railmani's den

The new naruto movie

2008-05-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of the naruto anime and was pleasantly surprised to find a new movie while looking for the latest shipuuden episodes. I downloaded it overnight with my dataone connection and was glad to see it done , in addition to the latest LOST episodes :D... nice weekend its gonna be .

The movie was awesome simply put. Some of the good things about this movie....
- I was sad when they showed Naruto dying right in the beginning, it looked like naruto makers had switched to the LOST style of narration showing tragedy and then working towards how it happened. But I am really really glad to say that at the end of the movie , he does nt die!
- The scale of the enemies is huge, bigger than the ones earlier, and there are a some similarities to "Lord of the rings", "minority report", and if you look many other popular media. For naruto fans it makes no difference, at least for me it doesnt!
- Naruto is easily the star of the show, with his stupidity, then his moving speeches and his crazy promises which he somehow manages to keep up! Remember Gaara coming back to life, and the Princess in the first movie? One promise which is pending though is getting back Sasuke .
- Theres a new combo Rasengan move which is an awesome way to end !
- Love interest? Sakura aside, girls seem to like naruto , especially the stubborn ones who then start trusting naruto because of his peculiarly attractive personality.
- Rock lee has got a good fight, could have been better though, the fight in movie 3 was awesome . Was wondering why he didnt take off his weights and kick the enemy's ass!

A nice break from watching very little story progress in the shipuuden series... highly recommended for naruto fans and newbies as well... also watch the other movies , all on dattebayo!

dattebayo!

Dubius dud : xtreme coder

2008-04-25T01:59:00.000-07:00

This is the first in hopefully a series of cartoon strips about a bumbling software "professional" ... the "professional" indicates exactly what its going to focus on... so please leave behind your comments and if possible tell me of funny incidents at your workplace which I can use as a story line ;) .... enjoy the first one

If you are having problems reading the text , download this image from my picasa web album...

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/mskarthik902/InIT/photo?authkey=bLcmuIa-HCk#5192028895522572146

- railmani

A softie's Afti

2008-03-20T15:29:00.001-07:00

Dial ATM for murder...

2008-03-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

If you think the title of this blog is dramatic, wait till you hear the reason behind it. It was a weekday like any other . After spending most of the day in front of the computer in my workstation , my colleagues and i decided to step out int he open . After walking for some time inside the iisc campus , I realised i needed to increase my liquidity and the nearest atm was the sbi one at the main gate. Since tat was out of order i decided to use the one next to that , the canara bank one which looked quite harmless mind you . Once inside I inserted the card and it was promptly sucked in! I then remembered tat it was quite standard for atms to do that , and the surprise was because the ones i normally use are the non sucking ones. I was looking at the money counter waiting for the money to come out , but nothing happened. Although i am an experienced programmer with user interface , i forgot for a moment to look at the screen and missed the message which said "please take your card " and then i heard a beeping sound and assumed it was processing some more and after a few more seconds it stopped and the screen said "Your card has been withdrawn for security purposes". And that was the last i saw of that card.

After my fiends had laughed their asses off , I finally got in touch with the canara Bank help desk person who asked me to go to the nearest bank branch , which was in the campus luckily , the next day and get my card. I was relieved and let the incident go as a slight mishap. Everyone at office had a good laugh at my expense and then later my family.

The next day at the bank , a lady told me they didn't have the card and that I had to contact some third party guy who now take care of the missing/captured cards! Missing? captured? As if the innocent cards were criminals or something ! Anyway I could nt do anything further there and contacted the canara bank "missing card \" dept.... that's when I got the shock of my life. I informed him about the incident and asked him when I could get my card back and he said "You card has been shredded". You could imagine my surprise at that moment . After arguing with him and telling him that the system sucked big time especially since shared atm charges were going to plunge following the union budget 2008, I came to the conclusion that there was indeed a lot of difference between user convenience and what the card company's provide in the name of secuiruty.

Looking back at the incident , I could not help but wonder how much a person in dire need of money at that point of time would suffer in such a case. Would you expect a person entering an ATM for the first time to understand that you need to grab the card before its pulled back in ... all that while operating a touch screen or a button on the side user interface which is sometimes even more confusing? I agree that most of the time it would be fine and you would get your money and keep going , but considering tat I am not the stupidest or the least sensible or even most gullible guy walking the roads, there is a high probability that you could lose your card in the same way! And when that happens , here are the damages you are going to entail :

1) If you lose the ATM card in your bank's atm , you might get it back after some amount of id verification. Apparently citibank guys wont do that even because they fear that some one could misuse your card and you would have to anyway get a new one from them ( Rs.100 ) , yay!

2) If you lose your citibank card in a canara bank atm , its gone forever , and you need to get a new one . IMPORTANT ADVICE : Be sure to encash all your reward points before you tell them you lost your card ,or else be prepared with your tpin which then becomes paramount for
verification for them to transfer your reward points to your new atm card!

3) Mental torture, calling up people from different banks and some of the trained people at citibank can be amazingly rude. A lady from the Chennai call centre for citibank was talking to me like a school teacher and like I was a stupid kid . And the worst part was she just could nt get it into her head that everyone does nt know about all the intricacies of credit and debit cards like herself who would have been asked to mug it up many times over. Anyway after a long , distressing talk with a woman, which I am quite unfamiliar with , I decided I am going to start using the frigging tpin from now on at least until i have a frigging citibank account.

Now I am just waiting for my debit card to arrive , in meanwhile I wonder how much things have changed since my dad's time when I used to accompany him to the bank, write a pay out slip and wait impatiently for the teller to announce the token number.... ah those were the days!

At the master's feet

2008-02-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

Ah the leash , a part of me,

It was before i learned to pee

On two legs leaning to one side

With my legs open wide

Oh how i love to sniff and smell

Not to mention Lick

Its garbage on the road? Oh hell

What about your junk food ... you humans are sick!

Mmmm Bitches , I love them

But thanks to u losers

I never ever get close enough ... ahem

If only labs were choosers, I know I would ride...hehe

Yum! bones , nothings better

I think the whole world is a stage

And goats and chicken come to age

To satisfy my discerning hunger

Alas, At my master's feet,

I have to sit forever ...

For walks , bones and to bitches meet

Coz its the fate of a male fawn labrador

===============================

Remo's point of view from a particularly frustrated perspective, otherwise hes one hell of a fat , happy dog ... like the doggie version of garfield!

my dad touched the tip of taj!

2007-12-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

Continuing education ...

2007-12-17T12:17:00.001-08:00

By the slimmest of chances, a colleague and I happened to meet a friend of his at the IISc Canteen today, ( I work inside the IISc campus) who was planning to apply for a short course on "Unix Internals" at the Computer Science department,IISc. On looking at the prospectus, my colleague and I -who are in the process of applying to B schools - were pleasantly surprised. Surprised that after having been in the campus for all these days , we had nt found out about this opportunity to learn right under our noses... and pleasantly so because this was a piece of serendipitous luck! Building a resume is hard enough working in software where there is hardly any recognition for hard work ... thats when chances like these are important to show prospective employers or colleges that you are willing to go to some trouble to learn new things.

And so we are now on the way to enroll for one or more of these courses ... from among "Intellectual properties " , "Software management" , "Unix internals" and several other technical and managerial courses. Further updates on successful registration!

A softie's dream

2007-12-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

Stranger than fiction... better than I imagined

2007-12-14T13:46:00.001-08:00

An increasingly hopeless case of not being able to write in this blog has prompted me to take to the keyboard for reasons other than chatting and "working". I am sufficiently inspired at this moment to talk about this movie I just watched ...its called " Stranger than fiction". I would put it in the same league as movies such as "The final cut" and "The Truman Show". The reason being all of them deal with a variant of the "third person omniscient" kind of narrative . The final cut is about how life would be if every living moment was recorded in its entirety in the form of video and audio. "The Truman Show" is relatively more popular ... its about how a tv series uses a baby's life as the subject and makes him a guinea pig of sorts.

Now whats so special about "Stranger than fiction" (STF)? Its unpredictability is one thing for sure. This is one movie which has been lying in my hard drive for ages and not watched. Today when I was searching for a movie to watch, something about the title made me pick it... probably because all the other movies kind of promised what they had to offer. Why is this movie unpredictable? In the first half an hour or so , it seems like some kind of a weird comedy movie , this thought being reinforced by the fact that the lead actor Will Ferrell has acted in some comedies earlier. Once I got through the introduction which was vaguely similar to the introduction of the main protoganist in "American Psycho", it got interesting in that as the main character Harold goes about wondering whether his life is a comedy or a tragedy, I too was wondering what the hell could this movie really be about?

Simply put this is a feel good movie in the end... because it could have easily been be a real dampener if it ended differently. You know how some movies insist on killing the hero or the nicest person in the movie.... eg. 7G Rainbow Colony, Paruthiveeran and innumerable others. Its a conspiracy I tell you, to make money out of making people cry or feel sad. I do agree some particularly powerful performances in tragedies make them unforgettable, but some in some corner of your heart you know that you want that character to live, love and be loved. Just like for yourself , you hope the best for the character you love ... not for him to be hit by a bus, or for her to be gangraped and murdered gruesomely. You must have been able to infer from this little digression that the end must in fact be a happy one, it is and it kind of managed to get a sigh of relief from me because frankly I am tired of the KLPD/Kelas I am having in life and would rather not see more in a movie!

The key points I enjoyed in this film are :

1) The idea that a book's character is actually living life as his story is being written ... presented in a reasonably convincing manner, with an excellent performance by the lead actor. The attention to detail makes it believable.

2) It made me reflect on the many missed opportunities I have had to make friends , do important things because I could not step out of the "comfort zone". It also made me realise that life is again only what you make of it... no matter how much you gain with material comforts, money and what not, if you are not really happy, its all one big waste.

3) Interesting information about how a writer works, how to deal with writer's block and the fact that people take years together to write a book! The fact that I dont in more than one or two stretches really makes me realise the effort needed to actually write a book!

4) Another love story embedded in that main storyline... which really strikes a chord with the sincerity and simplicity of approach. And also that neither of them are particularly "good looking" , but are nevertheless attractive.

5) The mechanical life led by Auditors in the movie really resembles to a large extent that led by software professionals in India. Yeah , you might say I have a lot of fun , I check mail, I chat ... I do that and this...but there is one thing which you cannot remove from all of these activities, the PC. Yes, you are married to your computer , its a window and all you do is stare at it for the better part of the day. No wonder I dont know that many girls !

6) And the last but not the least ... it reminded me of a poem I had written in college. It was about how I was a character in a book who was confused and wandering in search for the answer to the question of life. Watching this movie just made me feel like it was something of an answer to that question and amazed me that I could have had a similar thought as the guy who wrote this story.

Worth the time and thought provoking!

"National News"

2007-11-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

A friend told me today that there is something called the "fourth estate" - it refers the media apparently - which led me to enquire what the preceding ones were. From there he ventured into the history of the French revolution where there where "classes" of people involved in conflict... at which point I added that he might be referring to the "bourgeiose" , the working class and the nobility of which I was vaguely sure of. We finally concluded by stopping by an ATM to withdraw money and calling it a truce ... which usually happens when you try to confuse the person you are arguing with with jargon and end up so muddled that you take a break and change the subject. The inconspicuous subject of the conversation was the media.

The first thing that comes to mind (mine atleast ) when you say media are the umpteen news channels on air. NDTV , Headlines today , CNN ibn , TIMES now and several others ... left out for brevity. Why did these channels come into existence ? My take is that Doordarshan was complacent after years of monopoly that anything with better presentation and not necessarily more relevant news would have succeeded. Thats exactly what happened when cable TV ( and now the new breed DTH ) took over and aggressive private news channels started capitalising on the intelligent viewer with a lot of deficit of televised news.

Of the english channels , clearly , NDTV 24x7 took the lead and I would say really gave the impression that the viewer was missing something by not watching it for even a minute. For a time I followed it with the new found vigour of stumbling across a treasure of knowledge which was all encompassing. With time however I realised that sometimes the comperes were framing the questions to get an answer to just apparently confirm some suspicion which the viewer is privy to. Group discussions became so full of theatrics and filibustering , it reminded me of an earlier GD experience at a well known MBA college in Delhi.

One of the fundamental flaws in this regularised way of presentation of "news" and "current affairs" is that they are making it some kind of a packaged item, like potato chips and also delivering it at regular intervals like the milk packet in the morning . Whats wrong with that you ask? Well, when there is news, relevant to the nation , business, state etc. theres no problem , but what do you do when nothing ground breaking is happening ? You "manufacture" news .... Shahrukh Khan's six pack is shoved into your nose , Aishwarya Rai's mis(s)adventures and Amitabh's family story captures prime time and a guy like me who happens to be waiting to hear the latest on the crisis in Sri Lanka or in Iraq just wonders where good old DD has gone.

The reason I think channels like NDTV , CNN ibn and the others mentioned go to so much trouble, is to gain viewers. The average viewer whos back home after a long day's work just wants some eye candly , so give them the cutest girls who can also flirt with the camera ( and also without too much of an accent ) who will read out the news as if they are blowing kisses on him. And so the news channels' bigwigs decide to go all out and capitalize on this phenomenon, get the best looking and best speaking news readers , give the best possible mix of world news, business , Bachan family drama , Shahrukh trivia and what not to cater to the different "tastes" and capture maximum screen time.

So whats the problem here ? Shahrukh happy , Bachan happy ... the typical Indian viewer happy.... right? Wrong, there is someone sitting here whos not happy with this "national" news. I am not a Bollywood fan , I dont adore SRK, I dont think AB is god and I happen to think there are many other things which deserve to be given more attention to at the national level. Apparently what I think and many others like me thinks does nt matter much because the majority of the viewers are in Mumbai and Delhi , therefore the content designed to hook in the average middle class Mumbaiite is now aired to the Bangalorean who thinks Bangalore still retains some of its aboriginal crowd ( read original inhabitants) ... which is a whole new topic of discussion altogether. I guess word of this kind of mistaken content delivery did reach the news channels and they now make it a point to show you the extremely cool hang out places in Bangalore... you know , where the people who think Shahrukh is cool hang out or the extremely flooded places in Banglaore are shown to make it seem like Bangalore is actually sinking in rain water and otherwise in traffic ( which it probably is anyway ) . They also show along with this , short clips of Chennai ( even here you ll find the news leading to a Bollywood movie which is being remade from a tamil one ... like Ghajini or that Rajnikanth said AB is emperor) . Hyderabad is also given some screen time , I guess over there its not as difficult to find bollywood connections. At the end of it , I never cease to wonder , do these news channels really believe they can get people to watch the "local news" of Mumbai and Delhi and the daily activities of Bollywood stars as something worth keeping track of.

In conclusion , I have found a way around this problem , just watch the entertainment channels on tv and then read the news on the internet ! If things happen to change on these channels , please inform me , I would like to really watch some "national news" for a change.

Petition against india's language policy!

2007-09-13T02:56:00.000-07:00

I was going thru orkut and came across this link in the "besantnagar beach "community. Its about India trying to make Hindi the representive language for India at the UN. Do you think this is absurd considering that less than 50% people in India speak Hindi? When it makes more sense to use English as a common official language, why this preference given to Hindi? If you feel strongly about this, add your signature here :

http://www.petitiononline.com/19652007/petition.html

2 months and a test

2007-08-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Less than a year ago I left my then job in Chennai and came to Bangalore , citing the reason as doing GMAT some time soon. Today I finished the test and I think its worth recording some of the "interesting" things I went through in the interim period.

The test itself is really straightforward in that it tests your high school math skill , reading comprehension , some kind of logical reasoning with "Critical Reasoning" and Sentence correction. Having prepared for CAT last year quite seriously ,the Quants part (which has problem solving and data sufficiency) did nt need much preparation and just required some care before deciding the right answer... ie, to avoid careless mistakes. Verbal was what took some time and dedication.

My 2 months preparation was roughly split up like this:

From OG11 , I just tried solving a few questions in quants, and verbal in no particular order , but did some daily just to keep the momentum and not feel guilty about it :D. This took maybe 1-2 hours everyday . After I finished OG11, I stopped doing exercises in CR ,RC and quants... only the mock tests , ie Powerprep, gmat prep and some 800 score tests . I started going through Manhattan Sentence correction, which was really good to learn a systematic approach to sentence correction and along with OG10 sentence correction exercises... you see manhattan gives u the questions you need to solve from OG10 to understand a certain topic ,so it really starts making sense.

