are over (5pm) everyone used to get totally exhausted. We can either take an auto to the railway station or walk. I preferred walking – saves money for that extra Paruppu vada and can explore Thrissur as well.

Right in the middle of platform 1 on Thrissur railway station is a tea vendor. This guy is particularly popular among us PC guys as he sells tea to students at a concession (It was Rs3.50 for students and Rs4 for the rest of the world). We were all fans of his Paruppu vada. We used to hog as if we went without food for 3 days.

Then, its time for you to show your seat snatching skills in the legendry Passenger. Getting a seat becomes inevitable as we are already tired for the day. We do our Mission Impossible thing again.

The Passenger is supposed to come at 5:30 pm, but you can congratulate yourself on being lucky if it shows up in Thrissur by 6:50 pm. This train too has about 6-7 coaches and is terrifically fast. Faster than Push-Pull.

This return journey used to be our jolly time. Gossiping, joking, discussing “stuff”, academic of course.

We normally reach Cochin North by around 9:00-9:30 pm. Then

The walk.
The bus.
The bath.
The food.
The bed.

This was our Sunday.
Every Sunday.
For 2 years.

Sure it was worth it. We learned a lot of things. The MI thing for example.
We are all Engineers now. Two are doing their MBA. Rest are working.

Karadhi-The man

2008-03-19T18:11:00.012+05:30

I have always wondered how people like Karadhi and his son become superstars in the Tamil film industry. Maybe both because of their great looks and great acting skills. The tamilian viewers are great as far as appreciating actors and their skills.
Here you can see people wasting their time comparing Chandramukhi, Bhool Bhuliya and other remakes with Manichithra Thazhu. They are comparing two times national award winner Padmashree Shobana with Jyothika, Vidya Balan and Soundarya.

Give me a break.

Shobana, I believe is an artist, unlike Jyothika, Vidya Balan who are actresses.
The malayalees fighting there, I believe, are degrading Shobana by comparing her with such actresses. (And wasting their time, mind you, that video has 200 comments!)
I have no problem with Tamil film industry and I love Kamal Haasan's performances (in Moondram Pirai, Nayagan, Mahanadi and innumerable others); the great movies made by Mani Ratnam; Illayaraja's and ARR's Music. I am addicted to ARR's music. I fall from my seat clutching my stomach, laughing, seeing Vivek's and Vadivelu's performances.
But when somebody says Rajinikant's performance in Chandramukhi is better than Mohanlal's in Manichithra Thazhu what do you expect me to do, but laugh.
I think it is stupid to compare actors like this. While Rajinikant and Mohanlal are both legendry actors, the Tamil movie's director must have thought what will be the best to entertain the Tamil viewers. When a malayalee sees this he might feel it is stupid and illogical. No, I am not claiming that malayalees are very intellectual and brilliant, most of the times I feel the other way. But, I and three of my malayalee friends felt the climax of Chandramukhi laughable.
Likewise when a Tamilian watches the malayalee version he would feel that the malayalee version is too boring and emotionless (as he is not seeing the subtle emotions that the actors' are trying to portray as he is only used to emotions which are very explicit).
When I watched Kannathil Muthamital the scene which I liked the most was the reaction on the girl's face when she learns she is an orphan. Many Tamilians I know, don't even remember this scene. Well I feel this is the difference between the way I appreciated the movie and my Tamilian friends did.
Posting this with due respects to the taste of Tamizh makal.