One day before the test , I finished all the exercises in SC and watched "Fantastic four: the rise of the silver surfer" , Jessica Alba who looked cute except for the pseudo blonde wig ( yuck) , why do people ever try to look like Caucasians? Anyway , I slept well and went on time for the test thanks to my dad and his activa . <> Test got over , I got a decent score ... 760 and I returned home in rain again thanks to my dad . And then i decided to blog about it just for the heck of it.

random rhyme

2007-08-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

Meeting people on the go
I often think they are slow
To realise that I know
Their thought flow

By the time they blink
I can sleep forty winks
And come back to jinx
The silly ppl in pink

They then start to wonder why
This unknown guy
Not looking sly but shy
Is smiling / frowning try

I am laughing within
How can I tell the heathen
The truth of the situation
That coz of they , all is stinkin

I slowly relent
Sensing the lack of an intent
To learn and invent
Messiah I know I am meant

I take a step closer
To touch the pretty poser
Shes a child , o sir
In mind , not body;stirred

Ah, the pink hon
I cry for she's not the only one
Whos lost in this insane cone
Of an earth , flesh and bone

Forgive her , for she slapped
A saint , a saviour perhaps
Pure thought , in a mind's gaps
Lost on you , pink clothed chaps

And so I cry and laugh again
Why do i try in vain
To make people see truth in the sane
What do I stand to gain?

My tears fall, I m so sad
How can they call me "mad"?
I wonder what I ll tell my dad
When I meet him , maybe "oh gad"!

..................................................................

please don't pull at your hair after reading this , this is something which I wrote to see how weird things can get when I write just for rhyme and grime :D

Argument analysis -2

2007-08-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

" The desire of corporations to maximise profits creates conflict of
interest with the welfare of the nation at large "
---------------------
The argument presented concludes rather abruptly what the consequences of
the desire of corporations to maximise profits might be. This is unwarranted
as there are many cases which can prove the contrary,ie, corporations which
go after maximum profits add to the general welfare of the nation at large.
Consider "Reliance " in India, which is one of the largest retailers in the
country. It is known for its seemingly absurd business ventures which plunge
market rates abysmally low, but eventually make up for the low rates with
maximum volume. Customers are drawn to the low rates and this forces
competitors to bring down rates and provide better service in order to
compete effectively with Reliance. Though Reliance is definitely after
maximizing profits , its ventures are such that they make the competing
business environment more customer friendly ,thus helping the nation in the
long run.
Another case in point is that of "Tata " Corporation in India. Known for
its adventurous streak in business , its business ventures have always been
helpful to the nation at large. Its recent acquisition of a steel
manufacturer in Europe will no doubt make sure its clout in the global steel
market increases , but it also makes the Indian presence stronger as a
result. In short, however profit oriented Tata might be , its success
creates a better brand image of the nation .
There are cases where the reverse is also true. Pharmaceutical corporations
around the world are known for their high prices and tight fistedness with
patents of life saving drugs. Their desire to maximize profits by not
sharing life saving information with the general public does harm the
nation's well being .
Considering that there are instances of selfish motives of corporations
helping the nation or otherwise , and also because we dont have conclusive
evidence about the relative numbers of such corporations , we cannot agree
completely with the argument .

analysis of an issue(gmat practice)

2007-08-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

"The presence of a competitor is always beneficial to a company. Competition forces a company to change itself in ways that improve its practices."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
-------------

The presented argument should be considered with a pinch of salt.

The reasoning on which it is possibly based is that "competition" is a positive influence. Competition by itself can be of differing natures. Fair and healthy competition can promote improvement in the practices and functioning of a company. If the company and its competitor follow the law and don't indulge in unfair practices , then there is only scope for improvement in order to compete. For example consider the restaurants on Mosque road in Bangalore. All of theses restaurants cater to similar tastes . They sell the same kind of food , but they do not indulge in any unfair practices such as trying to influence a customer not to go to any of the other restaurants. They try to improve on the food quality and the service as well in order to keep their customers and get new ones. In this case , the "company" responds in a positive way ;competition is a positive influence and forces the company to improve its practices. The arguments holds true in this case.

On the other hand, if the "competition" is unfair, the company on the receiving end,in order to fight back or just survive , might have to indulge in practices similar to those of the competitors. This will definitely not force a company to "improve" itself . For example , auto rickshaw drivers in Bangalore are now increasingly becoming shrewd at cheating customers as a result of unfair competition. When an honest auto rickshaw driver sees that he is losing out on customers and money because his dishonest counterparts use unfair means to cheat customers like rigging up the fare meter or taking a long winded route to the destination , he might be forced to learn and adopt these techniques in order to survive and prosper . In this case , it can be seen that the argument does not hold true and thus we can say that the argument is not complete and does not cover all possible cases.

The examples cited above are real life examples and I think that they would hold true if you even replace the restaurants and auto drivers with companies . What they try to prove is that its not necessary that a company's policies improve with the presence of a competitor, they can also deteriorate or go bad. The argument is thus not a sound one and should be considered conditionally , ie, with a pinch of salt.

analysis of an argument(gmat practice)

2007-08-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

The following appeared as part of an article in a magazine on lifestyles.

"Two years ago, City L was listed 14th in an annual survey that ranks cities according to the quality of life that can be enjoyed by those living in them. This information will enable people who are moving to the state in which City L is located to confidently identify one place, at least, where schools are good, housing is affordable, people are friendly, the environment is safe, and the arts flourish."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
----------
The argument presented is not reasonable as it tries to extrapolate the provided information to get a convenient conclusion. An assumption which is clearly evident is that information about one city in a state ( which would consist of several/many cities ) is sufficient to predict how the rest of the state would be.
The validity of the information obtained from the survey itself not established as it largely depends on the people who have taken part in the survey. We do not have information about how many people were surveyed , from what social standing they are and what their inclinations are.

Assuming that the survey is reliable , then a family which wants to locate a suitable place to live in city L might be able to get some useful information from the survey . However , to conclude that the family will surely benefit from the survey and definitely find a place where it might be satisfied with the schools,housing , people etc. is wishful thinking . There is not enough evidence to conclude so.

One more reason why this argument does not hold much water is that the factors which are considered to identify a place , viz. schools,housing,people,environment and the arts are all subjective. Schools which might be affordable to a rich family may not be so for a relatively poor family. Housing follows the same logic. Whether the people are friendly is again dependant of the perception of the families . They might find someone friendly whereas the neighbours may not . A safe environment can depend on many factors. What is safe for one family may not be safe for another.

If we had further information about the state in which city L is present, then the argument may be more reasonable using known data to come to a conclusion. Supposing we knew that the cities in the state were more or less similar with respect to the factors mentioned ,then the argument could be considered more reasonable.

Mum(bai)'s the wor(l)d

2007-06-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

Bangalore airport

Driven by dreams of glory somewhat and more by the thrill of getting out of the mundane 9-6 ( in my case 12 - 9 ) existence and meeting quakers hot babes , matter and i packed for the trip to mumbai! In case you are thinking matter and i were packing together spatially and in the same time zone ,you are mistaken , matter as usual was in his own MST ( matter standard time ) while was in good old (boring ) IST where you have to be at the airport well in advance and sit waiting in hope of seeing a real hot beauty ...hope is all I ve got now :( . Anyway , with usual alacrity after a few harried phone calls , matter suddenly turned up behind me as if he had been there all the time and we safely boarded the flight! That was a relief I tell you . About the inevitable question as to how many chicks there were on flight , I can recall only one really hot tam ( i think so) girl in sari and a few ok ok ones.

On board and away

Our onward journey was on Indigo and man the most disappointing flight I ever had in terms of .....the air hostesses ! I remember telling matter that 90% of the air hostesses are pretty ordinary looking but are definitely one thing... paper white! I cant understand whats the point of having air hostesses who wont even look into the eyes of the people getting on board while (if at all ) welcoming them on board. We were lucky to get at least that service considering that as soon as our trip was over , there was a nation wide strike by the ground staff of some or all of the airlines! Anyway it was nt worth the effort worrying about them when theres so much to do in our own lives . During the course of the flight I discovered a very intimate detail about matter! Can you guess wat ? yes you are right , he does have a very soft inside... before you get the wrong idea, let me clarify. Actually (verbatim matter) , his body pressure is much lesser than that outside therefore the pain in the ear,and when he inserts his ears to stop the pain , his fingers get sucked in ! Well with such proof , I had to admit to his theory which is true btw hehe.
Before this occured , matter very expectantly enquired about the availability of cotton to stuff his ears with . On the polite refusal , his exasperation was very noticeable and lasted through most of the rest of the journey as DK and Gandhi would testify . I forgot to mention that matter shot the take off of the flight .... you are right ... from within the plane!!!

Arrival at chatrapathi sivaji international airport and journey to Deek's abode

After a relatively short flight during which I was enlightened on several topics by matter , most of which I dont remember :) , not that it was not interesting , but because of STML. After say good riddance to the pasty air hostesses , we got in touch with Deeks . After trying to remember a set of confusing directions which we were supposed to relate to an auto driver , and failing miserably ( inspite of a detailed sms from dk which we later learnt was copied from a map hehe ) , Deek's idea of speaking to the auto guy solved the problem and we were safely off . The directions I remember are something with key words , Chembur...Vashi... three of four highway names..and Indianoil colony . In that sultry - salubrious (is that an oxy moron? ) weather , we were relieved to be in motion albeit within extremely cheap transport ! Man , you could say we were very pleasantly surprised to see the auto meter just registering some chillare as he sped along the paved cement roads ( the road looks like a pavement in mumbai ) and really wide highways. We reached Deek's abode in some time , less than half an hour . As Gandhi and Deeks came ambling towards us from a distance I really wish we had shot that pic ! I was just taking out Rs.10 to give the auto guy, as the meter read 10.5 .... who for a strange reason was laughing at us! Deeks came to our rescue at this juncture along with the ever youthful Gandhi . It seems that the meter has to read with a scaling factor of 10 for autos and for cabs its some kind of whacky non linear scale which would put our pn diode graph to shame.

Deek's abode and lunch

In a supposedly tamil area , the apartment building was called GRIT ,and was part of a bunch of buildings near a small colony called Indian oil colony. Enquiring about the availability of hot babes in the colony we entered the place where Deeks spends most of his sleeping and blogging hours ( just guessing). It was a really spacious place where 2-3 people could live easily and we were really glad to relax under the fans as we acquainted ourselves with what we were upto and I updated them about matter's latest quotes. It was really pleasant surprise to also have Gandhi in Mumbai at the same time and added a hairier factor (especially the feet! ) to our stay . After a really heavy lunch of egg fried rice and veg manchurian and freshening up , we set off to see mumbai!

The suburban trains

Our plan was to take autos to this place called Vidya Vihar which was the closest station which would connect us to the artery of the city , the mumbai rail. Mater with a really professional looking thick ,black camera and Deeks with his handy Silver cam with a thinner extensible cylinder made for obvious analogies to their prowesses in other places ... which was was unabashedly confirmed by matter! On board the train we were told of the different lines which ran parallel and in the north south direction . A really huge number of people use this network everyday... for exact figures , ask Deeks and when you see how alive that whole system is you cant help but wonder how it all works. Even after the bomb blasts and all that shit , people fearlessly just getting on with life ;looking at them , our apprehensions were gone .

CST (Chatrapathi sivaji terminus) , marine drive and ragada patties

We arrived at a major stop called CST , which I guess is equivalent to Majestic in train terms . Outside this station is the place you see in most films based on mumbai with some old huge buildings. It was really great to be in the places you get to see always on tv , what with all the news channels being so partial to mumbai ! Anyway after a short walk through stalls which mainly hawked pirated cds and dvds of all kinds... a guy ever saw my unsure eyes and was pulling on my shirt asking if i wanted "sexy" stuff! After being had by the ESWC guys for not even sponsoring the travel , we thought it not worth buying stuff we were not sure would even work and so we went on to the next location... the beach. Driving past "Marine drive" , makes you realise that the name is exactly what it is ... a long drive along the beach. It looks like the sea has made a wide curved inway into the land and on one of the arms of the curve you can see really huge buildings showcasing the city's vibrant business life. That place is really awesome , something totally unique to Mumbai and we stood relishing the scene in the fading day.
After a while , guess who came to meet us ? It was good old Rajesh Bhat ! The first thing you can notice about him is that hes not changed one bit..except for his get-up which was now purely formal with a characteristic laptop bag across his chest and shoulders. After learning about his life at Reliance Life Sciences and also anecdotes of Mukesh Ambani and generally a lot of time pass we headed to have the best chat we have ever had in our short lives! Unbelievably tasty stuff which didnt seem that unclean either , we had an ample helping of "Ragada patties " and other normal chat stuff , which left an indelible memory of street food in mumbai which was only going to be further enhanced!

Leopolds

After a long walk along marine drive , we decided to hit the next destination... Leopold's . For people who love to pour beer ..(into their mouths ) and at the same time have a great conversation , this is heaven! It also incidentally serves as one of the hangouts for the main character in this book called "Shantaram" . I guess we should be able to see it in a movie before long starring Johnny Depp and AmitabhBachan as an underworld Don . The hype did nothing to diminish the experience and ambience . The place was ..not huge , but the number of people it accomodated was big, mainly because of optimization achieved over a long time ( as long as a hundred + years ... if what the photo says is true). With closely placed tables meant for four mostly , we five adjusted into one and settled down amidst a crowd which a significant foreign presence. The reason we learnt was because of one undeniably its ambience and second because they have a discount of 10-15% on the bill ! It added more eye candy for us , with local maal and foreign maal at the same place and with the effect of beer kicking in, it seemed all the more lovely. The beer came in a really beautiful chemistry lab apparatus kind of thing. A really tall tube of maybe 10 cm diameter and a tap at the bottom constituted a pitcher . Filling it up and settling down for some great storytelling by some of the best at it... Matter and DK,Raju and Gandhi adding their own experiences , I was really getting a sleepy kick out of it. I think I now know enough about matter's experiences to write a book about... considering how much "matter" is there in them :D . An eternity and a couple of pitchers later , we decided to make a move to....

Bade Miyan

It sounds like a part of some really bad Amitabh Bachan film, but its nothing like that . Its an awesome street food place for the gods ( or is it the lucky dogs who get the left overs?) and mortals from Bangalore . No pictures were taken at this location unfortunately . Anyway it was a road side place as good as it can get. With scores of cars parked on the street and on parallel and nearby streets , most of the customers stand and eat as the seating was ready to be filled many times over by families mainly. Imagine, whole families all dressed up nicely and outside at something like 23 :00 + hours ! There were even some really good looking girls who were least bothered about the time or being among all those men at that time of the day. This is one of the really amazing things about mumbai which struck me as being in sharp contrast to the places I have lived in before ... namely Bangalore and Chennai ( which bolt up by 23 30 max , beyond which you are on your own risk) . We ordered some chicken kababs which ran out as we spoke and then settled for some other kind of kabab while Deeks relised his veg sheek kababs . Never mind that it was a wholly upright meal as in we were standing all the time, it was a really delicious experience and a revelation of what night life can be. And this is only an eating place ! Imagine what fun it would be to be at an all night booze dance party, will I ever get to do that ? Maybe someday. After stuffing ourselves with meat and veg kababs , we headed to the final spot of the day....

Gateway of India and back home.

After the sweaty travel during the day , we still remained sticky , with the weather remaining distinctly humid even as the time neared midnight. This place is not very impressive , I mean as the name would imply, I would imagine a gigantic gateway in to the second most populous nation in the world. Barring such expectations, it was a nice monument, whose historical significance I am not aware of .. maybe somebody will throw some light on that . What was really cool about the place was the light from distant buildings playing on the water surface near the monument. Some more anecdotes later , on the steps which led into the water and some cool photos , we were asked to bugger off by the police at the stroke of midnight. Opposite this monument , is another ... a Taj Hotel which literally has compound facing the Gateway of India , it is all building right onto the road! It looks like a huge palace and well probably unaffordable anyway . finally it was time to head back home and thus concluded the first night in mumbai with reflections of light off the water and thoughts off the mind.

Shitty food?

2007-06-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

After many an incident involving raw flesh or unwanted creatures dead or dying in my food at various restaurants in different cities , I want to let the world know the names of these sons of bitches so that at least some of you would refrain from letting them continue.

Marry Brown , Chennai : I have visited 2 outlets of MarryBrown during my 3 year stay in Chennai . I used to like the taste of the fried chicken there until my stomach started complaining about it . This was not such a big deal since bad food is quite common . But on another occasion I was just about to leave for Bangalore from Chennai Central , when I bought a burger from the Marry Brown outlet there ( the one right next to Saravana Bhavan) . This was a "special" burger which was supposed to have a fried piece of chicken instead of a patty. The guy packed it and promptly took the payment. I took my seat in the train when there was 15 minutes to departure . I opened the packet and took a bite... to find that it was rubbery. The flesh was uncooked . Seething with anger I returned to the counter and shouted at the guy there . The main guy in charge was a kiddish looking north indian chap , he just stood there staring as if his brains where at home , the other guy who handles customers was saying "sorry sir , please " repeatedly. I asked them how they would feel to be served raw meat for money and took my bag and left.

Ponnusamy Chettinad Hotel , M.G.Road , Besantnagar : It was a Sunday afternoon . My roommate Vijesh and I went to this "famous" restaurant to have the most important meal of the weekend , "brunch" . We went in and sat down at a table among the all the other confusingly placed tables. We waited for an eternity before I had to shout to get some service. We ordered some Fried chicken which according to my roomie was a specialty . When it did arrive , I found it was quite stale and was really pissed about it. After making a lot of fuss and threatening legal action , we got a replacement piece from some other curry . Deciding never to visit this Ponnu "myre" samy place ever again , we left with a warning to the guys there.

Kwality Riviera : This is one of the shittiest incidents I ve had at a restaurant. First the guy serves some stinking Chicken tandoori and then he argues with us that it is fresh , the freaking bastard. Anyway , after threatening him that no one from Verizon would ever come there again , his and his friends' attitude changed to that of pleading . I sometimes think what would happen to all the people who worked in such places if they get shut down for such things , but now I think I ll do my best to screw anyone else who wants to play dirty.

Hotel Grand: This is the biggest misnomer of the century. For the stalest food ( apparently because they need to conserve power by turning off the refridgerator at night ) , read stinking chicken lollypop , you can rely on this place. Its got filthy curtains and table cloths and a particular waiter who would put LOTR's Gollum to shame with his shifting faces . I was accompanied by an especially good natured guy (KKP) who was reasoning ever so pleasantly with that SOB... as if he would turn over a new leaf . After we left that place with disgust , I came to find out from him that if we took a sample of the food with us to Rajaji Bhavan in Besantnagar, we could actually file a case against them. I really regret not doing that that day.

Nandhini Palace : This is the latest addition to the really long list of such incidents. 12/6/2007 , 3:00 pm , I ordered a limited meals at Nandhini Palace on new BEL road . This was on the ground floor restaurant . Already feeling weak because of bad seats at work and travel fatigue , I was happy to get the food on my table finally. A small bowl of rice and sambhar and rasam and curd which had the color of urine ( yeah , it really did ) , at least the top layer . Halfway through the meal some kid came and served "dhaal" and some vegetable side dish . When I was almost done, I saw a dead cockroach hidden among the slices of the vegetable . My first reaction this time was , man why me? I really didnt have the mood to fight with these people . I called the waiter and showed the dead insect. He said something about informing his manager and scooted off. I just could nt eat anymore and went to wash my hands. Seeing the alarm on the faces of the waiters I knew it was quite serious , but it was their lucky day I was already bugged enough with other things like the way ESWC 2007 was held in Mumbai the previous weekend .

On this day , I have decided to take revenge on erring restaurants one way or the other ... better not mess with the paying customer , coz one day you ll be brought to the streets if you do .

Ode to a soddie...

2007-05-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

13/5/2007

A pain in the wrist and a fat ass is
All you ve got , my softie sis
Oh you want to have an easy life?
A fat salary and a sexy hot wife?
So you gonna work real hard...
So hard ur backside goes soft
Your eyes a popping mister , oft
When passes by a female chick

Oh What a lousy life you lead my softie sis,
Aint worth a doggie's piss
You dreaming a lot my man,
When u sposed be working on...
Through the nite , you aint got no life
No life , no wife, no f**king strife

The white man's rich, his dollars' real money
Your ruppee aint worth ur sweet time honey.
So slog ur fat ass...all day all nite
The white massa's paying u alrite
You speak his tongue and u wipe his ass
Maybe u go his house ,oh so fast!

You dream a lot my man ,
Someday u ll marry ... a woman?
u look in the mirror anytime , hey softie sis?
ur ass so big, did i just hear it hiss?
U aint going to do no kissing ...
Ur teeth have food which went missing
What a sorry state ur in my buddy
Life sure sucks as a softie coolie

Oh softies s(t)ud ... u gonna die a virgin
Coz none cares of ur end or origin...
U a drop in the ocean , u salty prick
U gonna die without use of ur stick
Wat lifes gotta offer u ll never know dude
Coz u gonna look , but u never do
The net u live in ... u browse
Your veil itll be , sitting forever in the house

U coming home in a huff
Ur packets' full of money stuff
Now u r boss , u softie coolie..
U lucky dog , u .. see me drooly
O Wait, ur heart's a beating slow
My man , u must a been cheating
Death , ur heart's a leaking ..

A softie's life's so short , is it fate?
U dying my brother, my softie mate...
Wat a life , wat strife , of no action ,
better dead still ..you are than a life of no motion.

No one gonna mourn u my dead son
U were no one , no helping hand
U thot u were living a life so grand..
No family ,no frens u cared
Look who has better fared...
I earned much less... I loved much more
I knew money's worth , I never sought a crore
I am the real worker , u lost ur way
I live life , while you exist in a hell for which u forever ...pay

( today's incidentally my bro's birthday . some of the intense feeling of being a softie with no life has been influenced by him and more so by observing this ever growing imbecile species)

P.S : this poem aint a joke! its satire at the "prosperous" software engineer , a growing breed , who lives a "model" life with a lot of money and pretty much no skill at anything save stare at a blank screen...

Moving on ...

2007-03-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

What is it that makes moving on to the next step so difficult? It was all so easy in school . You finish one grade and move on to the next . Getting through is not very difficult for most and the process is synchronized so that no one is left behind. Until you pass out of school you are taken care of . Only then that meritocracy kicks in . You go where your abilities ,proclivity , ambition and various other factors take you . Taking decisions becomes important for an individual at each of these junctures . Moving from school after completing 10th to another institution... choosing a discipline for pre university , UG course selection ... they are all important for most people in the retrospective. By the time you realize that the strings which your parents (siblings) were holding should have been in your hands all along , you are stuck in a high paying job with absolutely no or little correlation to what you are interested in. Which brings up the point, what are you really interested in? I can think of a handful of things which I love to do and still cannot single out one which would be an option to pursue full time. I can't play quake full time , I would then probably become a Dependant on my brother or even worse on my retired parents . Anything would be better than depend , and so once most of us enter a job , we stay stuck for 1 year, 2 years and slowly it just slips our minds how once upon a time , there was a dream , a dream to achieve something . The will to go through the extra hour to learn that skill , nurture that special talent which would one day make all eyes revere you and how smug you could be.

Somewhere in the middle of this phase are stuck many people not unlike me. I for one have had several passions in my short life of 24 years. I used to love to sketch with the pencil , pen , sketch pen , in the sand , in dirt , on dirty cars and even in the air! The feeling of elation when I can draw a balanced, proportionate figure of a guy , or even better a woman still never fails to show up. The only difference is that the frequency of this event has gone down drastically. You call it the dying of the human spirit , the drying up of creative juices , procrastination , aging , in fact you can attribute it to umpteen reasons . The fact remains that I am becoming an addict to mediocrity . I find me telling myself every time I am challenged by a particular task , why not delay it a little longer . It can wait for some more time and then I can be done with it forever. The attitude towards anything which does not interest me is so allergic to say the least and disinterested at the max on the outside . Two years of working in software can do to me what 14 years of school and PU could not do . I seriously think that what I am running on now is the momentum of a time when I attained a peak , some time in 10th standard when I could listen to my biology teacher Mrs. Simon at a stretch for 45 minutes and then sit down and write down all that she had said. I had the confidence that I had it in me to do well at any task related to studies .

The difference between then and now when there is so much more freedom to choose what I can do , is with choices . I chose to follow a path , a well trodden path . A path which would guarantee me an easy life so that I would not have to go through the trudge my father went through . I know that its a good option , something which thousands of people go through every year... probably suppressing the desire to become a poet or a cricket player or an artist. It is after all basic education now . So what if you were great in school. That does nt count all that much. You then have to excel at 12th , college and at the end of it all , you know that at the bottom of your heart , all you really want to do is just sketch faces on the class notebook. I have been living in this state of perpetual inner desires reaching out for satisfaction from different sources . Don't even get me started about other unsatisfied desires !

The time to make some important choices has come again and this time I have taken probably one of my first major decisions which could be quite life altering and all that . Its the decision to leave my first job , which is almost like the continuation of my life from college . The thing that made it difficult to do it all these days was I had trouble getting myself to focus on preparation for interviews . The will to do it was not there and after some introspection and learning from past attempts , I latched on to the simple formula for minimum required success (LOL)... do the right things , not necessarily the tough things , get all the material for preparation ready and just read (and probably program) sincerely . And so with a job in hand and an imminent move from my first place of work... I stand in the midst of a photograph , where I am moving from one stage to another . I do not know where this decision will take me . I do not know if life as I know it will be better or worse . Will it bring back old memories as I go back to my hometown , or will it finally be the course which will eventually lead me to that woman who I long to hold in my arms and smother with kisses , will it make me a better son to my parents , to whom I my duty as a son still remains largely unfulfilled , will I at the end of it all make my self happy ...
I wish I could learn to move on ... in life .

Liberty , a dream

2007-02-12T13:06:00.000-08:00

Liberty , a dream 13/2/2007

Unwilling , I rise
From the dreams ..of a different life
Heavy eye lids pull me back
The pillow wants to smother me
Make me sleep forever...

A jarring noise grows
Breaks the reverie so real
Another twenty four hours
Of nothing beckon, the mind is numb..

I can almost see myself from without
Putting on a disguise to fool ..whom?
With haste and a hurried pace
I rush to run the fake race...

The wheels of the bike turn,
My mind rewinds , a happy family
Four on a scooter , downhill on neutral
What joy , dad was my hero , mom was an angel
And that moment was pure heaven..

At work I sit , with a flat screen
I wonder about the world ,
Is nt there so much still to be seen...
Than the awkard silence and fumbling
Of the very same third floor

A moment of pride , came to my mind
I had excelled without doubt
The tenth standard it was
My heart swelled at the thought

How much I could have grown...
A poet? A writer ? A pilot ? an artist?
Buy what have I become now..?
A slave to comfort? Life's pampered pet?

If life is conscious thought ..and deed
And if thought is stuck in a loop
No action of novelty is done ..
Am I falling ..into a well of no return

But wait ... a flickering flame
Still burns somewhere
Which makes me look at myself,
As if a ghost from without

At the sorry state I am in
A thread I find in a hand still strong
It leads ... from the past into the future
A kite soars above , tugging ... like a failing heart

It wills me to forget a sorry past ,
Pulling me towards the light..
It lifts me , I fly
Flapping my wings ... I cry
I am free, to seek my destiny

With violent jerks I awaken
To see ..for the last time
A friend's face , he cries..
"Don't die, my friend.. you are too young!"
A smirk , and a wistful look remain ...
No breath , no warmth , no man , no unwilling life..

- Railmani

Evil is not human and human is not divine...

2007-02-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

2/2/2 007

Its only human they say,
To err , and then learn from it
Is perfection about this ?
Does Correction lead to nirvana..
Will it make me divine?
Or will the prevention of sin...

I fall many a time , but rise
Through effort , luck or vice
Sometimes I see the light
Or trip again on the very same rock.
Is it the devil in me , which then guides my thought?

A free thought it is
When I let my mind go free
Abandons all rules ,looking for harmony
Battling against viral thoughts
Planted by endless debauchery
Sometimes it breaks free
A momentary silence , A moment like a void
I stand still and the world moves ...so slow
Before it all comes crashing in

Through a crowd I walk
Losing myself in the flood of faces and bodies
Sometimes the limbs my eyes desire ,
At others the faces beckon
A stolen moment , meeting eyes
Always makes me wonder what lies
Behind the fellow conspirator's mask...
An innocent whim, or a virile spark
It passes and I kick myself
For depravity , taking control

The middle path I choose to tread
A chosen road in between
Always lies , leading miles ahead
No horrible vice I know , nor great virtue
Am the man who lives with all ,but finally nothing in his head
Half a mind , is it a mind at all?
A thought , decision made makes no sense
How is it possible to ever reach , attain zen?

The roads beckon , but I tread the middle path
For evil is not human and human is not divine...

Insomniac mosquito?

2006-12-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

There was a poem in my high school text book about mosquitoes... and I used to wonder , what a jobless guy the poet must have been! Now I take back my words as I realise how much havoc that silly little creature can wreak on one's life.

I spend only my nights at home on weekdays and this is the time I am supposed to sleep and rejuvenate myself for work later on. For the last one week though , I have been struggling to get a semblance of a proper sleep cycle in place. The reason being a sudden surge in the mosquito population in my area or maybe the impotence of a mosquito repellant called "Mortein" or "GoodKnight" . I think I am getting nearer to the state of an insomniac with 3 -4 hours of sleep everyday and declining brain power as a consequence. Sleep , used to be something which I could enjoy at anytime , any place no matter what ! I am infamous for falling asleep on moving buses while standing in a crowded train etc. and now this situation is ironic at the least .

Getting back to the main protagonist, the chennai f**king mosquito ... did you know that the culprit is a female mosquito?! I can understand women liking me , but the female of another species finding me so attractive as to kiss me on the face and lips everynight is ridiculous!
Although I do relish the final "Basic Instinct" like scene when I hunt them down and massacre them with blood splatterign all over ( the difference being thats probably my own blood). Whats so special about the mosquito that makes it such a villainous vermin? I can go on and on about this , but I ll get in a few important points as in a good group discussion .

1) They bite where it hurts (itches) most , the forehead , the lips , cheeks ... who am I kidding they bite anywhere , as if they care !
2) They have no self control, they sons of b*ithes suck so much blood that they are like drops of blood flying around and smashing them is the closest thing to revenge possible.
3) They buzz around annoyingly near the ear so that I get up even from my deepest dream into an awake nightmare.
4) They come in various sizes, and the bite is inversely proportional to the size. The small black and white ones are like the black adders of mosquitoes.
5) They are all females ! For a fact only the female mosquitoes bite ... the males are vegetarians , now here is a species in which the males are clearly lovable creatures...but are nt they the ones which fertilize the eggs of the females..so f*ck them too! Kill any mosquito on sight I say... bloody

I am cutting short on this list and hope to elaborate further , here are a few valuable tips to extract your well deserved share of vengeance , or vendetta if you d have it.

1) Get an empty plate and put some oil on it such that any fat mosquitoe once stuck in is stuck in it for the rest of its sorry life unless you kill it before its natural term of existance expires , and then just master the art of swinging the plate at any flying mosquitoe and enjoy! The detestable creatures get stuck in the muck so easily , you can already feel your mood lightening ! You can probably kill them off one by one after capturing them or just throw them away to suffer a sorry death over a few days... I would recommend the former coz you never know if they get up and fly away!

2) Get an empty glass glass( a glass tumbler ie) and try to capture a mosquito alive ! You could swat one such that its momentarily knocked out and then get to work ;). Put it in the glass , place the glass upside down and then you do a whole lot of things. ...
a) get a mosquito mat and let the fumes in and watch the fun!
b) get a magnifying glass and burn the little bastar*s
c) just shake them so hard their brains and other organs get exchanged !

3) You could also place a subject on a hot mosquito coil/ mat and watch the fun .
4) Ever tried drowning a mosquito? Well its tough , I guess the one I killed died out of shock rather than water entering its...lungs?

Hmm , thats quite an impressive list of ways to exact revenge ... maybe I can write a whole book about this! Lets see..

Bike trip to office( over)

2006-08-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

It was a periodic pounding , an irritating noise to say the least. From the middle of a successful sojourn at my "happy place" , I got up from my bed a throbbing head ache. It was not going to be a good day, some thing told me. It must be one of those things which humans are very good at , calculations based on memory and prediction , the stuff which machines can't do for nuts . I could say that something was totally out of place even before I went to the loo.

A queer dream it was , the one that I was rudely awoken from. I brushed my teeth with the conscious feeling of a pain in one of my pre molars which grew ever so little everyday. And as I turned around , another pain , somewhere near the heart towards the right , made its presence felt. I knew it was not the cardiac muscle for sure, but it was a bugging pain nevertheless. There was a time I used to think I was if not invincible , at least invulnerable to such "static" pains. But it was all happening to me , I was a physical entity and not just thought like many philosophers would have us beleive . I was affected even by the slightest of mosquito bites and the slightest brush of long hair of a woman was indescribably enjoyable. With such mundane thoughts my day began and I set out with a mismatched pair of socks ( courtesy : my house maid) from my room. As I opened and closed several doors to get out of the container called "my" house , I relished the feeling of ownership... of that space , which nobody could invade . The space of my room , my computer , my bed ... my bathroom . Yes, being alone in this world had its benefits.

Behind the gate stood my bike . The gate opened directly to the road . The houses in Chennai are not like what you would see in American TV series... like "The Wonder Years" , with open lawns and neatly arranged houses , with so much space that you would hardly brush against anyone without pure intention of doing it . Here , evidence suggests that the houses are built by the individual who happened to own that plot of land and it was built with parameters which at that time were to him suitable and reasonably affordable. This results in innumerable permutations and combinations like the one on my street. My house , incidentally I am a tenant is quite different from the immediate neighbours' on the left and the right and across the road, which are all apartments. Mine is a "house" , with me living on the first floor along with another college and work friend. Nothing of much significance about my house except that I live there ;).
My bike still stood there , as it has through so many good times and bad . The bad being several accidents which could have ended my riding and any other do"ing" s... and the good being all those times spent at exhilirating speeds or with interesting company behind . After a customary wipe with the filthy (which could be considered an euphemism!) cloth , my bike was once again transfigured to a noble steed hehe and stood erect almost inviting me to sit , like the horse in the movie "Spirit". Climbing onto my bike I moved it with familiar ease out of the gates and onto the road. Closing the gate behind , I decided to make it to office in record time.