The weekend that wasn’t

2008-03-11T20:43:00.006+05:30

I had a great weekend.
The folks in my office had planned a cricket match to be held on Saturday morning. It was supposed to be Sales vs. R&D.
Right from childhood I have learnt that cricket is not my cup of tea (I don't drink coffee). Thus in Madras I used to play kings (and a king I was, many a times) and volleyball (not very good at that, but I was OK). At Cochin, we used to play football. I know I am not good at that as well. But the advantage with playing football is that you can hide your ignorance. But if you don’t know cricket, it shows out pretty well. Thus I made it pretty well known to the people here that if you would ask me to pose like a pig faced porcupine with a camera in your hand, I shall do it, but never ask me to play cricket. But my admin and Tech-lead wanted me to come to the ground for just the fun of it. I promised them I would, knowing pretty well that this promise is to broken.
Friday night I slept quite early, around 10. Thus Saturday 7 am I am awake in my bed. I lay lazily there for half an hour and feeling bored got up. I dint have anything to do. Well the cricket match was supposed to start at 7 am. So I thought why not go and check out how badly R&D is losing to Sales. So I plugged in my iPod and started walking to the NGV ground.
I reached in time to watch the last over of the sales innings. And to my surprise R&D won the match. The R&D guys spotted me watching the game. And as I have often feared, the manger asked me to join. I tried my level best to make it clear that I don't want to play. And they put me in the Sales team, telling that their team has only 10 players while R&D already has 11 players.
Thus I turned out to be the only R&D guy in the sales team. I made it clear to the sales guys that I am good for nothing. They understood what I meant. They are application engineers, they understand people.
Anyway cricket is a bland game. I remember giving an extempore speech while I was in school. The topic was “My favorite game”. It was a very easy topic. I have done better in political topics though I consider myself to be bad at that. I chose cricket for popularity sake. My speech was pathetically bad, as the words were not from my heart.
Let’s come back to the playground. My team (Sales) lost the first game. In the second game we were to bat first. I dint have to fight for the last batsman position, all the guys were very eager to bat. They managed to get a respectable score without bringing in the last batsman to field. Now it’s going to be difficult. I have to field!
I tried sitting back in the “Pavilion” but my captain told me to take the slip position. Then it was a series of catch drops. They tried posting me in each and every position in the field, but the ball obediently came in my direction, and when it is supposed to come to my hands, it would get deflected by the wind, by a small stone, or by the sheer will power of the batsman. I felt really bored. But somehow we won the match. I felt proud for my team. With my presence if they could win the match, they were really a damn good team.
They wanted to play one more match. I suggested football. But who is interested in football? We decided its going to be a cricket match to decide the winner of the series. Now that the score is 1-1, this match became indispensable for both the teams. Again I would like to say Cricket is a bland game. Half the time you sit in the pavilion (atleast I do so), the other half you just stand under the sun trying to concentrate where the ball will be the next moment. You don’t have to run much or do anything sportive (atleast I dint do anything).
I felt sad.
Another match?
I could have lied that I am busy and could have walked back home. But I wanted to show that I am no coward. I stayed.
Sales was to bat first. The sales captain (who is taking the role of the umpire now) asked me to keep track of the score. I nodded yes happily. I thought- OK , I should atleast show my talent in arithmetics here.
After a while someone asked me the score. I said 13. The batsman told its 17.
A few balls later another guy asked me for the score. I said 27. He asked if it isn’t 25. If he knows it is 25 why the hell is he asking me?
Then later the captain again asked. I said 45. Others corrected it to 47. I learnt that not only I am cricket ignorant. I am not even capable of keeping the score count!
Anyways cricket is a bland game. So I don’t mind not being good at that.
Then we were to bat. The captain asked me, if I would like to bowl. I said, “No, seriously no.” He understood.
We, I mean, the sales team won the second match also. Thus my team won all the matches that I “played”. R congratulated me on that.
We then went to Juice Junction. I had Orange Juice and Sapota Milk shake. I felt the juice and shake to be bland. Then we walked to the office. I watched Friends season one. I felt it to be bland.
Then R and I went to Desi Khana to have a good lunch. I asked for Non-Veg Thali. I got one. I felt the food to be bland.
Since the whole day was kinda bland I thought I will go and have a nice sleep. When I got out of my office I remembered that I forgot my keys in the playground. I came back to office asking people if they have seen any key chain in the playground while returning. They din’t. So I thought I should go to the playground and look for it.
But my colleagues said that somebody might make a duplicate of the key and keep the key back where it was found. And later when I come to take it, they will follow me and find out the lock that this key opens. Thereby this stranger can come and rob my home when I go out. I assured them that there is nothing precious at my home other than some old underwear. But they asked me to be cautious.
I was very lazy to walk. It was a hot afternoon. I hate hiring auto rickshaw. Hiring an auto never strikes my mind when I have to go somewhere. I think an auto rickshaw is a too much of a girl thing. I look down at people who take auto to travel a walk able distance. I have my own reasons for not having a vehicle (no no no, not having a two-wheeler license is not the only reason). Thus the BMTC has been a great friend of mine in Bangalore. I caught a 171 to get down at Koramangala Police Station, the stop near the ground.
The only nice thing that happened that day was the key being untouched at the place where I left it. I took it and came back to the bus stop. Nair called me to tell that they have bought a new TV. So how does it affect me ? I don’t give a damn. Bland and bald Nair. Not happy about, me not having a TV I took a 171 to Audugodi circle and took another bus to my office. Now, I did this to confuse the thief who might be following me to my home. I watched 3 more episodes of Friends season 1. Bored to my nerves, I walked back home. I left my iPod’s ear plug in the office intentionally. I felt I was getting too much addicted to my iPod. Eastern spiritual philosophy says that we should never have attachment with anything or anybody. Thus I promised myself that I won’t use my iPod for the next 1 week.
Being alone at home is really a bland situation. I took bath. The maid came and started doing her work. She started making bland conversations. I gave bland replies.
Once she left I left to the TIME coaching classes. There the teacher started discussing bland problems. These bland students with their bland doubts were stretching the class to 2 full hours. Nair and I then went to Kairali to have dinner. We ordered CB (Chicken Biriyani for the beginners). I felt the Biriyani to be bland even though Biriyani is supposed to be spicy. They also gave us a bland beetroot pickle! Nair had suggested me spending the night at his place. As both of us were alone and there was TV at his place. So went to Koramangala 1^st block. I had left my iPod at home.
The TV was a 21 inch Philips. I like Philips stuff. I like Samsung more though (they are known to hire really bright guys). I tried surfing the channels. I din’t find anything interesting. I started watching Jurassic Park 3. It was a bland movie. After that I again started surfing.
I saw this Virgin Mobile ad in four languages (Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil and English). I like the ad. I like her emotion when her dad says she has to go for the trip. Her eyes are depicting anger and haste, while her lips are in the beginning of a smile. She has done her homework well.
It was 11 and I wanted to sleep as all the programmes in the TV seemed bland. That bland bald guy Nair was watching some football match between some infamous clubs. The next day he was happy that one particular club lost, he hates that club it seems. As if he had done his schooling with the scholarship which was the donation of the other club. What attachment do these guys have with Bhelsea, Marcelona, Banchester and Udrid Mutated?
Next day I got up at around 7 am. I felt bored as its going to be another bland day. I had to open bland bald Nair’s cupboard for using his paste. I saw he has bought quite a few books after I left them. I took up the thinnest book.
It was Identity by Milan Kundera. Well if you don’t know who he is, let me illuminate. He wrote some really bland books and was thrown out of Chezh republic for the same. But Milan was smart. He understood that the French are genetically bland. So he lived in exile in France. And wrote more bland books. The blandest of which was Identity.
I congratulated myself for taking up the blandest books from bland bald Nair’s collection later that day. We watched The week that wasn’t in CNN. Bland bald Nair was laughing. I felt it to be bland comedy. At 11 we have the TIME class on the bland topic – Indices and surds. Bland bald Nair offered me to take the book with myself to complete it. We had a bland masala dosa at some arbit bland hotel in 1^st block. We entered that bland building where our classes are held. The beauties of the class dint turn up for the class. Thus the class was even more boring. I managed shouting out some wrong answers.
We planned having our lunch at Maharaja. I dint know, rather forgot, that it has an Andhra style cuisine. Andhra food is totally bland except for their pickles. We had meals and Lime Soda. Rs225 for that bland meals and Lime Soda? I felt cheated eventhough the ambiance was good.
I came back home. I was totally bored as I was not even using my iPod. My iPod has been my closest companion since the day I bought it. It’s plugged in when I walk, when I eat, when I try to sleep, when I work- for the last 3 months.
I slept. I read Identity. At 7:40 I felt hungry. The other day I had spotted an Andhra mess nearby. I thought I will try it tonight. So I went to that mess. There were chinki guys (either from the North-East part of India or from some South-east Asian country) seated there. The other day I strolled to Audugodi Circle by taking the Audugodi-Koramangala main road. And then from this road I explored a way to the Inner Ring road through the Shiva theatre road. During this exploration I found that there were a lot of poor chinki guys and gurls in this area. Thus I was not surprised. The mess was dirty. The food was bland and pathetic. The mess guy asked me to tell the chinki guys that the food will be little late as the autowalla who normally brings stuff for the mess has fallen ill. I helped him, totally disinterested. The food was usual Andhra stuff. The papu, which has everything in the world other than dal. The rice that was not cooked properly. The Telugu-Tamil speaking mess guy was disturbed as I ate very little. I had told him that this was my first time here. By now he was sure that this was my last time as well. I pressed Rs22 into his hands and smiled. While walking back home I lost my way. Then I had to walk back to the mess and take the road by which I had come there. I saw a bland drunkard relaxing on the road after gulping down some bland liquor.
I resumed reading the book. The bland book has just 2 characters. And these characters are dreaming throughout the book. The characters in the end wonder what part of the events that happened are real and what was part of the dream. The female character dreams of attending an orgy and sitting naked on a chair! I went nuts. Next morning when I got up, I realized, I had weird dreams. That bland book leaves a hangover too!

I know, I know, this post has become too much bland.

The True Romeos

2008-03-05T17:55:00.002+05:30

Disclaimer 1: All characters in this post are fictitious and any similarity to persons dead or living is purely coincidental. This post is also fictitious and is not a true story.

The author moved over to Bangalore in July along with 3 of his close college friends.
Thus we rented a 2-BHK in BTM.
All three of them have girlfriends, chey, one girlfriend each.
And from the very fact that this article is written you must have guessed that . . . .

About a few months ago, we were all in NITK, a place where you will easily find peacocks and peahens but would have to strain hard to spot a girl.

So all of us were really lucky and single.