My trusty bike is a Yamaha RX - 135 , made in 2000, in a way they are never going to be made again. The more natural thing to me , I have begun to feel for a long time now , between running and riding my bike is the latter . I kick started it , one of the things about my bike , is that it requires a kick everyday to get it started , like any obstinate human being (like me) needs to get going (hehe). It came alive with the sound which can only be a Yamaha 2 Stroke engine and I lovingly ran my hands over the tank and touched the metal font which had the word "YAMAHA" on either of the flanks. Revving up the engine a couple of times, I slowly released the clutch from the first gear , it sprang forward and I was on my way. As is the case with many heroes on noble steeds ( like in the movie "shrek"), I always face my share of obstacles and fire breathing dragons on the way to the "castle". The only variable missing here is the princess I should say .

Anyway , I gently bent to the left and at the same time turned the handle in the same direction to avoid on of the silly dogs which live on my street. If you think that dogs are animals with great instinct , reflexes and other attributes which make them somewhat better equipped than humans for life on the roads, you are greatly mistaken! I Often see dogs squished by lorries or buses and wonder how they could be so careless. But when I see the dogs on my street, I wonder how they ever survived so many years to reach a ripe old dog age! I am not being unfair to the canine species here, its just that these two dogs are so far removed from the rest of their ilk that they appear to me not as dogs but more as pigs ! First of all, they are really rotund ,what with leftovers from a well to do neighbourhood and a drunken benefactor at nights. Second ,their reflexes are so bad I could easily tie up their legs before they could even attempt to give me a bite . This I say with the assurance of experience in tormenting my labrador at home in Bangalore. And last but not the least , they were afflicted with a severe case of mange which almost made them "Pannis" (pigs in tamil).

My bike journey was now onto the first main road where I need to cut across the main road to enter the mainstream traffic. This I do so with considerable elan and care. An accident in school on a bicycle when I tried to cross a road with only grace and no care makes me extra careful. I realised I needed to make haste to beat my present record and twisted back the accelerator and rapidly changed gears to reach the fourth in few seconds. Within a few seconds, had it not been for an especially long traffic signal , I would have been near IIT Chennai. At this signal , I get my first taste of the heat in Chennai every morning . The futility of daily cleansing struck me as a monumental waste of the country's wealth. Browsing around I looked for a pleasant face in the sea of human traffic. I spotted , as I do once in a while , some pretty software engineers waiting at the bus stand near the signal. Time sure flies when you are enjoying yourself and its true alright.The signal timer reached single 10...9.. and I started my bike . At the count of 5 , the vehicles started moving slowly to cover up the avenue for vehicles going through in the perpendicular direction and get going once the signal is green. This phenomenon , used to appear weird to me initially , but now I know that if this is not done at the right time when there is peak traffie , theres a good chance that you could miss that signal because the already moving vehicles don't pay heed to the signal or rather ignore the red and continue moving with inertia.
Once past this signal , I went through the road where some of my colleagues used to live(Reji) and also where I write the MOCK CAT on sundays. I was moving a somewhat dangerous 50 + speed , when suddenly another guy from a subordinate cross street cut across and I applied squealing brakes to avoid imminent collision. Cursing under my breath about senseless louts , I get through safely momentarily shaken . At the end of that road I took a right to enter Kamaraj Avenue where quite a few people I know stay , including Sanal and his Calicut NIT friends. Its also the road where I get to see attractive women every now and then. You see, its one of the cool residential - cum - good - eating - place kind of street, so theres always a good crowd . I rode past many Honda Activas and scootys , and autos (which never cease to amaze me) . On the Activas , there are the fast college girls, working ladies and sometimes slow elderly gentlemen. On the scooties are the wannabe fast people , who can't go beyond 50 something , but make it a point to block the way for me. The autos are the most interesting. Their movements reflect the state of the driver's mind often. Moving slowly on the side of the road means that he has not found a "giraaki"(customer) yet and is on the lookout for opportunity. A really ripping fast auto with scant respect for any other vehicle save the monstrous MTC buses , means the customer is in the back seat and time is money! . Otherwise , they just like to go slowly minding their business in the middle of the road hehe. With this I reach the end of that illustrious road and take the last left just before the signal.

I was about to venture onto "Sardar Patel" road which for me is quite an important name, because I ve travelled a lot , almost everyday of my stay in Chennai. Its the node in a graph which I have to traverse in order to get any place of importance like office or a movie theatre ;).
Beyond that turn lay the big bad world of Chennai two wheeler traffic. Its as inescapable as the sweltering heat here. However bad this used to be a year ago , when I got my bike, it is now second nature. For example , when you are a beginner on the roads , with a two wheeler , when you see a huge gap on the left side of the road and everyone is trying to go down the centre or the right , you would do the same . "Overtaking from the left " is still a profanity for you. But after being on the road for enough time , you know that the only way to get through some really thick traffic is sometimes go from the left or whatever gaps are available. This of course should be done with extra care , because there can be instances of people trying to cross the road at the very same instance and your combined actions could put you on a collision path. The front brake and some intuition helps a lot here. When you see a bike or an auto slow down in front and there is a possible gap which you could exploit, go for it but not very fast and be prepared for a sudden brake. It pays to be careful on the road , because only when something goes wrong you realise how much trouble it can be. Anyway , Chennai traffic is going to be bad no matter what , so either you learn how to deal with it or get left behind in exhaust ;)

Madhya Kailas and the bridge above it gave way rapidly as I glanced at a speed limit sign which showed 40 and my speedometer showed 55. Thats not much I can assure you because if you have ever travelled at 100 or above you ll know that anything below is just ...mundane. IIT Madras went past me and I glanced at the entry gate. My only memories of this place are those of playing Quake 3 with some of the final year guys the previous year . Traditionally very good at Quake , this college is one of the few places where Quaking is still a religion , if only for a few.
In a way , quake in my college was an offshoot of iit madras , because the first guy who showed me Quake was the brother of an iitm passout ! That was more than 4 years ago and there are now quite a few tricks up my sleeve as well ;). Fading away , those memories made me smile and I swayed to the right to avoid a MTC bus which was ahead and slowing down and moving towards the left of the road. From that point onwards is the "fast zone". Its a stretch of road with no signals , trees lined up on the road(!) albeit only towards the left and actullay stretches along a huge compound wall on the left side. Recently there have been some traffic cops at one or two spots in the "fast zone". My guess is they are there to discourage people from speeding , and not really catch them. How could they ? when they are standing and the possible guilty party would be on a fast bike! Anyway , I consciously slow down at this juncture and as soon as I am out of sight of any such uniformed police, continue at my regular speed. The road narrows down as I reach Raj Bhavan. It appears as though the office building next to Raj Bhavan might be the cause , but its probably because of some lack of planning. The place where I worked for over a year, this place carries a lot of fond memories and unpleasant ones as well! At the junction that immediately follows , I could see office goers like me , united for a moment at a traffic signal in life. This is the Velachery junction and many of the bachelors of the city take a left here to go to the "mansion" suburb of the city (mansion here means a living place akin to a hostel, nothing to do with a palace! ) . Going further down , Mount road enters the scene. This road , I think is the "aorta " of Chennai . Connecting all major parts of the city, its one road which can save you shit loads of trouble if you are geogrophobic ( hows that for a new word ; ) ) like me, and cant remember directions easily! Taking a left at the junction of Mount road and Sardar Patel road ( this is where SP rd ends) , I rush into Guindy . This is one of the most horrible places anywhere for a vehicle phobic pedestrian . To cross the road needs a great deal of confidence and a sense of adventure . There are hardly any signals for a long stretch, a few traffic cops help pedestrians , but still their plight is plainly visible. Occasionally I slow down considerably to let a scared pedestrian cross the road comfortably . For him thats less than half the battle won, because there is the "compound" wall - like divider at the middle of the road , crossing which he has to then go through the anti parallel part of the road which is as crowded.
I went past the Guindy railway station from where I have taken a suburban train to Central (Park Station ) on a few occasions . One of the differences between Chennai and Bangalore ( thats where I am from ) which for me makes Chennai better in a way is the suburban train system.With amazing efficiency and low cost , this is something which every growing city / metro must have ... its amazing how much effort and time such facilities can save. Mumbai is a good example of a city whose very work life is centred on this kind of train system. Soon , I hope Bangalore will have one of these ! The next significant landmark on this road is "Le Royal Meridien", which is the venue for many a politician's stay/function or whatever. When that happens , all common folk like yours truly have to wait for at least half an hour for the array of official bodyguarded cars to pass. Just beyond this lies the great "Kathipara " junction. This is one of those places where traffic from 4 - 5 roads accumulate at peak hours and are regulated by over taxed policemen who dont really seem to have any real control over the vehicles. Taking a curved right along with the rest of the traffic , I entered 100 feet road which is the last main road of my journey to office. Here , something happens to me and to quite a few others beside me , and an irresistable urge to speed takes hold and I let go. Feeling for the last time for that day the hot air blowing into my face , I reach office after a few minutes.... still not able to better my previous record!

Mocking the CAT

2006-07-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

150 questions , three sections : Tenth standard Maths , Labyrinthine English , Totally encrypted Data to interpret... how tough can it be??

This is how i felt at the beginning of the 3rd mock CAT I took up today at 10 30 am . This pattern was a departure from the last 2 tests I wrote , which consisted of 90 Questions with 10 one mark and 20 two mark questions in each section. Looking at the analysis of the paper in the web site, I got the impression that it was supposed to be easier than the earlier few tests. For me it turned out to be a bad experience. Thinking about it now , I think that I made some wrong choices within those 120 minutes... thankfully its not the real thing !

The mistakes I made in the Verbal ability section : I rely on the grammar and vocab portion of the section usually to get me through comfortably and only after I finish this do I go for the Reading comprehension. I have been warned about this approach earlier , but today it was decisive, I need to change my strategy . No more shying away from RC... its really weird if you think about it though. I am what you could call a somewhat voracious reader. But when it comes to RC, something goes wrong everytime ... so now I make a vow that I ll do at least "n-2" passages from now on in RC ! The grammar and sentence completion parts of the section were to say the least awfully twisted... this is usually my favourite section! In this , I need to be able to leave questions and not make suicidal attempts.

In DI: Well , I did not do much in this section , in fact I have not done much until now in any of the tests. There were 50 Qs like in any other section and its all the more distressing to see more questions which seem unanswerable ! This is slowly getting to be a phobia now and this is another sections where I have to concentrate like RC . This is more important though because I am clearing Verbal and not DI!

In quants: In the first 2 tests , I chose the right questions and cleared both the test cutoffs comfortably , which was pleasantly surprising considering that a veteran CAT guy in my office could nt do it and so did a couple of my friends. This time though , the change in pattern and lack of strategy at that point( the right strategy is to look carefully from among more available options for the right Qs) , made me choose some wrong Qs and get stuck ! In short I got emotionally invovled with the problems somewhere in between and thats the last thing anyone with CAT aspirations should do!

Overall , the daily distribution of time to office and study is not working out . Attending morning class is fine, I am doing that regularly, and office as well is fine , but where I insert the additionaly preparation time is giving me problems. I have been speculating combined studies with a couple of TIME friends and also with a colleague, but what makes me hesitate is that we ll end up having fun and not do anything else besides. I think I ll give it a try ... heard someone say , try everything once before rejecting ;) . 16 more to go and the clock is ticking , wish me luck...
and if you happen to read this , please give me tips or what ever you can ...

railmani

Classroom revisited..

2006-07-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

My fondest memories of the classroom experience are spread over the latter part of high school , engineering and now at TIME CAT coaching classes. The last one is still not that much of a memory as I am in the midst of it.

Now you might be wondering whats so special about going to a CAT coaching class , a large number of people are doing in presently. The essential difference here is that this is the second time I am doing it! Shocking , surprising whatever it is , its a decision I won't regret , judging by the classes, tests,faculty , material ... and most of all how much my earlier classes at IMS sucked!

Yes, its true ... TIME rocks and IMS sucks. This conclusion is based purely on my experiences alone and anyone is free to contend or concur with me. Here are some of the key differences between the two ( both centres are in Adyar, IMS is near near Adyar Signal and TIME is near MGR Janaki college).

1) Ambience

IMS is awfully cramped , it is a small shady place with A/C and all , but hardly any place to walk around . TIME is conducted in decent classrooms (MGR Janaki college).

2) Basic reference / study material

IMS material sucks big time. They dont realise that people preparing for CAT come from different backgrounds and dont have the time to read a text book kind of material each of which is bigger than any you might have had in school! ( except perhaps your Atlas).
A word list "book" is given to you... which is not even as useful as a dictionary .Who the hell will carry it around everywhere , most of all office?

TIME material is concise, with relevant problems ( in the case of Math) and to be honest , I ve not gone through the english stuff yet. The cue cards though are impressive, if not sufficient to learn all words , at least they are more handy and digestable than one big book which we already have in the form of a dictionary.

3) Faculty

This is one department where TIME scores way above IMS. Most of the IMS faculty are very good, with relevant experience with whatever they are teaching . Its really heartening to meet English teachers of rare quality after school ... in fact better than those at school ( FAPS,Bangalore). The maths teachers are very good as well . Some are excellent and others are satisfactory, but overall standard is good and they do their job well.

At IMS , I found there was a fifty - fifty distribution of bad and good faculty . There was one good English teacher , but the other one was so horrible that english rated negative for me at IMS. This I was able to make out because I knew what mistakes and negligence was being meted out to the students there .

4) Class room material

At IMS: From day one , even at the concept building classes , you are expected to race with time! When you are learning something , its against logic to hurry it. And when I used to try clarifying things, it would be pushed to the end of the class... which is of no use most of the time.
I know for a fact that if I did nt understand something , most of the class would not have. And this speaks poorly of the design of the material to be completed in a short time and also by the staff handling the classes. The class room material is awfully rigid , with fixed deadlines for every set of problems and leaving little scope for the faculty to be flexible.

At TIME: Concept building is learning how to solve problems in Maths ,with a good reason behind every formula used ; learning ways to identify errors in English, logical explanations of some features of the language and the like. It all boils down to the experience and ability of the staff. The class room material is NOT used to govern the class room experience... in fact , the faculty relies on his/her own experience and the material is used as a tool not as a fetter .

5) Timings

There is a slight difference here , I went to the evening classes at IMS ( 7 to 8 30 pm) and attend morning classes at TIME ( 6 to 7 45 am). Comparing the morning classes at TIME to the evening classes at IMS may not seem fair, but I ll do it anyway.
Evening classes at IMS are affected by things such as traffic leading up to the classroom from a days work at office; people coming in late from work, college ; even the faculty coming in after a day's work ( most of them are not full time); change in shcedule because of faculty not turning up because of problems arising in the day time and spilling over into the class time.

The morning classes at TIME pose a different problem : getting up and ready by 6 am! Once this task is accomplished , the rest is easy. The faculty is almost always on time and not more than 5 minutes late and there is no problem with the class going on for even half an hour more than scheduled because its early in the morning and there's the whole day ahead! There is a world of difference between the two... anyone who wants to go for coaching classes, morning is the time for it... and this is coming from a hard core night gaming guy!

6) Centre manager

This might not apply to all IMS centres but the one at Adyar has a real bad one is all I can say. Yeah , before collecting the fees , she was very polite and all, but after that all experiences left a bad taste in my mouth. With unpredictable merging of batches to suit her whim and fancy and some bullshit reasons , she used to pre pone classes to 6 30 pm.. when coming at 7 pm itself was tough for the working folk like me and couple of others. I had paid my hard earned money for class room coaching and she comes and preaches the good of the "majority" and all that. I wonder how I actually went through this without running her over with my yamaha... guess it would nt have made any difference , my bikes as dirty as it can get anyway.

At TIME, the centre manager is a voracious speaker to say the least. May not be eloquent in the strictest sense , but has amazing focus on what he is saying ... if he can speak about test taking strategies for 2 hours at a stretch! That is the only experience with him I have had until now . He is also a member of the teaching faculty at TIME , so I guess I will meet him sometime as the faculty allocation works on a rotation basis across all centres in Chennai. I ve got some intuitive and logical approaches to take the test which nobody at IMS able to offer with the conviction as he did.

7) Human touch

This is a very important factor which I found mostly missing at IMS , whether it was the faculty , centre manager or the receptionists for that matter. During the month of July last year ,I was down with Jaundice and staying at home in Bangalore . I tried in vain to get the material to be sent to me from the centre at Adyar... thanks to the apathy of the centre manager. At the end of the recovery period, I got a big bundle of material for the time I missed.

I cant say much about the office staff at TIME , most of them are cooperative. Faculty again I say is very good and they are genuinely helpful when you ask them for help.

8) Mock/Sim CATS

An important thing I almost forgot!
At TIME , there are 20 mock CATS! right from the time you join classes for you to get a feel of the real thing . Its not an overkill at all, considering that you get an idea where you stand right from the beginning , with good feedback as well.Many toppers who eventually make it to the iims say that this is the most important part of their preparation for the real thing in November.

At IMS , there are 8 Sim CATS in total and a whole lot of other home based or class room based tests which I think is something like Ruffles lays giving chips in different coloured packets . Even if you are just planning to take a test series, theres more value for money with TIME...

To conclude , I ve not felt any better than I do now about my prospects at CAT. At IMS , you are made to feel how difficult it is to get there rather than showing how to get there... but at TIME , that is not the focus, they do their job and if you do yours, theres no stopping you!

Terminating thread

2006-06-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

30/5/2006. 3 am

Fading away I turned around
I could hear a remnant of a sound
Pausing a while I tried to hear..listen
As the tears fell to the ground they glistened

I knew it was not meant to be
Another broken heart I could not see
Embracing the grief of the tear
I chose to be a mourner sans fear .

In the dark I stood and watched
A pensive step and silent shuffle
A memory being read in a fond grimace
In a moment of weakness my will trifled

An animal grunt my throat escaped
She turned around with fear emboldened
In the dark I could see, a will unscathed
To endure suffering her fate she had resigned.

Coming closer my cloak I withdrew
Showing who I was for real
In her eyes the story unfolded true
In mine my heart waited in an ordeal

Betrayal, hopelessness … relief..Ecstasy
For a long time we stood, I knew not why
In her presence I could not move
She wept as she devoured me with hungry eyes

Her love had been lost
To see her suffer had I tried
To watch the torment of the deprived
Until I knew her life and mine would be the cost

Why had she made me suffer since ..
The time she knew we were meant to be one
Words could no longer be minced
For no thought no body, there were none

A tender touch in the twilight drizzle,
Turned to a violent desire, a fight
A will to own to possess the other, the skin bristled
In a moment of glory, it ended … it was a gory sight

She lay in my arms, a smile on her lips
As she bled …her fingers loosened
The gun slipped out of her grip
A treacherous task had it failed

Part of the job, was this danger
In a trance the gun returned to the holster
If killing was just pulling a trigger
Would nt life be simple ..a snigger

The first time it would ve been,
That I went against a rule
The hunted tried the hunter to be
And to the calling function I returned a bool true.

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

Insomnia

2006-06-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

31/5/2006. 3 am

Waking up in a strange place
I see myself in the mirror on the wall
There I saw an even stranger face
Where was I, had I lost it all?

A day not recent,
I entered. Life so clean
An inspiring rise I had made being decent
Thought I knew everything to be said and seen

A disarming smile I encountered
At every corner of the fast lane
“You the one … who’s needed”
“Here ...you are the main”

At wits end I would always be,
Until the unlikely truth I could almost see.
Every time that smile came back
I knew this was a code I had to hack

A hole too deep I was stepping in
Every helping hand pushed me a little further
Until without one I was afraid to sin
Thinking I was safe in the hands of a brother

As the twilight set in ,
My eyes went dim, portending sleep
The hole I fell into, too much had I sinned
A never ending night, the darkness was complete..

The light came, so sudden
It purged the lingering night
An unfamiliar bed … a naked woman
As I shook my head, she stirred... What a sight

“Honey, it’s too early”
“Come back to bed”
As I stared at the gesturing nymph
A hand I felt on my shoulder

A dream I thought this weird plot
Turning around I saw a mirror stare
In it I stood a moment silent in thought
And then I turned in bed without a care

A familiar pattern emerged through the night
A dream it is when there is a fight
Or when there’s a woman for sex
Or when quake and life mix
And when a mind is made a slave…
For unfitting knaves.

At last the hole opened up dark, wide
I dropped in with a smile wry
Goodbye to consciousness, conscience...And tears dry
I was going to rest in peace, until to work I had to ride.

Road trip to "Pondi"

2006-05-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

(22nd and 23rd April,2006)

For a relatively less traveled guy like me, any prospect of going outside the well established routine of “work - home in Chennai – home in Bangalore” was a welcome one. Along with me were a few almost or probably more frustrated guys. Frustrated with quite a few things, mainly with being single since forever …and with being stuck in Chennai for almost two years (this is true for Ruchin and Naga at least). God knows how many real opportunities at meeting pretty girls we missed by not being in Bangalore / Noida or any other place ! Some of my friends may disagree with this, but it’s the whole truth and nothing but the truth (I swear!). And so with dreams of getting to go to a dance bar for the first time ever and trying out some new alcoholic drink (you see, I am a novice in this dept.); we decided Pondicherry would be the ideal place to go for the weekend.

This plan was mooted sometime last year when Naga had joined the other three in Chennai, after all of us landed here through job placements through college. Owing to our busy professional and personal lives, we kept postponing it until finally the time has come for us to go our own ways. Naga is moving to Bangalore for greener pastures (in other words, a better job) and in a short time, Ruchin and I will too. Armed with enough money and two excellent bikes, a vintage Yamaha Rx 135 and a one year old Honda Unicorn, we made last minute plans on the previous day, i.e. a Friday.

The plan was like this: We start at 11 am in the morning, have brunch and set off. The estimated time of travel was three hours for a distance of about 160 km from Chennai. Keeping in mind an earlier accident on my bike in the dark, I was keen on riding in the day alone. Besides that, we got the location of a good hotel and a DVD shop from one of my colleagues who is from Pondi.

Anyway plans made by us are rarely kept, especially when Vijesh is in the night shift 90% of the time. Moreover, with Ruchin and me going to sleep at 3 am we knew it would happen. Only Naga turned up at 11 am as informed earlier and woke us up from deep slumber. With empty stomachs and full tanks, we set off, 4 on 2 bikes. I was a reluctant rider with a fidgety pillion rider (Vijesh) who btw weighs a ton. I believe his body density is very high!

After an hour’s ride through the initial crowded portion of ECR (East Coast Road), we reached a highway eating place which we eventually discovered was way too overpriced and gave far too little quantity of anything edible. At the end of it, we were set back by around 550 rupees and an hour of riding. We took off with the determination to make it there before dark.

Ruchin on his Unicorn and without even a pair riding glasses was unstoppable, in spite of having a heavy load behind him (Vijesh who I swapped for a more stable Naga). After the initial lead which I had owing to the starting point, I did not see them except in breaks which we took three – four times in between. I knew I was going too slow … some where in the sixties and occasional seventies .This was because I was scared of falling of the edge of the road as I once did on NH 17 on the west coast …now that’s another story . And so I persisted with the slow riding with stubbornness. Moreover my bike starts vibrating with some resonant frequency or something just when I reach 70 kmph and then it becomes so shaky, it kind of makes me feel that it might fall apart! We carried on past through a pretty well laid road (even the road gets laid once in a while!)... I remember seeing the beach on the way in glimpses and some fields too which were pleasant to the eye.

As it became darker slowly … the distance Naga and I had covered was much lesser than those two and the thought of riding in the dark made me visibly shaky with the bike. At one point of time I started regretting coming by bike with nothing but the bags and the clothes on our back. It would be really awful to have an accident just because we were too confident with our riding or too poor with our planning. After a really slow and careful ride through some rough roads in the last 30 kms to Pondi we reached a dome where we met and decided to stick together, just in case. Next we reached the “Toll Gate” (I think you need to pay money if you are on more than two wheels and planning to enter the city) where we bikers were never stopped which was a relief after all that riding. Once in the city, we found an ICICI atm and took some money just in case the Pondi people were not credit card friendly.

Armed with the name of the Hotel (Ram International) and its location (somewhere near the bus stand), we went a couple of km out of the way to finally find it, when we retraced our steps. I guess your expectations never match what you finally get. It turned out to be a pretty good place on the inside though. At 675 rupees for a day in a double bedroom, with extra beds, it was quite reasonable. Besides there was a T.V without the STB (set top box) problem which Chennai is infamous for. After relaxing for a while on comfortable beds and relieving ourselves of burdens mental, physical and biological … we set off on our search for booze, food and the elusive dance bar! On the way down to reception, I intercepted one of the attendants and as I was asking him “Are there any dance bars you know of?” an old lady and her daughter came up the stairs. On his negative reply I just walked down without looking at anyone … but once down I was wondering why I did that, was so many years of being in conservative company finally affecting me? Anyway reminding myself to be a non conformist, I joined the others to spread the bad news. Ruchin didn’t lose hope and he asked a very decent looking auto driver for a dance bar. He told us that they would all be closed by 10 p.m. cursing our luck, we decided to settle for a Pub or bar and Restaurant to finish off what was left of the night.

The road which goes past the hotel is called “Anna Salai” like the one in Chennai, but with no resemblance at all. The driving on this road was even worse than any road I ve seen in Chennai or Bangalore for that matter! Guys were riding like each one of them owned the road and I was thankful that I was inside an auto for once, besides he wasn’t bleeding me like the Chennai auto guys do for a short trip to office. The destination was a place called “Hot and Cool”, supposedly a “yo” pub. When we did reach it, it was too late, unless you had some “jugaad” (some friends at the right places) to get in. After some thought we decided to get back to our starting point and find some place close to the hotel.

The auto guy dropped us off in front the hotel. It took some effort to suppress Vijesh’s irrational urge to go after DVD’s at that time of the night (around 9:30 pm). With that done, we entered a shop with half its shutters down and a lot of loud voices emanating from within. Inside were all men in various stages of inebriation. We (Ruchin and I) scanned the bottles behind the counter for something familiar. The expert in this department was Ruchin and I was ready to follow his bidding. We bought“Smirnoff Vodka – Citrus twist “for Rs.360. I had one of these at home (in Bangalore) unopened and thought that was the right time to see what it could do. We came out of the shop with the bottle wrapped up in a black polythene cover , I was still smiling at the way the shop guy had said “ Super sir “ and made an appreciative gesture with his thumb and index fingers .

There’s one thing which I learnt from more experienced drinkers (“drunkards” seems derogatory and also untrue), never drink and not eat anything. It seems your stomach will get FUBAR (fu***d up beyond all recognition) . Not willing to attempt any such stunt, we went around looking for food. This is something which we do on weekends in Chennai, foraging. After rejecting several places for not being non vegetarian, being the
Same old Chettinad stuff, and looking drab …we settled for a Chinese restaurant called “China Land”. After one more disappointing experience with pseudo – Chinese food, we headed back to the hotel room.

The way I was raving even before boozing, the guys were really scared what would happen with me in high spirits! Vijesh was the main focus of all our ribbing and leg pulling which he gets done with great enjoyment and the right amount of resistance. This really makes us come up with some real good jokes with him as the main role in them. We had got coke and 7 up to go with it and I took a cautious 100 ml with the 7 up. Naga did the same and Ruchin I guess took more being the more experienced among us. How can you describe the taste of vodka? Hmm, let me try. This was “smooth” as in u don’t feel it burning down your throat so fast or so much. Its not as bad tasting as beer. It made my upper lip feel like it was very soft and tender after some time. I kept complaining that I didn’t feel a thing coming on. And then in about 15 minutes - half an hour or so, I started feeling the slow and steady effects of the alcohol going to my head. If you are sitting down its not that evident. When you stand up and start walking, your balance is affected. Getting back the equilibrium takes time as the response time increases. And so I ended up chasing Vijesh around the room and falling all over the beds. It was fun and it seemed having a little more would be even better. I shifted to having it straight and settled down in a comfortable position on the bed. We talked a lot about things which are close to our hearts and normally would not come out, especially from a guy’s mouth. Old crushes, infatuations … dreams of the future, incidents in the past, all came freely and without hesitation. I felt liberated for some time. So this is what people mean when they say it “loosens the tongue” I thought. We had finished more than half the bottle, main contributions from Ruchin and moi. We were approaching the limits of drowsiness. We went to bed deciding to get up by 8 am, get ready, visit the DVD shop, visit a boat club nearby and if time permitted the Aurobind ashram.

The next day, I gained consciousness at 10 am. Everyone except Ruchin was just getting up. We got ready “aaram se “and decided to vacate the room. Whatever may the case, we had to leave for Chennai by 3 30 pm, not to repeat the night riding problem of the previous day. We had a dosa breakfast at the restaurant “Mayura” on the ground floor and took off on our bikes to “Tic Tac”, the most popular DVD shop in town. The pre noon heat was overwhelming. Only the motion of our bikes made us survive that weather. We were faced with a surprise; “Tic Tac” was not one of those “seedy” places where you buy pirated DVD’s. It was a well established and maintained place where you can buy (pirated) movie DVD’s and related stuff. The shop lay on one of the cross roads of “Anna Salai”. Elbowing through the crowd, I got a place on the counter which stretched from the beginning to the end of the shop. We were amazed by how professionally this was done. It was like they were selling delicious dosas off the tava … but the difference was they were selling copies of original DVD’s at a price which is about 1/100th of the original DVD’s price. I learned later that they buy an original from places like Malaysia/ Singapore and then sell hundreds of copies within hours. Anyway, leaving the issue of piracy aside, it was heaven for my roommate Vijesh who was making a huge
list of movies on paper. After buying stuff worth nearly 2000 rupees, we headed off to destination boat club.

We got directions from auto drivers (they are really indispensable at this) and set off along the ordinary roads to cover an estimated distance of 7 km towards Cuddalore. We reached the place in a short time; it didn’t look anything like a boat club. But we entered anyway; we didn’t have any other better choice. We parked the bikes, paid for that …and again after a few metres paid some more small change for entrance and camera. We were wondering how many more such counters we would encounter before we reached the boat. After a short walk we came to the actual boat counter where we paid 240 rupees ( 60 per head ) to take a motor boat ride to an island where we could stay for how much time we wanted and come back in a similar boat which would keep “polling” the island for people waiting to return. Armed with the tickets and snacks coupons, we entered the boat and settled down among mostly families who had come for a fun weekend. Not finding any pretty girls, I just looked around as the boat lurched forward into the open water. The motor was a “Yamaha” as I expected. Along one side of the water was the coast dense with coconut trees , which reminded me of pictures of Kerala . We could see the land we were approaching … it seemed quite close, but it took a lot more time than I expected to get to it. I guess motorboats cannot match their land counterparts that easily.
We had something cool to drink and ventured forth onto the yellow sands. We saw a bitch in the water (I mean a female dog) near the land which was looking expectantly towards us. We concluded that it must have been Vijesh’s lover in its last life and now it was waiting for a tearful reunion in the salt water! After a futile attempt to force a reunion, we left it to its fate and went on to see what ours offered. There were some cottages here and there and also some small hut like structures on stilts but there were already too many people in all of them. We found a raised wooden platform which was still not taken and settled down on it. We took some snaps and after some more ribbing and general “Bakwaas” we decided to head back to town for something important … DVD’s of the other kind!

The return to the coast from the island was delayed because of a mini exodus. It seemed like everyone wanted to leave at the same time. Maybe because of the afternoon heat I thought. When we finally made it into the boat, it was better in one way, there was one pretty girl on it. Getting back to city, to make our trip “worth the effort” … we found some DVD shops soon enough. In almost a repeat of our “Tic Tac” experience, we went berserk buying DVD’s because they were cheap. Finally when the time came to leave, one of us, I don’t know who finally popped the question and received an affirmative reply. DVD’s of the other kind were available but at a little higher price and in more discreet packing. After some really funny haggling, we got a totally unverifiable set of DVDs which we bought because we were always hopeful of getting good stuff for less money. We ended up having lunch in some very small, drab place where the seats of the chairs were all torn. Afar a few “chapattis” and orange juices, we headed back home.

Ruchin had bought himself a pair of cooler/riding glasses and took off like a rocket. I was skeptical as to what would happen to my bike beyond 80 kmph until then. But I decided to let go and I did just that. We made good speed on good road once we got past the 30 kms from Pondi. Traveling consistently above 80 kmph, I was really learning what my bike could do. Despite this, the other bike was far ahead at that time. At the first break, I realized we were not that far apart. I thought I could keep the lead from there, but was wrong again, the pair of riding glasses was a deciding factor this time. At the next stop we filled a bottle with tender coconut water and also had a fruit which is very similar to a coconut, but the name of which I don’t recall. It’s like a coconut on the outside (deep purple color though) and has 3 -4 disc shaped kernels with gray stuff and some water inside. From there it was non stop, until we reached “Kabab Court” at 6 30pm. We reached about 10 minutes after Ruchin and Vijesh, which is not such a big difference. Proud and tired of riding so much, we decided to gorge ourselves on Kababs and nothing but Kababs. Priced at 400 rupees , we ordered a “seafood platter” followed by a “Non Veg Platter” . The place has excellent interiors and everything. Even the kababs were fine, except for the Kalmi kababs in the non veg platter. They were totally bland and hard to eat. We did get a replacement piece for that, but only because our appetites were already sated, I let it go at that. Filling up a feedback form with detailed
comments we left for home.