Then everything came down like a twin tower. Mr A went ahead and invited a sub-sub-sub-junior Mrs A for a dinner. A great accomplishment in those days of desperation and frustration.

Mr A came back to hostel very sad after the dinner. I asked him
"What are you sad about ?"
"I spent 150 rupees and dint open my heart"
"So what is there in your heart to open up ?"
"I should have said I loved her. I should have proposed."
"So do you love her ?"
"Yes I do."
This "I Love Her" came out of Mr A after two meetings with Mrs A.
The first meeting was short and sweet. It was as follows
Mr A said "Hi"
Mrs A said "Bhai"
The author argued, she meant "Brother". But Mr A claims Mrs A is not "Hindi literate".
The second meeting was the above mentioned dinner.
The author went back to his room and thought over it.
"These days youngsters are very fast in everything", the author remembered his grandmother say.
How can someone judge a person in one and half meetings?
The author surely can't.
The author had personally not seen Mrs A then.
One day Mr A took pics of Mrs A and brought them back to his computer.
He showed Mr B the pics. Mr B told Mr A that she doesn't look good.
I dint know this then. Mr A called me. I went in and saw the Pics.
"How does she look ?"
"Ya, she looks goo..."
"haa, she looks good rt, Mr B told me she doesn't look good"
I smiled and left.
Then when I was in Mr B's room Mr B asked -
"Did u see her pic ?"
"Ya"
"She is not beautiful as he claimed rt ?"
"Ya, but I told him she is", I grinned.
_________________________________________

Now a days Mr A goes on a pilgrimage to NITK once every month to meet Mrs A who is still in college. For this pilgrimage Mr A saves money throughout the month eating from cheaper restaurants and stuff like that.
_X_____________________________________X_

Mr A meanwhile after third year had been to his school reunion. He met a lot of old friends and took photographs and all and came back cheerfully. He opened Orkut and added all his school mates as "friends" in Orkut.
Mr B was jobless. He had no school reunions to attend. He had no friends to add in Orkut. So he strayed into Mr A's friend-list or probably Mr A invited Mr B to check out his friend-list. There Mr B saw that Mr A knew quite a few vernacular speaking women. Mr B did a procedure called the HaiingArbitChicks.
This was a particularly popular process in NITK.

Disclaimer 2: The author writing about HaiingArbitChicks doesn't in any way mean that the author is not involved in the process. The author's masterpieces are as follows
"I think you look cute"
A Brazilian girl replied, "Thanks, have a nice week."
The author has heard people say, "Have a nice day". But probably thats what is common in Brazil.
"You look gracious"
A Pakistani girl replied, "Mind your own business."
What did she think the author is doing ?
Another great Orkut adventure the author had was with an Iranian woman. She had uploaded her pic in Orkut with her purdah and all. But this was nothing related to flirting. The author searched for psychology in Orkut and the results gave him a profile of a Iranian Begum who is interested in Psychology, he straightaway scrapped her. If she could help him, by suggesting names of books that he could read to get the basics of psychology. (The author was interested in this powerful science right from school days, but this interest has remained a interest all these years.) By the time she replied the author had lost his so called interest!

Now coming back to Mr and Mrs B. Mrs B happened to be that pure, God-fearing, innocent Kerala's own girl. Or atleast she was successful in making us believe so. No, no she cant deceive us, after all she was Mr A's old classmate right. I thus conclude, she is so.

Thus Mr and Mrs B came closer and closer day by day. How ?
Scrap in - Scrap out
Chat in - Chat out
SMS in - SMS out
Call in - Call out
Mr B's room was our common room. In the terminology of a residential college hostel, a common room is the room of a person, who is so jobless that, anyone can go to this room anytime and spend time doing one of the many things like - gossiping, playing cards or caroms, clicking photographs of our leg with his digi-cam, reading arbit non-academic books, calling girls (you have never met) and talking to them as if you have been with them throughout your life and any other such important assignments you have. Thus we all use to be at Mr B's room, the common room.
But wait. Something happened.
Mr B told us strictly that he wants to chat with Mrs B in private everyday from 6 pm to 8 pm. And thus he started throwing us out of his room everyday at 6 pm. They supposedly talked about everything they could think of. Yes, everything, from Bombay Jayashree's voice to pornography.
One fine day he admitted that he is in love with her. They haven't met ever. They messaged each other and called each other and they are in love.
Yes, I am more convinced with this love story than Mr A's. But isn't this more of mutual trust over chat and sms. He was in 95% love before he made his first phone call.
For example, on phone, the author has introspected that, he can be very nice to people and deceive people easily that he is not short-tempered. On the contrary he is. "Deceive" is not the right word. But it is very easy to put up a mask when you chat or talk on phone. The author knows he is successful in that and firmly believe that most people will be.
Anyways after he fell in love, he made more phone calls and spend most of his final year project time chatting with her, thereby successfully graduating as a "Engineer". She is a "Engineer" too. No, no the author is not claiming that they "Engineered" their relationship.
No, never.
_________________________________________

Nowadays Mr B spends 15% of his salary on Mrs B every month. Not by buying her gifts, but by calling her everyday. Sure Mrs B is also doing this stupidity, sorry, duty of a lover. In the evenings he spends his time talking with her. He plugs the Motorola's earplugs into his hear. You can also talk to him when he is on call. He will answer back to you as if he is not on phone. She understands. The phone line is open for 4-6 hrs every evening.
Now I know how Hutch could afford giving me 7777 free sms, for one year, when I was at college.
By the by, Mr B's father-in-law (who is a criminal lawyer) has given Mr B 6 months time to get permission from his parents to marry Mrs B.
Mr B's request at home was welcomed with anger and later tears.
Mr B now goes to Kochi once in a quarter to meet Mrs B (where she is working).
Mr B once took Mrs B to his relative's house in the outskirts of Kochi. Mr B's amaama pleaded him not to do such things anymore.
_X_____________________________________X_

This third and final love story is the most amazing and for us the most entertaining. Mr C always wanted to have a girlfriend. Mr C is damn hardworking. But Mr C has a slight problem with communicating with women in English. This apparent problem is only with women though. The author has seen him communicate pretty well with guys.
In college the Malayalees have something called "Onam Celebration". Here Mr C met a Ms C. (no I am not talking about Mrs C, that character has a late entry.) Ms C is very cute, not at heart though. Mr C managed to take a photograph with Ms C. Well, as far Ms C is, she is one of the happening girls in the college, wearing the best outfits and sticking to the most muscular looking guys on their trendy looking bikes. This Malayalee grew up in Delhi and she has imbibed the "urbane" culture.
He dint fall in love. He wanted to fall in love and make her fall too. He somehow got her number, I don't remember how.
Mr C started sending smses asking what she is doing and other stupid questions. She did give reluctant replies.
Mr C is a highly research oriented guy. He does a sound analysis of each SMS that he sends across. Reads the replies a 100 times to find put what was really meant by the sender, what her mind was thinking when she had sent the SMS and a lot of other useless stuff. Ms C leads a hifi life. She wears "modern" clothes, hangs out with muscular, yo-looking guys. Most of the time you can spot her sitting on some guy's bike or in Mangalore with some guy at a restaurant. She is enjoying her time.
And her life.
On the contrary, Mr C hardly speaks to a girl in his class.
After a few days, there was a program in SJA (Silver Jubilee Auditorium) of our college. Mr C asked Ms C, of course in a SMS.
"r u cumin to SJA for the program ?"
"ya", came the reply, after 13 looong minutes.
"we will meet there"
Mr C groomed well, completely tensed, asking us
What should I tell her if she asks this ?
What should I do if she asks that ?
He put on the best perfume that Mr A had, and set forth.
The poor chap came back after an hour or so, fully sorry as to why he went.
Yes, he did meet her.
He could only somehow get of a seat behind hers. While she was as usual enjoying her life, sitting between two "happening" guys. He told me sadly that she was having a nice time enjoying the physical-contact-antics of those "happening guys".
I din't feel sorry for him. For he is learning his lessons.
Then again he tried getting to her, but in vain.

Then again our hero comes into picture -- Mr Orkut.
Mrs C, Mr C's tuition class chick, if you would like to call the so called chicks, chicks.
Yes, Mrs C scrapped him one day.
That was the first female scrap in Mr C's account.
Man .... Mr C was in cloud nine.
Mr C crafted his scrap replies with utmost care. They were reviewed 8 times by 10 different people before being posted. Poor Mrs C, what does she know about the great amount of effort going into the filling of her scrap book.
Later they moved to Gtalk. For Mr C the chat history with Mrs C was research material. He made detailed study of these highly confidential documents in private. The author was often thrown out of his room for intriguing his study.
Mrs C often used to get frustrated while chatting with Mr C as she had to wait for 5-7 minutes for a chat reply. These 5-7 minutes are being highly utilized here in room number 96, V block, NITK Hostels for literary analysis, conversation flow, possibleNextTopics() and in trying to keep the (Attribute_Conversation_Interest == FLOAT_MAX) = true.
Later he moved over to sending SMSes. Three messages send will fetch him a reply after 17.5 minutes after the last message was reported as delivered. On the other end, it is not research going on, it is called she is showing delibrate-chick-avoidance towards him.
They were still not in the so-called love. Mr C was still researching how to put it across appropriately.
It was time for us to leave NITK for good. Mr C wrote a dozen DVDs of movies from the college LAN (He also made a list of movies that he burned so that there are no duplicate copies of movies written). He claimed he will watch them all in the vacations as he has nothing else to do in the vacations.
Later we had a small trip organized by Mr A to Vazhachaal and Athirapalli waterfalls during our final vacation. Here Mr C told us that he has not watched a single movie from the DVDs he had burned at college. As he spent all his time chatting with Mrs C.
Long ago in college, Mr C wanted to buy a cell. The author suggested a one with GPRS facility. He went by the suggestion as he considers the author to be very high on practical brilliance. But as Mr C started using his cell, Mr C understood that this facility is of no use to him. Thus he cursed the author often for making him spend Rs3500 on his cell.
But during the Vazhachaal trip Mr C was showering all kind of praises on the author. If not for the GPRS facility in his mobile, he wouldn't have Internet in his home (which is apparently in a highly developed part of Kerala where you have to give Rs 10/month as Gym fee). Thus during the vacation Mr and Mrs C had a nice time chatting day in and day out. And Mr C was successful in making Mrs C his "girlfriend". Thus the author played a very important role in their romance.
Mr A advised Mr C that the love will not be strong until Mr and Mrs C meet often. Mr C is very eager to meet Mrs C. But he doesn't have the guts. Mrs C always tells Mr C that her dad is a heart patient and that their affair should be kept away from him.
_________________________________________

After coming to Bangalore Mr C and the rest of us started earning. So Mr C started making STD calls to Mrs C. When Mr A and Mr B moved to the other room in our 2BHK, I and Mr C shared a room. I once heard a phone conversation between Mr and Mrs C. The tone of the conversation can be best described to that between a son and a mother. The son telling things to his mother to which she is not willing to agree to the last word. The son complaining about a lot of work at his workplace. I observed that his tone with her is not his natural one but that of a pleading, winning boyfriend. Often Mr C goes out of topics for conversation. He asks the author, Mr A and Mr B for what to talk about with her. The author has often given him stupid suggestions and he has often talked on those topics with her.
Mrs C likes one topic - her friend G, whose father is no more and he has gone to Gulf to earn a living. Whereas Mr C hates this topic to the core as he has a suspicion that she will fall in love with G. Mrs C tries to keep Mr C's phone calls a secret from her dad, younger brother and the author doesn't know who. While on call she often asks if she can go now. To which he asks whats the hurry.

Another interesting fact that Mr C himself talks to us dejectedly is that she has never called him.
Its always Mr C making the calls,
Mr C sending the messages.
Mr C . . . always
Mind you Mrs C is working too, though her salary is a small fraction of Mr C's. But not even ONE phone call! When she feels like talking to him, she gives Mr C a missed call. Then Mr C calls back. If Mr C doesn't call back in 2 minutes after getting the missed call. Mrs C gets angry at him and leads to all other complications.
The other day I heard Mr C was shopping at Forum for some gift he is about to present Mrs C.
_X_____________________________________X_

The author no more stays with Mr A, Mr B and Mr C. Having understood the insanity involved in Love and mask in the popular girlfriend-boyfriend relationships he has now shifted to a small house near his office. And he does meet these 3 romeos during the weekends over dinner and some stupid movies like - Rock & Roll(M), Flash(M), Mithya(H) etc and some good ones like Calcutta NEWS(M). The author's friends often consider the author to be very successful with women (though the author knows the reality, and they have started understanding too). They often urge the author why don't you love Z, why don't you love Y......
The author wishes All The Best to his friends in their love life and knows what is best for him.

The Madras Mail

2008-03-03T09:28:00.003+05:30

It’s not Chennai. It’s Madras. When I hear the word "Chennai" I am blank, there is nothing to relate to. But "Madras" is the name of

A city . . . the city I loved, and still love.
The city I love for its hot weather.
The city where Manju akka next door would feed me bread after peeling out the brown outer layer when I was 3.
The city where I would wait for Jithu in the evening with my three-wheeled cycle at the KK Nagar CPWD quarters ground, so that we can have a "cycle-race"(when I was 4).
The city where Murugan anna (autodriver) would allow us to dip our fingers in the funnel while he is filling his fuel tank so that we can feel the jill when the petrol evaporates.
The city where a long forgotten stranger took care of us when our school bus met with an accident.
The city where I took a bus from Chromepet to Sanitorium with one 50 paise coin and one 25 paise coin in my trouser pockets.
The city where she did not allow me to try out her automatic pencil box (which has buttons for opening, closing etc), telling me that already 10 people have pressed the button today and that overusage might destroy it.
The city I loved walking back home from school skipping the school bus as I was busy playing Volleyball or Chess. And later when my achchan found it, he wouldn't believe that this 13 year old would walk 5-6Kms chewing boomer and accused me of coming back home in N's cycle for some weird reason!
The city where the smell of perfume from some manufacturing unit in MEPZ (Madras Export Processing Zone) used to fill Durga Nagar and Kamakshi Nagar.
The city where I have friends who are in touch after I left it for the last 9 years!