I was relieved to reach Chennai safe and sound. At the end of the trip, I got an idea of how it feels to ride for a three hour stretch, how much fun controlled drinking is, that Pondicherry is the place for DVD’s of any kind and how good it feels to visit new places. We planned to go back there by bus and visit some of the places we missed out , but for then , we rushed back home to check out the DVD’s on my comp.

To read and to be led along...

2006-04-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

The last weekend , I was fortunate to somehow get around to read a couple of good books . The first one was "To Kill a mocking bird" . And the other "One Night at a Call Center".

I bought this book last year at Blossoms if I remember right. But since my memory is almost always suspect , I ll leave it at that. The more important thing here is the book was lying in my house in a desolate bookshelf for a long time with other classics like "Moby dick" ( which is incidentally about a whale and not anything else mammalian) and "War and Peace" . To describe each and every book that lives in that book shelf would be really tiring to me to write and u to read , so I ll skip the crap and get to the point.

About the former , its a story about childhood , as seen through the eyes of a really young girl.
It addresses a whole plethora of issues , racism being the foremost. I remember how it used to feel when I had questions burning at the back of head all the time waiting to be answered . And when I finally figured it out , it was such a great experience that it has no substitute , not even Quake (!) . The way this books progresses is somewhat similar , one discovery after another through such an honest outlook , that I think we adults suppress so much , its killing a part of us slowly. When you saw something you did not understand ... when you were a child and had an adult around you who could answer these questions satisfactorily , that must have been the beginning of a very well learned life. I recall that I found most of my answers to unanswered questions through books , and many more questions still remain unanswered , but now the problem is I ve forgotten the questions !

The most impressive characters in this book.... almost all of them are very well constructed. The dude being the Mr.Atticus Finch whose harmless ,boring daddy image at the beginning turns to the thoroughly professional lawyer who will not compromise on his integrity for any reason, even threats to harm him in person. His handling of the curious children (his elder son and younger daughter ) is exemplary , if I could compare with any number of parents I have seen. No offence to any real parents , but that guy teaching his children strong principles , with solid reason behind every belief if something which I dream to achieve if and when I have children of my own. This gentleman not only handles his children well , but there is something which is said about him in the book. He's the same inside his house and outside on the streets. This is something which I have heard from my department (ECE- Electronics and Communication) H.O.D , Dr.P.Subbanna Bhat ... he said it once in a Conference hall , and I still had nt fallen asleep due to Quake stress . He said "Only when what you say , what you do ,what you preach , what you practice are the same , you have integrity .Most people have a rift somewhere in them , which makes one or more of these things go awry ...." something to this effect ..and then of course , like the rest of the half of college lectures , I was lost in uncontrollable involuntary nodding. So this character "Atticus Finch" is one of those guys who believes in being consistent in all versions of his interaction and I know chances of meeting his kind are far and few in between. That's enough about Mr.Finch I think , else I ll end up telling the whole story right here .

The youngest character and the narrator of this story is "Scout" . That's what everyone call this really young girl who does not want to be anything "girly". She reminds me of my child hood friend "Sushma" on whom I had a enormous crush for years until I met her a couple of years ago and all my child hood memories were shattered by what was left of her. Back to "Scout" ... shes the embodiment of curiosity , and she asks away questions and very often the answers are not easy to give . Like when I was a kid and I really wanted to know where babies came from. There were several theories floating around at that time. One of them was that if a bee stung a boy and a girl , the girl would then have the boys baby ! It was an ever greater mystery how the baby which I assumed was in the stomach of the mother would ever come except through the ..... And so my mind was so muddled up with alternative theories put forward or atleast repeated by my classmates , that when the actual stuff was taught to us in school , I could n't believe that what I was hearing was true! It seemed like there was something very uncomfortable about the entire topic , which I believe holds true to this day . Anyway "Scout" the girl asks such and many more questions. The best part about it is that there is someone who can give her a satisfactory answer bound by reason and not just mindless sentiment and emotion. Even when the answers are not satisfactory , the reasoning process of the child does not stop, and this is the most important quality any human being should possess. This I realized only after a very long time in my life. Along with her elder brother , she sets out on a learning adventure almost everyday in the book , and what a dream of brother shes got!

Mr Atticus' son's name is "Jem" , and the name just does nt do justice to what he could have probably grown upto be had he been real , or what he was even as a kid. Whats so special about the kid? He's a thinking boy who goes through that hated adolescent phase with a lot of questions and comes out with so many firm beliefs at the end of it , it makes me feel that I wish I was like him. I guess having a firm and loving mentor in his father (like mine) makes the difference between an average run of the mill guy to a good human being with a firm sense of justice . This is not the only characteristic of this boy , he's very adventurous and because of that ends up making great mistakes and consequently learns much greater lessons at such a young age. Being adventurous is not only important when we are kids , but it becomes all the more important when we are adults and life and work bogs us down. Making mistakes not only prepares us for a rough day , but makes us more rounded personalities. This boy impressed me with the dedication he shows to follow his father's words. The way he stands by his sister and father even when there is grave danger at hand. The sense of fairplay in him makes him feel great remorse when a negro is ill treated by just harsh words of a white prosecutor. He grasps some concepts like how the judicial system of having a jury of citizens is not foolproof and in cases of racial nature ,they become topsy turvy with such deep reasoning that his dad must have been one proud guy !

Well , that was a brief look at some of the main characters in that book . I wish to stop here because I don't know if I am doing any justice to the book by giving inklings of the characters involved. There are atleast 2 more important characters in this story , i ll just name them ... one of them is the black house maid and care taker of the children , "Calpurnia" is her name and she reminds me of "Mammy " in "Gone with the wind"( don't blame me if u have nt read tat one ! its a real killer though ...1024 pages !). I give the last but not the least position to the ultra introvert and indoors neighbor "Arthur Radley" ... he's a legend among the kids because nobody's ever seen him step out of the house. What could be the reason?

To find out that and much more , you ve got to read this book . Its not a scare even for the first timers or beginners with the time required I would say roughly 2 - 3 times of that taken for "5 . someone " . I guess most people I know who do read novels regularly have read it already and think its a great book. What I would advise someone whos going to read any book is to go for it without any prejudice about the name/author/cover and so many things , because I have been made to eat the dust so many times about misjudging a book by its cover , I never dismiss any book without reading at least a couple of chapters.

I started off with talking about 2 books , the other one being "one night at the call center" . I ll write about that hopefully this week. I have a many more interesting stories related to that ... more of that later .

Good night

railmani , 12 39 am , 15th April 2006.

Broad band Nightmare !

2006-03-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

After a long and painful struggle with the broadband providers in Chennai , I ve decided to vent some of my frustration here . The whole thing began last year when broadband at home to me meant unlimited access to the world wide web and total freedom to go wherever and do whatever without worrying about any firewalls and moral policing. This dream of mine and the ability to afford it made me register for the bsnl dataone connection . This was supposed to use the land lord's (house owner's) land line connection as we (me and my room mate ) were erstwhile bachelors with little or no use for land lines when all things good or bad happen at work ! And so one fine , a bsnl guy comes to our place and says they are ready to set it all up! I was really excited and they managed to get it up and running in a mere 2 days ( we ll come to the comparisons with other services later) . This particular connection needed a login and password . At that time , it seemed fine , I mean how much trouble is it to login each time u turn on the comp?? But eventually it became evident there was a reason for this . The resources apparently were n't up and running all the time . And when someday I would come home really excited and just waiting to do some serious blogging / quaking , the ISP would f*** my dreams and just meanly deny any pleasure in life. Ok , sometimes broadband just doesn't connect you say, come on this is India and its a govt. organisation you are talking about . Anyway it used to be good whenever it did connect and I ve played some good games in Quake , and also downloaded some useless yet bulky files in the 2 am to 8 am slot which promises to make you an insomniac for sure ! After a couple of months we got our first bill , as part of the telephone bill and to our collective chagrin , we got some extra download bill ... something like 1000 bucks extra! Ok, we decided to really watch our backs and also our downloads and with extra care we managed to avoid any extra payment the following time. Again we followed the 2 to 8 funda and yet again we were f***ed big time ! So finally after getting no responses from the bsnl ppl, we decided to lose the registration fee and get this huge blood sucker off our backs . After heaving a sigh of relief , we got back to our humdrum lives .

I really missed quaking on broadband and after a couple of months , both of us ( hardcore gamers) decided to try out airtel broadband of which we had got some rave reviews from office folk and friends . It was startlingly simple to get in touch with a PR guy and also set up a meeting . The plan had to be unlimited download and at least 256 kbps ,and since we had two of us, we decided to go for a 256 kbps , unlimited which came up to a steep 1k nearly. We didnt care, all we wanted was to be logged on happily ever after . We rested with fond dreams and all the unpleasant memories of bsnl stashed away. After paying a 500 buck registration , some of the engineers came over and had a look at the existing infrastructure at the locality and came to the conclusion that a new "box" was needed to be put up on the wall of the house we lived in . I think that would act like a junction for more connections to be put up in our street. It was fine by me , but it wasnt for the house owner ...so at the end of the day , we started off with 500 bucks lesser than before and still no broadband! To get that money back , I had to go through a few phone calls and angry smses for a week or so . I did get back a DD with the original amount of Rs.500 , and that was the end of the airtel episode.

Afte another month of no internet , I decided to take the plunge once again and got in touch with Hathway Cable Internet providers. At that time I was ill informed about cable broadband and also the way this particular company operated. After meeting one the PS guys who was properly polite and even pretended to be from home town , I ended up paying Rs 2645 as refundable deposit + registration fees + rent for one month of 256 kbps unltd. I was really impressed when the cable guys came the next day and completed their job of getting the cable into my room. The next day which was a saturday the modem was in place and sometime before sunday afternoon , the connection was up and running. It was really cool and I was patting myself on my back. My new computer had enough bytes to chew on , I thought . But this joy was shortlived as I started downloading some big files , (quake videos and stuff) ... the download rate started off with something like 30 kbps which is pretty decent and then it just decayed steadily and came to 5 kbps!! which was literally daylight robbery . The time it would take to download for a 10 MB file was more than a few hours . By the time one of the hathway guys came to collect the "satisfied" signature from me , I was fuming through my ears. I refused outright to sign any document until he set the connection right. The engineer (thats what he called himself) tried downloading more than one file at a time and thankfully came to the same conclusion . He made me use the silly email service provided by hathway to send an e-mail to chennaihelp@hathway.net , which by the way I suspect is automated to reply " You request has been forwarded to the appropriate section. " or something like that . Anyway , the first time it said this , I was taken in by the promptness of the reply. The engineer took back the modem for "testing" and since then I ve not seen him or the modem again !!

After this incident I mailed these people and called up their customer support many times. The call would be received by a young guy/ girl , probably just out of college , who would n't know nuts about what is going on about my problem. I guess its not their fault that the information is not available to them . After many frustrating calls and irritated emails with names of the people involved and also the obscence fees collected for nothing , still there was no satisfying reply or information about anything. Finally on one fine day (or so i thought) I decided to go their office and confront them outright . After taking some vague directions from Ramana( a friend who I guess knows Chennai pretty well or at least pretends to ..) , I got to their office on Eldham's road sometime in the afternoon . It was a pretty small place I should say. Being used to somewhat bigger workstations and generally everything else at my office , this was pretty cramped . The security guard directed me to the first floor (ground floor is for the Cable division). I was wondering how many people these people must have taken for a ride as I walked up the stairs. I entered the office and right in front was the receptionist , a middle aged , more towards the younger side woman with a disinterested and distracted look . On enquiring I was told someone would come and speak to me. So, I settled down on the musty sofa and was wondering what harsh words would convey my anger and frustration rightly and get things done. I had a look at a notice board placed in front of the entrance . There was a company motto which said something about satifsying the customer expectations always and trying to go beyond that . "Ironically funny " would be a nice comment to attach to it I thought . There were some brochures lying on the table which promised to show what broadband could really do ! Now that I knew what it could do , I was kicking myself mentally for paying that money in the first place.
I got back to my perch and after a few minutes , a really small and shrunken guy with some kind of uniform came to me . I had to speak in Tamil to him .He asked me for the bill which I held. Apparently he wanted some details in it , but I was a bit more careful now after the milk was spilt. I refused to give it to him . After a few more minutes another really tall guy came to me. He looked well dressed and the look on his face was something like embarassment and fear and a bit of professionalism . I explained my plight and added a few more descriptive phrases for effect . He went back in and some conversation ensued which I could hear through my super dull hearing ( guess it was loud) . He came back and said something like
"The process is underway , the Bombay office will have to approve this and as soon as that happens you will get back your money .This will take around 20 days ".
I thought of asking them to do something and return it immediately . But this guy seemed somewhat sincere , he was n't begging and pleading like the others before him , he just stated it matter of factly . I decided to go with my sixth sense and said "ok fine " and went home .

After nearly a 3 weeks of visiting their office , I decided to call them up and find out whats happening . The billing centre put me in touch with some guy called "Ramesh" who promised me vehemently that I would get my money within ten 10 days . Again after 10 days , the same guy said that it was not possible until the first week of the next month , thats april , because of the financial year end or something. I am not too savvy about that , and after promising that I would take legal action against them after that , I kept my phone down yet again in failure .

And that brings me to the present where I am typing out this blog hoping that it might help someone not to get into such avoidable messes . The best thing to avoid such things is to enquire from 3 - 4 people about the service they get from their providers and of course look through google / wikipedia or something . I did all this a little late and came to the conclusion that among all the providers here , airtel gives a good connection , consistent and with less problems. Their PR guys are polite and try hard to get things done . And most importantly , they returned my money with a short delay of a week or so , which is ok-ok. Tata indicom , I heard is ok with some people who don't face any problems after installation. But others say that getting any service is a nightmare ! BSNL is similar to the previous one , their bills are really difficult to believe though . They don't even have a reliable way to keep track of your download status (amount used up so far) and other basic amenities . Matter(a fellow broadband victim) , got a bill of 7k for some month!! Which would mean that he downloaded around 3-4 GB in excess of 1 GB excluding the 2am to 8am slot , which is quite impossible . Other providers I don't know about , it would be interesting to get some input about them as well from anyone reading this.

After much pain and damage , I ve decided to NOT get a broadband connection in Chennai anymore , even if it means no online Quake and less blogging :( . A costly lesson , I hope well learnt .

-railmani

Life = (Dream > reality)? Dream : reality ;

2006-03-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

What would you do when you finally meet the guy/girl of your dreams? Hmm , I think this is a question most of us must have asked ourselves quite a few times . At least I have . But by thinking about the statement , I make an assumption that the girl who I am thinking about is the girl of my dreams. Might seem like a small technicality , but to me its very difficult to think of some creature who has all the characteristics which I would like in a mate. When I indulge in such fantasy , my thought (while its still clear and still in some sensible domain) are centered around some one I ve met and known, at least talked to . So this means the very idea of a girl of my dream is corrupt , cause the dream girl cannot be defined completely as virtual because shes somewhat dependant on real people and the real ones cannot become the dream one completely because they are in fact finite non abstract beings with some definite characteristics which cannot match a set of parameters which are entirely undefined . Hmm , now that was a whole lot of bullshit at one go , was n't it?? I am getting complaints about this habit of mine from people around me , but what the hell , whens the last time saying anything sensible been fun .

I guess there was one time when I lost out on something because I wasn't sensible enough at the right time . Now that I think of it , there have been quite a few times . One of these was at my college nitk . There used to be a college press club which was considered to be the domain of the highly creative and cool . And moi being somewhat in that category , at least the former ... gave it a try. An illustrious and a really "cool" , (actually one of the coolest to my fresher eyes ) seniors walked in and gave us the topic in a typical bangalore lingo (now tats a vague definition if there ever was one) . " A screw on the floor is better than a nail in the door" . "Give it your best shot he said" .

At that time , my impression of college clubs and other such societies was moulded into a single thought: " Either be the first , different ,or really good at something to make it" . Now I wasn't quite sure I was n't the best , I knew I could be the first to get some new idea , and also the one to really be different at what I did , quite deliberately. And thats what I ended up doing. I wrote one of the most lewd and insane peice of crap I could come up with . I guess you could think what I might have written. I feel really lousy I can't go back in time and erase that. Anyway , with such a topic , I guess the idea was to see how you could make it something worthwhile without letting your mind follow the usual "trying to impress " modes . I ended up one of them in the negative direction . Even then it might have been to my advantage coz u can never really say whose wavelength matches yours and in what way. But when there is such a situation where I have given it a full go in one direction , and when I knew it was bad, ... it would n't succeed. And so I was n't one of the people who made it to the next round . I heard very interesting things about the interviews and also after that , the press gang was considered somewhat a sense of awe , or disdain or many other emotions depending on ones relationship with them. For me , it was a feeling of I should have been one of them, cribbing / gossipping about the college going ons
and at the same time getting in so many puns and hidden meanings that it would have really given me some twisted sense of pleasure. Anyway that was n't meant to be and life went in a different direction.