I had been in Madras for 11 years. That’s half my life. I grew up in Madras, until middle school.
All these 11 years there, we used to have a sacred yearly ritual- going home, Kerala. Most of the years it used to happen just once, in April.
Achchan used to book the tickets a month earlier. That’s because April is holiday season and trains are normally packed and moreover my achchan belongs to the nationalized bank employee’s clan who normally have the habit of doing things with total perfection. Mostly it was the Mangalore Mail\Madras Mail.
I have a strong relationship with this train. Not only that we used to take this train from Madras to Pattambi (my native place); when I was in college I used to take this train from Mangalore to Pattambi. This train which goes from Madras to Mangalore and back, my father once told me was one of the first trains of Southern Railway. It was numbered 1 (Madras to Mangalore) and 2(Mangalore to Madras). Of course they are now numbered 2601 and 2602. This train was then very important for the people of Kerala for a number of reasons, some of them could be

The mail used to come in the parcel van of this train.
This was the train the unemployed youth of Kerala took to go to Madras, to hunt for a job.
There was no Konkan rail, so the unemployed youth of Kerala who wanted to go to Bombay, had to take this train first and then later take connection trains.
There were no airports for the unemployed youth of Kerala to go to gulf other than the nearest Madras!

Thus it was a dear train for Kerala. It is dearer to me, as it signified naati puva - GOING HOME.
I used to be very enthusiastic about going to our native. Ammu was not born until I was 9 and my only cousins were in Kochi. Also there were other important people in Kerala who I love and would love to meet - my achchamma (paternal grandmother, no more), my amma's achchamma (who is to hit century in a few years), my cousins, their parents, my amma's cousins, achchan's siblings, their families . . . the list is endless. Thus being very eager to be there, I used to push amma to start packing the suitcases 2 days earlier. I used to love these packing sessions. Once packed and ready on the D day amma will make dinner and achchan would pack it in banana leaves by evening. Achchan made it sure that we were at Madras Central atleast one hour earlier. We used to take an auto to the Tambaram-Sanitorium station. From there we would take the electric train to Central.
I love those electric trains. Their sound, their smell, the low floors, the dark yellow color, the crowd and the pull. But I used to get bored sitting in the train. I would ask "achcha, ini yethre stationa?" (How many more stations?). I used to be amazed, as he would tell me the stations in the correct order. He would have told me that order a 100 times, but I don't remember them. I don't want to remember them either, if I did, there is no element of surprise and I won’t be able to ask him that question again. Once we are there in the station where the Madras Central is nearby (I don’t remember the name now), we have to take a subway to central with hawkers all around. I think there is nothing you won’t get in these "shops". In 2003 when I went to Madras for 2 days, I saw a guy selling FM radios for Rs100 and another selling shorts for Rs20 (of course they come with their semme Quality sir).
This walk through the subway carrying the luggage is a truly perspiring one. Once we are out of the subway, we will be welcomed by another set of hawkers on the road side. I would see the majestic red building with arches wondering if British men could have taken this building as well in one of their ships.
Once I enter the huge entrance I will be busy checking out what people are doing. I have my own ecstasy in seeing people running around with their luggage, under the huge ceilings, as they are late for their trains. I am never late right, achchan.
Since the train starts from the Central, it’s never late. The trains take a reverse into the Central and gently hit a pair of stoppers. Then starts the galata. People running around with luggage, babies crying, hawkers shouting, porters pushing carts of luggage.
I was normally successful in getting the "window seat". But I am not supposed to touch the window grills as they are supposedly not clean. Amma is obsessed with cleanliness. Ammamma is even more obsessed. Ammamma cleans the kitchen floor with a wet cloth a hundred times a day. I am not exaggerating. She actually does it, even if she is not keeping good health. Thus this genetic element of insane urge for cleanliness has come down to me. I shed a significant part of this quality when I entered my college, gradually, the major chunk of this skin shedding happening in second year. Still about 10% of this quality is still in me.

Thus I used to look into the darkness outside, the stars, the moon, the lights from settlements along the rail. When it is time for lunch, I will go with achchan to wash hands and then its amma’s turn. I love the smell of papadam(Paapad or appalam in other languages) packed in banana leaves. Due to the perspiration of the other stuff in the food pack, the papadam would have gone wet, but the smell, there is nothing more delicious than that! After all taste is mostly dependent on smell.

We often have similar malayalee families with whom we share our cabin. I once remember getting very friendly with a family, exchanging sweets, playing games with their kid, etc.

Then its time to sleep, I liked sleeping in upper berths, but no more. And I used to sleep well. The only occasion when I din’t get a proper sleep in train before I joined college was when we travelled in AC. I was sleeping in the upper-berth. I felt terribly cold then. Usually the next morning will he the finest morning of the year for me. The lush green fields of Kerala, the sunrise, the ode clad houses along the rails, the coconut, the rubber, hygienic people, some least used roads along the rail in the Palakad district. I loved fixing my eye on the parallel tracks. This gives a illusion that the rail is moving with us. Once we reach Shornour Junction it is signal that Pattambi is 15 minutes away. We used to get ready to get down by taking our luggage to the door. This is not because to achchan’s urge to do things in the bank way, but because Pattambi is considered a insignificant station for the Madras Mail and the train stops here only for a fraction of a minute.

From the Pattambi railway station it is just a 5 minutes walk to Leela Nivas. Amma will start pestering achchan to take an auto home, although she knows very well that we will have to walk it.

ZEITGEIST

2008-02-15T22:46:00.002+05:30

Gives a great explanation of religion
http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

Why I am a Non-vegetarian

2008-01-23T16:46:00.001+05:30

"Only fools argue whether to eat meat or not. They don't understand truth nor do they meditate on it. Who can define what is meat and what is plant? Who knows where the sin lies, being a vegetarian or a non vegetarian?"
(Guru Nanak, Var Malar)

Office

2007-12-27T10:42:00.002+05:30

TheThe NI R & D office staff 2008

The NI R & D office staff 2007.

25000 lives Everyday !

2007-11-22T10:35:00.000+05:30

About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often.

Beautify Yourself Babe

2007-11-06T19:50:00.000+05:30

“Everyone sounds like rot and when you’re sounding like rot, it’s better to appear rotten than to go around painting beautiful meaningless pictures of yourself.”
Lifted from - Scrutinizing Indian
How correct ?

The Thursday

2007-10-22T17:32:00.000+05:30

It was festive season in Bangalore. It was Vinayaka Chathurthi and something else. And it was raining lightly. As usual I carried my umbrella all the previous 4 days and it dint rain. That day as expected I dint have my umbrella and it started pouring as I got out of my office at 7:50 pm. Man I am Lucky.
Friday was a holiday for many, not for me though.
I got fully drenched as I got to Shri Krishna Sagar.

OK dude, its raining, let me eat something and then try to catch a bus. I ordered a Roti-Curry. It came, I gulped it down.