I started off with a dream mate and now I ll return to that topic . Hmm , What is the most interesting thing about each time I have the dreams I am talking about .They are totally awesome dreams which make me feel sometimes that reality sucks big time! A part of me knows that reality is the ultimate thing and dreaming (especially late morning ) is really harmful to the real life u have) , but that part of me just disappears in the absence of a good night's sleep and consequent fatigue... and I become literally a man living in a dream. I get lost in those small yet so pleasing a fanasy like I take that girl out to the place I eat everyday , and I comment on the smallest details which nobody but me has ever thought about. Like how good the sambhar at "Sangeetha " tastes and why having "Ghee dosa " instead of "oil dosa" is anyday a better option . How wonderful it usually feels to be at a place called Elliot's beach where the bajji's sold hot and piping are such wonderful appetizers and later cause a minor tummy ache without fail. Ok , ok , I know this is kind of wierd and seems unlikely that a guy has such dreams. I can explain . These are some of the thoughts which run through my at some point in the day when I know that I am
lonely and reveries just creep in . Well , one of my wierd fantasies is that this girl is a quaker ( plays this game called quake 3 arena) !! I imagine that we fight for hours at a stretch and shes as good as me and when that happens , the tournament ( 1 on 1 ) games can go on for a long time with really demanding concentrations. The thought of such a game is in itself such a great thing that I can't how it would be if we met face to face .Yeah , I know thats wierd , but does n't everyone want to meet someone whos also great at what you are and is able to enjoy it as much as you do? ...

I guess I ve broadly covered a couple of dream types I ve had until now , one , the really small reveries which come up every now and then about something which is ready to be said but lacks the situation or the right company; two : the really wierd ones where ur deepeset ,darkest desires come true ( well not really tat deep , is it ;)) . There is one more kind I believe , which comes somewhat in between these two. It might be a really not so sensible classification like a discrete "enum" or a "typedef" , but i think its worth documenting . This usually goes like this ... I go ahead with the many rehearsed attempts at proposals and as a pleasant surprise , she accepts ! And then I live through heaven for the rest of that dream , which ... covers quite a bit of time. The time when we go out to different places to eat and we do all the silly exciting things that lovers do. When its so exciting to be out at a restaurant looking deep into her eyes when you know that some class is also going down the drain at college at the same time . Eventually it leads to a marriage and then things can go two ways , one : I can't mention here and the other I suddenly end up with a family and I have such an adorable bunch of kids whose only hero is me ! And the wife is all shy in front of the kids ... yeah , my mind is an awesome place to be and when I finally realise that it was all a dream ... I find it really hard to beleive for some time that what happened actually did not happen at all!

Those are some of my experiences , if you can call them that ... here are some of the really cool stuff as in movies/ stories I ve come across . There is this Science fiction writer called Philip K dick ... who used to write some totally amazing out of the world books. The movie "Total recall" is based on one of his books , in which there is a concept of "memory implants " which give you the impression of having had a wonderful holiday in Mars with the woman of your choice and you can choose the package you want to experience. Now that is one truly twisted story which is so logically appealing yet so amazingly out of the world , u got to watch it to beleive it. Thers is one more story in which there is a cop who is searching for a killer and after he finally solves the mystery , he discovers that he himself is the killer , yeah , multiple personalities ,memory implants , androids, robots were all run of the mill for this guy and seeing through his eyes , you get lost. Not very far behind or maybe in some ways ahead is this other writer called "Isaac Asimov" whose "Foundation " series is his main claim to fame. In one of his short stories collection I ve read one where , there is a profession for dreamers. Can you believe it ? professional dreamers ! but for what reason ? There is technology to capture what goes on while you dream as video and audio ! so the better the dreamer you are , the audience who buys your "dream " has the same experience with the same thrills . It does to come to a logical conclusion at some point of time when the real life of the professional dreamer becomes meaningless , because his first nature is to dream and then to live . Can you imagine a social life where you can't which is real ? the woman in your dreams or the woman who is your wife.... thats what happens here , and that is an amazing story. You can get that book if you tried , i think the name was "collection of short stories " or something similiar to that , by Isaac Asimov.

Well , I think I ve reached a suitable level of exhaustion from quake ,blogging and tv to put me in dream mode , so good night and sweet dreams !

Adyar to Minerva Circle...

2006-01-26T09:48:00.000-08:00

If you have read some of my earlier posts , and also guessed that (or know that) the wierd nouns in the title are places in Chennai and Bangalore , then you probably know that its about one of my inter city trips which always turn out to be eventful .

This time around I was beaten to the coveted train tickets by many other people with similar intentions of travel and for the first time in Chennai I was forced to explore the possibility of a private bus. There are several reasons why private bus travel is not a preferred mode for me .
First , it costs almost double of the train ticket ; second , there is usually no sleeper, there are only semi sleepers ... which actually mean that the seats recline halfway down , but for mean the sleep always turns out to be "semi" so I can't really blame the bus , it does warn me. Third, you are usually put in close proximity with someone who if fun to talk , the journey is really worth the trouble or else it becomes a real nightmare ( like the time I travelled from mangalore to bangalore and ended up behind a puky lady who would n't close the windows and literally froze me).

Getting back to the present , I always used to wonder how it would be to sit next to a woman and travel. For one thing , I really can't trust myself to make any sensible conversation when I am actually trying to ... hehe . On this day , I was about to find out . The boarding place of the bus was just opposite my house in Chennai and I had managed to pack(read dump) almost all of my stuff and get there on time . My seat number was 20 and I deposited my huge bag with the clothes under the seat and the smaller backpack on the seat . I noticed that right next to me sat a lady and she was reading some book. I settled down to a very uncomfortable journey and to make matters worse , after some time another girl came and sat on my left ! The seating was 2 + 1 , so the second lady was in the neighbouring row. My discomfiture was only increasing and I turned to my trusty nokia 2300 to keep me occupied for the time being . The radio was playing some silly tamil songs , the type where the music is totally dependant on the lyrics .I closed my eyes and was thinking how I would spend the next few hours avoiding looking at or speaking to my neighbours. As a matter of habit I don't speak much to anyone other than my friends , and even that is very less . And when the other person is a woman , its all the more difficult for me to get chattery and it usually takes me many occasions before I can be comfortable .

I continued reflecting on such things when I thought what if I need not be that way , why let such silly reasons make me change the way I behave. And so I opened my eyes and started looking out the windows on either side. We were going past my daily route to office via the famous "Nandanam signal" and onto "Venkatnarayana Road". The familiarity made me more comfortable . I had a look at the book my neighbour was holding and thinking that a safe way to make an opening was "Hi , which book are reading ? " but I ended up saying "Excuse me, do you have anything to read besides that". She smiled and said "No , this is the only one I have, you can read it if you want". Thats when I noticed that the book was a Sidney Sheldon. I was allergic to Sidney Sheldon books ... they are equivalent to the masala bollywood films , though not as bad. I said " I don't think I ll be able to read the entire novel, seems too big" which was pretty obvious , but sometimes its better to state the obvious than not say anything at all ( Like in all those team meetings where people beat around the bush to just say something for sometime).
Realising that I was about to end the conversation prematurely , I ventured with " I would like to have a look at the back cover ..." and read through the story. I don't remember the title , but the story about some psychoanalyst doctor , one of whose patients had committed murder and was about to have this guy framed , or murdered . Not really exciting I thought and said " The print is not very small , I think this can be read in 3 - 4 hours". It was improvisation, so don't blame me for pointless talk. Anyway a conversation can't go on with one person talking. I think thats the time when she took over . We started off talking about work , and then places of origin ,incidents at work , roommates , dogs , friends , family and I even learnt a bit about server maintenance and spread some gyaan about VC++ . The time the bus started off must have 9 45 pm and we started talking at around 10 15 i think and this went on until 5 minutes to 12 .

Finally at the around midnight, I started feeling drowsy and we decided to call it quits and I dozed off lightly . Dozing off in the initial phase was fun , but after some time , it got colder and the fine channels of air coming through were maing life difficult . To make matters worse , I knew that I had a shawl in my travel bag under my seat and my legs were tightly packed under the seat of the guy in front. I assumed I wouldn't be able to take it out and decided to somehow get through the night. After some more time ,it became really unbearable and I somehow managed to extricate my feet and get the life jacket ( in this case my shawl) out and looking at my watch found that it was already 4 am. After an hour of fitful sleep , the lights came on and the bus guy started shouting out stop names for the benefit of alighting passengers. My neighbour was up and she said "its terribly cold at this time" . I could n't agree more with her .
I enquired whether the bus would go via Richmond circle so that I could travel home easier. I found out that she wanted go to a place on the way to my place and I suggested we could take an auto and somewhat reduce each other's fee by going together. So we got down at a place called "Minerva circle" and were immediately accosted by 2 autodrivers speaking in tamil. She didn't know tamil so I spoke for both of us. The auto guy was asking "Yenga ponum saar, vanga" ( where do you want to go sir , come with me) . On telling him her destination , he said " Oh , neenga Madivala le yeringirindha rombo easy , straight road"(you should have got down at Madivala itself , from there it s really easy , a straight road) . I was pleasantly surprised to discover such a good natured auto guy who would n't giving out a trade secret for free. But this was shortlived , immediately he quoted an atrocious price which would have got from Chennai to Bangalore by train! Because of my dad , who is Bangalorean to the core , I knew the approximate rate from there to my place , so we decided that its better to go by bus than give these guys our hard earned money. We stood at the bus stand shivering for some time , and she asked me , "Don't you have a jacket or something ?" . I knew I had the shawl in my bag and knew it would look ridiculous , but thought "Whats the big diff ?" and put it own to trap some much needed body warmth from escaping into the morning chill. The time was still between 5 30 to 6 and we waited for a few minutes before an enterprising auto guy came right upto us tempting us like the devil saying that theres no bus at that time. But she said she knew better , so we waited for some more time. And I gave in to the temptation first and dragged her into . It was pretty reasonable , before 6 am , 1 1/2 of the meter charge , first her destination , then mine. And so we set off with bags and all through the chilly morning air. Through this short journey I was wondering how I would get her mail id or some form of communication.(I remembered a friend's similar plight on Chennai - Blore day trip by train in an ac car) . I finally decided to be proactive and offered my card and that was the end of it. Finally we reached her place and after good byes I headed home with really fond memories which I think are worth preserving in a blog and in my mind.

At the end of the journey I was wondering whether I had missed a lot of such opportunities to make friends like this all my life. It was true and I knew that it was something worth changing for the better. And also also it is better to try out new things at least once in a while , it gives you a chance to grow with each new experience.

-railmani

A slap in the face....

2005-12-28T07:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder what I would have been now , had it not been for some incident which occured in my childhood days. There have been quite a few for which I am very thankful to my family , without whose guidance I might have ended up choosing an alternate path. The following is a very important one and like many other hidden memories , it was stirred by an intercity train journey (with out a book).

I used to be a small boy in my 4th or 5th std, when I suddenly realised that I had immense talent in some things . I could sketch almost exactly any diagram from a text book to the note book ; it was a pity that none of the subjects required it very often. I also had strong faith in my physical strength , which I believed was indicated by the number of veins visible on the back of one's hand(!). Sometimes I could hit a marble from a few metres away with amazing accuracy... I used to know when the marble left my hand that it would reach its intended spot without fail. All these abilities were somewhat stable and I could trust them to be there the next day. There were things I sucked at , these were the ball games which the locality kids loved ... cricket,football,hockey and the desi "lagori"(quite simply put, like dodge ball but with a rubber ball and the entire body as the target and the whole neighbourhood as the arena),"koli-koli" and others. I was the also ran in most of these games with the occasional glimmer . Then one day I came across a really neat game , but am really not able to recall the name.

Heres how we used to play it. Find a short sturdy stick or peice of wood and shape it like a baton with the help of the local carpenter ( for free ) . Then get the projectile ready; this was another peice of wood , about 1/3 rd the size of the baton - and tapering at both ends . Make a groove on the ground/road (usually road) such that the baton's head could slide in it at an acute angle while maintaining contact with the ground . The player with the baton would slide the smaller stick out of this groove with the help of the larger one with as much power as he can summon. The distance travelled by this projectile is noted and after a round robbin , the order of play is decided by the distance covered by the projectile. After this , the player in the decided order places the smaller tapering peice of wood on the ground and strikes one end so that it causes a moment to applied to that object and raises it above the ground to meet the dynamic fulcrum. And then the player strikes it as hard as he can . After this I remember that with a limited number of shots the player needs to cover as large a distance as possible with the same procedure. And thats the game which I now remember is called "gilli dhanda"!

One fine evening I was introduced to "gilli dhanda" and I found it appealing and took to it like fish to water. Breezing through the qualifier I struck the tapered end of the gilli with the baton and it rose through the air in arcs and spirals as though in slow motion . My right hand swung and struck it right at the place where its center of gravity would be and sent it flying through the air... in the background I could hear my companions screaming "beda, beda , hodibeda!" (don't hit ! )..in kannada. Following the trajectory of the gilli , it stopped abruptly at the forehead of a man. And immediately a small red drop appeared in its place and the gilli dropped impotently at his feet. At that instant I was annoyed because he had stopped a brilliant shot , but realised that the bigger fault was mine. I was even prepared to apologize, which is something I normally never do/did. He walked towards me abruptly , and I remember he was dressed formally , very much like how I am dressed when I go to /return from office . I opened my mouth to say "sorry" when his hand slapped my face real hard. It was a stinging sensation which made my entire face real hot and my ears felt like they were on fire , but something in me made me stay put. He glared at me and walked off . Not one word was spoken in that interval of maybe 10 seconds. His slap was simply his way of returning the shot on his forehead with my gilli. It might not have been as painful but it certainly made me stop playing gilli dhanda forever! and slowly any other physical game for many years .

This event's importance : it made me see things through my own eyes , as it made me face the consequence of my own actions , and I didn't crib to my parents about and neither did anyone else. I could reasonably say that this was one of the reasons I eventually became an introvert and started reading books. And that was a real starting point of independant learning for me. This idea of independant learning is the only thing which can help you in any venture... cause nobody can force you to learn and pretending to learn is again no use to anyone , cause you again end up fooling yourself more than the others.

Thats an incident which I thought was worth sharing, I ve got plenty more where it came from ... until next time , tata

Ctrl C + ctrl V

2005-11-24T07:35:00.000-08:00

The title of this blog is something which most of us (engineers..typlically software engrs)would find trivial and so trite that its barely given any attention. The concept of "copy paste " is something which I really feel should be discussed in the open , like "sex" ,"work culture","emotional blackmail" ... "sexual discrimination" and so many other things which bother me .

When I was in college in the period 2000 - 2004 , the use of the "Personal computer" which my dad bought me for (alleged) use in academics was used for really personal reasons alone, the main one being "Quake".A feature which I never cared or gave much attention to was "copy -paste". It did exist though in many forms , assignments , bits , just oral communication in tests and in just about any place it could squeeze itself in , justified by the exigency of the situation. I can't boast of a clean slate in this regard , for I have been guilty of intentional ignorance of the nature of this act. At one time I was caught with a bit underneath my question paper and the teacher was furious .... because I had gone against his policy of only whispering allowed. He somehow couldn't swallow the fact that both amounted to malpractice. Having got away with just a mild punishment of not being considered for that test (best of 3) , I didn't really lose the will to go on copying . And so one day , when a company's entrance test was going on ... I spied with my little eye that a guy in front of me seemed to be ticking the correct options as if he was guessing ... but knowing him better than that , I knew he was solving the problems rapidly. I could have gone on with my own paper , but the temptation was too great for me at that moment , and I did the "ctrl c - ctrl v" without a wink( the silver lining was that the only person I had lied to was myself ,coz the guy I was copying from didn't know about it ...). At the end of his paper , I felt a pang of guilt , brought on by many factors . The fact that I had read works of "Ayn Rand" and not let it even prevent me from such an act and the fact that a teacher called "Rao" had himself condemned it in such strong words and actions .It made me feel like one of those righteous guys who justify that "girls should not be so outgoing , guys will obviously try to flirt ..." . At that point of time I decided to correct what I had done and do the problems all over again. I solved a couple and to my chagrin I found the answers I had imported wrong !!! Wondering what had gotten into that guy , I suddenly realised that the question paper code was
different and the questions would be jumbled up! I felt a stab of joy and a sense of urgency , because now I knew this is what copying amounted to ... and that I had only 15 minutes left .
At the end of the test , I came out happy because I had done alomst every question to the best of my ability and the remaining guessed at my own risk. To tell you how I actually got shortlisted and what happened after would take another entire blog , so I ll desist ... I ll get back to the main topic , copy - paste.