The rain dint stop. Somehow I managed to get into a bus. I was fully wet by then. I was wearing a shirt and another t-shirt inside. I removed my shirt and squeezed it which gave way to a tributary and a few stares.

The bus reached NIMHANS. I am supposed to get down here. But it was still raining. If I get down here I will have to walk a bit and cross the road to get to the next bus stop where I gotta catch the next bus. I don't want to drench.
So I had a master-plan, man that stupid decision that I took- I will stay in this bus till Shanthinagar. That is a kind of a Bus depot, which is fully covered and so I can catch my second bus from there without getting wet.
Don't you feel I am a smart ? eh ?
Indeed I am.
I went to the conductor and asked how much more should I give him so that I can get down at Shanthinagar. He was courteous and told me it is a pittance, its ok.
So I sat down and waited for my depot.
But it never came.
Man this is a Market Bus.
It doesn't go to the depot!!
It went to Minerva circle, J.C. Road and every other road in Bangalore, but not the Depot :(
And I don't want to go to K.R. Market at this time of the day!
Thats the only place I am scared of in Bangalore.
And taking a bus from K.R. Market to anywhere in Bangalore is a challenge for a newbie in Bangalore. There are no platforms and everything there is disorganized.
So I had another master-plan - 2.

I will get down at Town-hall and get a bus to Majestic.
Man I love Majestic!
Such an organized place it is.

So at the town-hall stop I got a bus to majestic. It was jam packed. I squeezed in. In my Bangalore maps back home I have seen that K.R. Market is "very" close to Majestic. So I thought ok man will be in Majestic in 5 minutes.

The conductor, a very friendly fellow came-by and I asked for a ticket to Majestic. It was Rs6. I was surprised. Is it that far ?

Anyways got the ticket and waited, hanging from the bars, squeezing and pushing. We reached K.G Road, I was very happy to see all those Bank building, ok we are going to make it to majestic, I thought.
But wait.
The traffic came to a halt.
Why, what was the reason ? I asked a couple of people. Nobody knew.
The bus was inching little by little then the frustrated driver switched off the engine.
Some people started getting down from the bus and heading towards the BMTC bus depot.
I was lazy to do that. SO I waited in the bus, hanging.
My mother's call came, I attended and told her I am in the second bus, there is a terrible traffic jam etc.
By the by the rain had stopped. So I master planned to walk the rest of it till BMTC depot.

Man! There are lot of people walking. Moreover there were lot of people carrying a lot of luggage.

Only now did it strike. Man if tomorrow is a Friday and its a holiday for many and its festive season- we will have loads of people heading to their hometowns. I could see men and women carrying luggage and babies literally running towards majestic. They are on their way to catch their buses. I could hear a guy telling his wife
"Come quickly, the bus will leave in 10 minutes." And she was dragging herself to keep in pace with him.
I walked and reached a circle, I think this was the KG circle. This is the circle where you will see a traffic police standing in the middle and shouting into a microphone. From here I could see that all the four roads leading to this place was jam-packed. The vehicle owners were so greedy that they wouldn't even give you a inch of place for you to cross the road. The vehicles are placed one behind the other in such a manner that I had to jump over the front wheels of a few two-wheelers to get across the circle.
Then I walked and walked and walked.
I reached the depot.
Man I did it.

When I entered the Majestic depot I saw a scene which was hitherto never seen and I hope will never have to see again.

The bus-stop where I have always seen a lot of buses, whether it be 5:00 am or 11:00 pm had not even a single bus inside it. And there were 10 times the Persian army strength in "300" as passengers here. Once in 5 minutes one bus would manage to enter the depot and people would attack the bus, the mob would swallow the bus. It would get packed in fractions of seconds and is ready to leave.

I went and stood near platform No.14. By now my thoughts had already charted as what I would do if I had to spend this night in Majestic ?

After waiting for about 12-15 minutes a bus came - the coveted 171, yes I can get till NIMHANS in this one. Now starts the drama.
I was petty sure that there will be a fight between the people who are getting down and the people who are boarding the bus. And it did happen.
8 times the capacity of the bus wanted to board the bus. Boarding a bus or train and getting a seat for myself in such a highly competitive situation is like a challenge for me. I was trained in this skill at my school days whilst I used to travel to Thrissur on Sundays in a train ironically named "Push-Pull"!.

So thus I got in and made myself comfortable in a side seat, which turned to be a bad decision. The bus was leaking and my right hand was completely wet.
Through my window I could see people hanging from the footpath risking their life. The bus was densely packed.

People standing were having a tough time. I thanked P. C. Thomas for not opening a franchise office in Ernakulam, I used to curse him for not doing so during my school days. The bus moved very slowly eventhough there was no big traffic. So at last we reached NIMHANS. I managed to get out. I should have been here about 2 hours ago if not for my master plan-1!

A few buses came by, but none in my route. I was getting tensed as the time was 11 p.m. So I decided to do something, that I always detested. Catching a Auto-rickshaw.
Somehow I have a feeling that only weak people catch an Auto-rickshaw. So I went ahead and waved my hand.
And Surprise! Surprise! He accepted the offer of going to BTM 2nd Stage at 1.5 times the meter charge!
Wah, how lucky I am. I thought "yes, this is the end of today's great Bangalore experience", relaxed and happy. :)

Dude, wait, not yet.
We just went half a kilometer and stopped. Why ? I turned back and saw that another Auto-rickshaw was damaged. The front tyre part had completely collapsed. And this vehicle was right in the middle of the road. The poor machine must have toiled a lot as roads were in pathetic condition as it had rained.
So the humble and highly "friendly" auto-driver whom I hired or rather I got hired, had to stop his vehicle right in the middle of the road and go and help his friend in distress. So 10- 15 minutes there in getting that broken machine to the roadside. I could see a Muslim woman in all black inside that patient machine. Poor female, hope she reached her destination. Then we went ahead and started having a smooth ride. The meter was rising smoothly to Rs30-Rs40 etc.
And then Boom, Traffic Jam at 11 pm at Jayadeva near Bannerghatta circle.
What more can I ask for ?
My auto Manipulator waited for quite some time in the traffic and allowed the meter to gain some Rs for waiting charges. Then he broke the traffic rules and took a U-Turn and drove through the ring road and thus I was at home after that great mission.
I gave the auto-driver a brand new 100 rupee note.
I pressed the door bell. Nair opened.
"Why so late?"
"Lot of work at office, da"

Seasons

2007-10-12T16:44:00.000+05:30

All my life I have stayed in South India. And always near the coasts. I haven't experienced extreme weather conditions. And in the coastal areas we sweat a lot. No wonder I had a abode of lice on my head when I was in school and college.
When I moved over to Bangalore, I seldom sweat. And no more lice now.
Day before yesterday one of my north Indian colleagues was complaining that the weather in Bangalore is monotonous. And also I came across this blog of small squirrel.
Ya I do understand. Change is necessary.
But isn't this the viewpoint of the elite rich who can afford to buy clothes for different seasons and who can huddle up in their cozy bedrooms in winter and who can switch on their ACs in the melting summer?
What about the not so well off ?

Watching Time

2007-10-12T10:29:00.000+05:30

Yesterday when I was walking from office to my regular hotel, where I have my dinner, I saw a security guy loafing around his assigned position aimlessly.
I have always felt nobody should waste his/her time in any way, whether he be a hawker, security, or a bencher at Infy!
The security at my office just sits at his seat. He sometimes reads the newspapers, magazines etc. Rest of the time he makes phone calls using the company phones.
I have seen some of them read books and make notes etc.
What was running in my mind was, why can't we give shape to a segment of job, which can be given to these security people. This work should not have any deadlines and should not require any high educational qualification requirement.
The merits of this scheme are many

These guys get an extra pay for this work.
They wouldn't sleep as they are working on something which is adding to their purse.
There is lot of clerical, grunt work which nobody would like to do on a regular basis. The security guy would have already got fed up sitting down not doing any work, he would feel this work to be better than not working at all.

The implementation is easier as security is already an organized sector in India. Many of the offices and merchant establishments have outsourced security to Security Services Agencies. So this performance rewarded scheme can be initiative from these companies. Have to put in some more thought in this direction.

Blogging

2007-10-12T10:23:00.000+05:30

Off late I have been reading quite a few blogs. This might be the reason - I feel that I should also blog frequently. Probably a collection of my wavering thoughts day in and day out. And ya, I do have enough time.
How come?
Dude my designation in my company is "Software Engineer"!
What more reason do you want me to give.
Ya, I do have work.
But I have no focus.
No single-pointedness in what I do.
Hope I find enough time to blog.

Bangalore

2007-04-25T22:06:00.001+05:30

Have been there a couple of times.

The first time when I was in the second grade. I was seven then. It was as part of a south India tour. I was with achchan, amma, ammamma, muthachan, mema, cheriachchan, Manikutty and probably others like Vimal mama. We do have a few photographs in our album at home. We had been to Ooty, Mysore, Bangalore and I don't remember where else. Don't remember anything regarding this trip due to 2 reasons, firstly, I was a kid then, secondly, my memory power is damn good. :)

Then after a long time, when I was in eleventh grade, the school trip was to Bangalore, Mysore, Brindavan, Black Thunder. Then I remember visiting the Science Museum and then the glass house in Lal Bagh, the rocky part behind it. I remember our accompanying teacher helping us in mouth looking! Then we went shopping in MG road and Brigade road. I got a Barbie for my sister and a chapel for myself! We had a nice time in Bangalore then. I was quite impressed by the city.

In the second semester of my undergrad I had to do my NCC camp at Bangalore. It was arranged at MEG- Madras Engineers Group, Ulsoor, Bangalore. We had to be there for 15 days. It was named as "Army Attachment Camp".
We boarded the Durgamba travels from our college campus one fine night and the next day morning we were in Bangalore, alighted in front of one of the MEG gates. Then our Army senior (one Hawaldar Major) did all the formalities of getting us guys inside the high security premises. We din't get any accommodation as nothing was arranged as such and anyways there was no facilities to arrange for. We had the shock of our life when we were asked to brush and get "fresh" in a bathroom. I felt the bathrooms portrayed (in the jails) in movies like Mahanadi were far better. I was just wondering how we will live here for 15 days. Then I made a phone call home telling that all is "well" here with me and answering all my mothers curiosity with nice nice words.
An army attachment camp meant that we have to live for a few days with the Indian Army Jawans, eating the kind of food that they eat, staying in the barracks they stay and undergoing the training that they do. These 15 days really thought me a lot about life. I really changed my outlook about life. I understood how ignorant I was about life. The other things that I learnt were

If you are in the defense services your life has no value.
You are a slave of your senior. You have to clean their toilets, polish their shoes, and do whatever they ask you to.
Appearance is very important, even if you don't take bath never go without shaving. If a Jawan reports to his senior without shaving, the punishment is that, a stone is rubbed on his cheek till it bleeds.
By undergoing an army training a person will develop a great concentration power. This is because if a Jawan makes a small mistake he might have to suffer a lot of pain and torture. So he would' t make mistakes.

The rules were relaxed a lot for us as we were considered "civil". The first day we had food in the जवान's mess. The food was very pathetic. The rotis are made and thrown on the ground and the जवंस come running to grab it up. And food is all steam cooked in the army fashion. This makes the food so tasteless that you won't even have one handful of rice.I wondered on the first day how the Jawan trainees here eat this food for 2.5 years. I got the answer in two days. I felt the food to be quite tasty! How? When you are tortured throughout the day and you are given only shit to eat then even shit will be tasty. The जवान who is sleeping for 6 hours and is tortured for the rest of the 18 hours will feel this food to be very tasty. By torture I mean running, crawling, kneeling, jumping, shouting, running carrying heavy stuff, cleaning toilets, painting trees white(no idea why they are made to do so), exercise, and lots of other strenuous activities continuously throughout the day. They don't get a break. They have no kind of recreation except for a bottle of Beer on Friday evenings. Wonder why army is patronizing drinking so much.
During this 2 .5 years of training they get a monthly pay of Rs7500. After this training they are taken into the भार्तीय सेना as जवान.
I always hated the Parle G biscuits. I used to consider them to be of low quality. they never tasted good, even now they don't. But once in my life they did!
Out of our 15 days there, 3 were holidays। So you can actually stay back in your barrack and sleep or go to a movie (They do have a theatre inside MEG) or play cricket with the JCOs (Joint Commissioned Officers) there। I saw two bad movies in that egg shaped theatre, one Malayalam and another Tamil. What more can you ask for, they just cost you Rs 8 ( front rows ) or Rs 10 ( balcony ).
But I was not content with that. I wanted to see Bangalore that's one reason I was there. And getting a permission is like a crow flying upside down.
But then I got it.
How ?
Tamil!
Thats one lesson that I had learn t right from my days at Madras.
You want to get something done from a Tamil, talk to him in Tamil.
And the Hawaldar Major was a Tamil.
Thus I was illegally out of MEG.
There was this senior of mine with me and he knew the city pretty well. He took me to many arbit places in the city. This was enough enjoyment for me when compared to the closed confines of MEG.
While I was loitering around my friend Sandeep stayed in MEG and went to play cricket. He played with a group of Malayali JCOs. Ultimately he learn t a lot of new bad words in Malayalam. The army officers are really bad-mouthed.
The last of the holidays I went out with Sandeep not even asking our Hawaldar Major. We went sight-seeing to Lal Bagh etc.
Training there was quite torturous for us sophisticated engineering students. We were made to run around 10 kms everyday. But a minutes thought about those guys who stay here for 2.5 years used to give us that push to run that extra mile.
I talked with a few Jawan trainees there
"Isn't it torturous ?"
"Yes it is"
"Are you educated ?"
"Yes, B.Sc."
"Then why are you here? Cant you do something else ?"
"There is nothing that I can do at homeland, my family is very poor and I am not able to find any job with my qualification"
The jawans have a recreation room with TV, Internet, magazines, Chess and Carroms. And I could see that the jawans are making good use of it as well.
The last day at the camp we got the Army Attachment Camp certificate.
Till date I don't have a more hard earned certificate than that.

Then it was in the final semester of my undergrad. I had got placed in National Instruments. The company's International Relationship Managers were coming down to Bangalore, so they had invited us for a lunch with those guys. They had booked us on Jet Airways.
I was at the Mangalore airport. This was the first time I was at a airport. It was a small airport. Got the luggage checked and boarded. Amma called after I boarded.
It was the first time that I was flying. It indeed was a good experience. The flight accelerating, the polite air-hostess, the food, the roads which seemed like thin lines on a map, the vegetation below like a cauliflower.
I was lucky to get of window seats to and fro.
The guys with me were very particular in taking a cab to our future office building. So we got a prepaid cab to Koramangala. I was curiously looking out the widow pane to catch glimpses of my future home city.
I felt it be bland.
I saw a few corporate buildings - Yahoo, IBM, Microsoft etc etc..
On the cab we changed our plans to go to the MG Road instead as we were getting late for lunch and we asked the guys in office to go ahead and that we will meet at the hotel instead.
So we were at Barton's Center. The buffet was on the 13th floor. It was fun. It was on a terrace and you can have a good view of the city from here.
After the lunch we went back to the office and met our future colleagues. We were given T- shirts and LabVIEW DVDs ( Its still hiding somewhere in my Suitcase, never touched it ).
Then my uncle came to pick me up. I planned to stay with him tonight. We went to CV Raman Nagar.
I learnt that his is a completely satisfied and settled life, unlike my other uncles. My aunty is the reason behind the same.
Two cute children - Krithiga and Mridul, both are obedient and smart. I love this family a lot.
I caught the flight back to Mangalore the next morning.
I felt Bangalore to be bland!

And now comes the final time to Bangalore. This time it is not a visit. I am here in Bangalore to live and work.
I have seen that many of uncles and elder cousins are not as lucky as I. I mean, landing in a good job when you are 21. Many of them had to do a lot of unsatisfying jobs, were jobless for long durations etc. I mean many around me were not settled. Some of them dint know what to do. Some of them went into business which tumbled down into losses.
And off late I started reading "Atlas Shrugged". There is this very nice explanation of what money is by Francisco d'Anconia. I was totally impressed. I have started spending one-fourth of my salary. My only expenditures are good food and bad movies. I saw about 2 dozen movies after coming to Bangalore. None of them impressed me, except for one Aamir Khan flick. And of course Bangalore has been a great place for my tongue. Food, of all major Cuisines, yes I have tried most of them. Sometimes I feel I have lived my life. Lets see whats in store.

Have I Changed ?

2007-04-25T20:58:00.000+05:30

Two years ago I was a very regular person. I used to keep my room clean and arranged. I seldom used to loose anything, or misplace anything. But off late I have changed a lot. I forget to do things before deadline. I misplace important things. There are all sorts of chits, paper slips, tickets lying over my table, my room is untidy, I wait for the deadlines to do things. Indeed my mind has become unkempt. There is waste paper lying all around the floor here. There is no regularity in my life anymore.
Oh, how I wish I was that old self once again. I am not a very successful person, of course, no one is indeed happy with his/her life other than the so called enlightened ones. But then those days I had a state of well being. Now I am not able to control me nor my mind.
Have I become lazy? Probably yes. If there is something that either I or someone else could have done, I make it sure that the other person does it and not me.
Am I running away from something? Or is it that I am just cribbing unnecessarily? Actually I am not that bad.
Everyone's life is nothing but a collection of ups and downs. So is mine. One bad thing about me, when I was at school, was that, I hated failure. I just could not stand me not winning. I always wanted to win and win only.
But now things have changed. I don't mind not winning, maybe because failing has become a habit for me now :) . Anyways I have been waiting for a change in my life, and when this change comes over I will make changes in the way I live. But even in this strategy I don't have much faith as there is always a fear that, if I wanted to change I need not wait for a opportune. I should change today and now. Yes now, right now.

The Ayn Rand Philosophy

2007-04-07T20:59:00.000+05:30

"...man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
Ayn Rand.
I am very influenced by the book - Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
The characters and the philosophies that she has discussed in the book is just great. I don't have words to explain the satisfaction that I got from reading this great book. This is what I felt like writing after reading this brilliant work.

I live for Myself and not for anyone else.
You live for yourself and not for anyone else.
What makes me, is my work.
What makes you, is your work.
Not what others think of our work.

Work for other's recognition
Then you don't live by yourself
You live through others

u have no individuality........

Atheism Means Moral Freedom

2006-10-18T22:52:00.001+05:30

God is in your mind. I am sure of this.

Whenever I write "God" I use a capital G since I respect your opinion and I would expect you to return that favor. Thank you.

Nothing exists but matter. Humankind is on its own. You are the way you are today not because you prayed or you didn't. But because of your actions and thoughts till now. Your bliss is within yourself. You have to search for happiness within yourself first and try to make earth a good place to live.

There is nothing other than the physical nature that you see. There are no supreme forces or unknown entities. Yes, science hasn't yet explained everything around you, but that day is not far.

Instead of building a church, mosque or a temple why don’t you go and build a hospital. Your work is required here and now.

God taught man neither the sciences nor the arts. Then what did God teach you? Morality? Well, take my word for it, for a person to be ethical he needs no faith in unscientific beliefs.

God created Man?
Man created God?
The prime difference between Man and animals, as we all know the former "Thinks". Through experience man found that he is happier when his mind is clear, when his thought process is pure, when he thinks of good things (the morality that I discussed comes here). So to be happy he has to control his mind. Controlling the mind is a very difficult exercise. It needs a lot of training. Thus man invented prayer, a set of requests to a particular person named God.
Thus man created God. Proved.

Then he went on thinking about his God. He started writing books, epics. He built large structures. If only all that time, energy and resources were put aside for human welfare, hmmm, I can’t imagine how much better place this world could have been.

There so much destruction in this world just because of religion. All the communal riots going on around the world wouldn't have been there if there had been no God and His other believes.
How nice a place this world would have been.....

God is in your mind. I am sure of this.

Beauty of Symmetry

2006-10-13T22:37:00.000+05:30

Beauty is symmetry and exactness. Symmetry has been inherently attractive to the human eye. Moreover,in the human body, symmetry is probably a good indicator of general health and strength.

To gauge how beautiful and appealing a work of art is we can use two parameters - complexity and order (or symmetry). If something is complex, it will be more appealing if it is less symmetrical. Else, if something is highly-symmetrical, it is better if it is less complex.

Symmetry has several variants, but the basic symmetrical operations are Translation, Rotation, and Reflection.

However, I think beauty is highly subjective. Whatever triggers your aesthetic sense should be defined as beauty.

Money ?

2006-09-21T15:18:00.000+05:30

I always wonder how a world wothout money would be like. Am I being communist ? No! This is just another viewpoint. But then how will we do business would be a probable question. But then in this hypothetical world there is no business at all. You work somewhere and you get your food. The whole society lives together. Wow, it feels good at times..
But somebody has to manage all these processes. Government ?

January 23, 2008
I think I got the answers for all the above questions I asked myself

"So you think that money is the root of all evil? … Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor—your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced."

Atlas Shrugged