The above incident did occur , and with it , I think I have become a better person . After going through the motions of completing college , I became a software engineer. Work , I knew was something which you are expected to do and you get paid for it. The employer gives you value in terms of money and the employee returns in by doing a service with something for which there is no substitute , the thinking powere of the human brain. At first , it was new and the learning curve was expected to be steep and it was . I spent hours trying to understand the meaning of obscure function calls with parameters which were literally out of the world. The innocence of "int" , "float" and "char" was lost in the jungle of "maps","lists" and other such data structures into which you could bundle the ints and floats of yesterday. Reading code was like reading a novel , if you don't know what a word means in a book , you open the dictionary and get its meaning, and insert it into the present context and proceed with a clear picture of whats happening. The same happens even in code , the dicitonary being online help and installable help applications. Its an amazingly simple thing to do ... at first it takes a large amount of time to understand what each function means and what the parameters actually contain and so on , but once you are familiar with it , its as easy to write code as it is to write a story or a poem . The difference being that code is meant to perform some useful action and is not a vent for frustration/love/creativity ... or could it be ?? Coding can be wonderful sometimes , because the possibilities open for you to create is literally boundless . The amount of knowledge available at the touch of your fingertips and the resources available if put to good use ... anything can be achieved. Having said all this about how wonderful the world of the software engineer is , I am now going to tell you what actually happens in contrast to what actually should happen .

In the ideal situation , you are an ambitious , hard working , intelligent guy/ girl whose only intention is to do something which you can be proud of , take your salary and go home happy at the end of the day. You want to be given some work which is intellectually challenging and when you complete it with application of your logical thought , you are given due credit for it and life goes on smoothly after that. But what really happens , while you spend hours trying to understand what is happening and how to correct an error or improve an implementation, another person walks up to his "friend"/"senior"... in short some one who surely knows already how to do the task he/shes' assigned and the work is done instantly ! Without the effort of even opening the dictionary , a direct download of the necessary data happens via "ctrl c + ctrl v" from the other's brain , with the other's consent. And so you sit and continue with your work while at some other system in your floor , an application runs with the fuel of borrowed intelligence. I often think who can you blame in this scenario , the person who righteously demands that you do his/her work because you are the one who has the ability to do it or you , who consents in this mindless blood transfusion . But blood transfusion is good right ? its the right of the person who is lying dying to get his life out of the living you ... i don't believe in all that , for giving a part of you which is so important as your life force , you should get a payment in return ... and the transaction should not take place unless its mutal exchange.

Hopefully I got across the message of it is to "copy and paste " in a scenario where the integrity of your work is in such grave danger at all times . Though the interpretation of some people of this concept maybe wrong , its nevertheless a wonderful gift when its deserved. If you sit at a problem and try sincerely to solve it and achieve success , the joy you feel is great. If you understand the problem and cannot solve it after trying with all means possible , and then a greater / more knowledgable mind helps you, you are then in a position to appreciate what effort must have gone in to achieving the knowledge and skill he/she possesses. The true value of the help obtained can be measured directly from the amount of effort you put in and still could not arrive at a solution.

There are many aspects to treating knowledge as a resource and its really upto the individual how he/she takes it. My experience tells me that the more I work by myself ,the better I get at my work with no dependancies like a class in C++ which only exposes interfaces to the outside world and does not give access to its data members. With still many questions in my mind , some answered some not , I take leave , until I write again.

bye

quake rulez...

2005-10-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Twas a lonely night , my heart bled
The days were over cause she fled
From me ? Why ? ... I knew , each other we
misinterpret
And the world seemed so ....like my eyes ,red.

To war I turned , for love had spurned
Donning armor I stepped into the blue
At first I walked and then I flew!
Caring not for the doubting few .

Quckly I learnt the tricks of the blade...
The bullet,rocket,lightning bolt and grenade,
And steadily the rail began to find its mark.
Thus grew a gladiator in Hell's park.

In the arena , we lived , the warriors and I
No day , no night we knew , no food nor water , no sigh
Soldiers fought and killed and woke up again to try.
For the arena gave u life, only to take others' away

To turn back the wheels of time we strived,
....In the arena , only the fittest survive.
The real test lay not only in skill ,
But the desire to again and again , kill .

Reaching the pinnacle of glory was never so sweet ,
As when the enemy lies in shreds at your feet .
Decimated by the shrapnel of ur elusive grenade
And the final nail in the coffin ,
Is the deadly rail u were mocking .

Life as a warrior if u wish to make ,
Join me in a world called "Quake"
Play when the world's asleep or awake .
For there lies not one life , but many at stake....

**************************************************

Railmani

Blogging through Email

2005-10-17T04:37:00.000-07:00

the title says it all ...

__________________________________________________________
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! Sixth sense

2005-09-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

You might be wondering what the title "! Sixth Sense" means . If you 've watched the movie , you 'd probably relate this to the boy's ability to see "dead people" . For me , the "! " implies the negation operator and the "sixth sense " means a quality which humans are said to possess , called "intuition" . So the expression evaluates to "lack of sixth sense" . If you want to find out why i came to this apparently ridiculous conclusion , read on ....

This is a series of events which actually occured to me , you are free to draw your conclusions from them :

A couple of my colleagues got their long awaited (not by them) turn to treat the other 6 of a group of 8 . Somehow I ended up volunteering to take one of them "doubles " on my (legendary) Yamaha to Satyam , so that we could book tickets for the next day's show . And so we set off after a detailed set of instructions from two other guys , who incidentally give the same directions to the same places , but with such contrast in styles of delivery and stresses on important landmarks , that at the end of it , I am back the starting point.
Anyway that didn't matter too much, because I had a navigator behind me and another lady who we followed to the destination . Being my first time out into the "heavy" traffic of Chennai , and that too with a passenger , I was riding very carefully . So carefully that I could n't be drawn into an accident even if I wanted to . We continued guided until the guide "horse" left us with directions and we went through unhindered . Finally at one point of time , we were very close to Satyam multplex , and I was headed into a road which had no vehicles going along with me . This struck me odd and I almost followd my "intuition" when I decided to trust my passenger's common sense and went along the same road . At the corner of the road stood a guy in uniform .... he could have been anything , a conductor , a school boy , a soldier ....anything like , I would n't have cared , but he was a traffic cop! By the time we realised , we were so close to him , he turned around and immediately grabbed my handles and took the key . He was maybe in his fifties , with a white mush and the traffic cop uniform . I was so stunned by this turn of events , I was thinking how I would get my bike out of the police station once it was taken ! My friend though was quicker thinking and was already citing reasons and trying to convince him to let us go. I was dumbstruck .During the course of the conversation that followed , he quoted the original "price " of "escape" as Rs.1500 /= and the "subsidised " amount he was offering as Rs.200 .
We ended up paying 50 each and the old guy must have gone home happy that day. Not to mention I was relieved that I got off easily , and pissed off because I had displayed lack of trust in myself by not listening to the "sixth sense" . After this incident , I came to find out many unwritten rules of the game ." Never give more than 50 bucks to a single cop "; "Never look into the eyes of a cop on the road when you are in a traffic signal in "red" state " .... and other such rational and straight forward stuff .

You would think I learnt my lesson , and lived happily ever after riding unitl my bike rusted to destruction or until I got a new car or another multitude of possibilities . Here's what actually happened .

After a couple of months of the first incident , I was returning home to Adyar from office and was forced to stop at a signal on the Sardar Patel road . This was at around 10 pm at night , yeah its true I had no business going home at that time , but I guess some things happen to warn you of greater dangers to come ! At the signal , a traffic cop was casually looking at the vehicles waiting . And suddenly he noticed something amiss or different in mine and asked me to pull over to the side . I was like "Oh man! ... not again". This time I was better prepared to handle this situation , with all the gyaan" of the earlier incident still fresh . After a lot of fundas and apologies from me , I ended up fifty bucks poorer . I was really .... happy to let go of that fifty because it was half of the hundred buck fine last time and I had handled it well. Even then , I made a show of it to my friends and life went on peacefully .

That was like the mediocre second part of a movie trilogy , but the final one takes the cake , I promise !

In this huge city called "Chennai " I was relocated to a new office building which is located on "North Usman Road " . This is one of the busiest areas in the peak hours and you could literally pull your hair with frustration if you didn't have to hold both the handles to thread through the gaps provided by the "> 4 " wheelers , cycle guys , pedestrians ! and all other two wheelers . You could argue that why not take it cool and follow them at a safe distance . I say that there is no safe distance ! If you are going to slow, there ll be overtakes from the left and right, sudden brakes from the front and possibly a nudge from behind .
And so , I follow the wave of traffic trying to steer clear from the crowd from the only way possible , the front . After a lot of detailed instructions from the afore mentioned illustrious colleagues , I managed to find the office on the first day with not even a hitch as far as direction was concerned . The same night I returned by another route which was suggested by third guy and put me in an venturesome mood . I always sucked as a navigator and I thought "ok, now is the time to learn", and I set out on the new route . It took me so long to reach home I thought 'll nver take that same route again ... although the route was pretty straight forward if you come back late at night when "no entries" are "enterable" . This registered somewhere in my brain as a brownie point for being adventurous and the next day at work , I was upbeat about charting new territory. After a tiring day at work , all my sensible senses told me to go by the main road (mount road ) and reach home safe and sound , but that little devil in me said " What the hell is the shortcut for then?".

I avoided the "GN Chetty road" , the road to GRT Grand and took the third road on the "circle" around "Panagal Park" and went past "Nandanam signal " on mount road , pretty confident of the route . Eventually I reached the "Satyam office" signal , (Maruthi India showroom also there ). At this place , it was so familiar I decided to have a closer look . So I stopped over and found that going right there would go to "Kotturpuram bridge " and then to Cancer Institute Adyar and then all the way home ! But again there was something which made me defy all logic and straight I went thinking "All roads lead to Adyar". The next right had a huge board which said "Adyar =>" showing the direction very clearly . I followed with a sense of relief . The next few turns I took were familiar from the previous night's escorted trip to Satyam and back . And then I came upon an active "no entry " . I reached a road called "Greenways" which incidentally has Mylapore railway station (if I am wrong , please correct me ) and this joined an extremely sorry excuse for a road . This felt like mountain biking through the city but it was a trodden path , so I ventured forth . Through a hazy sequence of roads and bylanes and avoiding one ways I came to mount road again ! and encountered another one way , the one after Teynampet signal when you take a left . Ominously I saw a couple of auto guys going forward and and turning around as if an invisible wall was stopping them . I didn't get the message , part of the stupor of "monitor" fatigue and stubborn recalcitrance made me go on further. Another auto guy turned around and on his way back was saying "go , go there's no problem , its night only , nobody will catch" . And I trusted him , for the only reason that I had got reliable information many times from the same kind of guys . Just a few metres ahead after the glare of the traffic became less, saw a traffic cop approaching me briskly . For a few seconds I was again numb , dumbstruck and he muttering , " even the auto guy is scared and you are coming happily ! " . "Not again :( I thought .. " . He took my keys and crossed the road where there was a more official looking bunch of traffic cops with bike,radio and all things which strike fear in the guy who gets caught . And then he saw my badge and seemed slightly mollified and started speaking with some respect and the tone of a teacher talking to an erring favourite student . I realised later that he knew he would definitely get some money out of me ! After the initial quote of 1500 bucks payable at the court , before which my bike would be siezed , he came down to "How much will you pay? ". I said "I ll pay fifty". But unfortunately ,being dressed in good clothes worked out against me . The smart thing to do , as my friend later told me is to immediately take all money out of ur wallet except 50 bucks and cite reasons like "I am in a big hurry to go home , an emergency
came up and ...." and some cock and bull story like that . If there is one thing I am worse at than navigation, its cooking up stories . And so I parted with 400 hard earned bucks to again roam free ....? on the streets of Chennai .

At the end of this trilogy , I hope this is not "The beginning " and is in fact "The end " !

2005-09-20T07:33:00.000-07:00

Learning ....

When a human being is born , as in exitting the mother's womb and entering the outside world , the first thing he/she 's (sex does'nt matter at this point of time u say? oh it does ! the female already has eggs in her ovaries ! just a piece of trivia I remember from 11th) expected to do is confirm a pat on the backside by the doctor . It does n't matter that the confirmation is of the most negative connotation for adults most of the time . Who tells the baby that it should cry when it feels pain ? I think thats part of the basic set of defensive mechanisms built in /hard coded in the brain(wonder when we can start coding on that platform! ) . But from that point onwards , the baby is an amazing sponge ... not just for milk and other liquids , but also for "learning" . Its true that a new born kid can swim in water ! It has not yet learnt the meaning of fear . "Basic instinct " actually fits this kind of behaviour very well , don't you think ?

The brain is a very complex organ , compared to say a computer . Memory storage and retrieval is too good in the case of a computer ,as far as accuracy of information is concerned . But when it comes to locating the starting point of a "thread"(sequence of events ) , the brain is unparalleled ... in its speed and to a varying extent ... "vividness". My earliest memories of the "big bang "( my birth) ... are probably not retrievable bacause the mechanism for storing data which I understand now , would not have been enabled/powerful enough then. As I try harder , I can only come up with glimpses of the time in early school . Incident where I was very happy , very sad , the rawest emotions/thoughts that can come to a being without being influenced by an external agency/force or rather in the stage of being modified by an external agency. In school my instincts told me to be "selfish" , which means I wanted to preserve myself and not my neighbour , even if she happened to be a cute helpless girl . But in events that occured , I was shown that people can't stand "self " motivated entities . A girl called "roopa" used to sit next to me ( not by choice ! ) when I was in the 1st /2nd standard (5/ 6 years old). Her later memories have somewhat altered her earlier childhood image in my brain , but it should suffice to say she was , by some strange convention , less "harmful" looking than I was at that time . You see , in the adult brain , there is malicious code somewhere which makes them react to appearances consciously and subconsciously . So when roopa complained to "maam"(i never understood the concept of the apostophe at that time ), that "karthik is not giving his sharpener! ", maam came down with the plastic ruler and whacked my tender hands . I cried , not with remorse , but sheer anger which I realise was /is righteous now . The pseudo - altruistic teacher and the erring complainer had no business forcing me to part with something which I valued at that time as much as I value my bike now . But the words and the conviction to express my indignation were learnt at a much later time . That was an early lesson on "pride and prejudice" , though I never read that book , it seems apt to that occasion .

I 've come across many pieces of writing /movies where people say what they went through in simple words , but create such a deep impact because of the nature of the event . Cases of people being killed/dying horribly in front of ones eyes , seeing near ones who are your moral pillars at times break down and cry like babies , horrible accidents ..and many such things reveal so much , by showing things as they are , and not as they are made out/supposed to be .
I've had many experiences where my appearance and size and such things were the main criteria for "judging " me . These , though extremely painful at that time ...( something akin to
confused hatred of everyone/self and a lack of identity and understanding ) have become great lessons to remember for me . Because of these incidents I know how to identify similar situations and fight against them . Standing for one's own ideas and beliefs is the greatest thing one can do (the usage of the word "one" maybe incorrect , but it seems right .... reminds me of "the bicentennial man " ). This is one kind of learning where emotional , social , egoistic factors are involved to a large extent . I am sure everyone has gone through some learning process similar to this , if not in the negative sense , maybe positive .

I am really starting to lose track because of loss in concentration . I started out to say something about learning and how its affecting me now , but ended up in my childhood !
Anyway, I ll get back to this some other time , but will complete it for sure , for writing is another thing I enjoy :)

SBC ....MAS....Adyar

2005-09-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

I was coming back from Bangalore to Chennai on the "Weekend Express" . Both words deserve to be in quotes because the train spills over its journey into the next week by a few hours and also its not an express ... there are stops at unknown places for unknown reasons for long intervals .

For this journey , I was suprisingly well prepared ... the to and return tickets were with me ; I had packed in a couple of extra undies , and hankies ; I even remembered to take all the stuff dad asked to get ! Considering my earlier misadventures with tickets ( tore both to and return tickets thinking they were used once ! ) and losing things like umbrellas ,credit cards and mobiles ... this was far better .

That was a fair introduction to fickle me ... a part of me , mind you ! Anyway , I was at the station on time and in my compartment . The lights were off and someone was in my "bed" (second sleeper) , I presumed . Then I resisted shaking the man / woman .... no it was a man , awake .An old voice came out of nowhere , asking me "yendhe seat number , sir? " . I looked around in the dark and saw the old man lying down on the middle berth on the left hand side of the compartment and wondered why he should bother . Anyway, he made me think out aloud , and I figured out that the upper berth above the RAC seats was mine and got on unceremoniously .

Wearing a pair of leather shoes of an unacknowledged brand "Lycostyle" worth 2k (bought at Spencer's), a Levi's worth 1.4 k at B'lore and a shawl to keep warm , I tried stretching out . But to my dismay , found the berth short even for a 5 '8 me ! Hmm , must have been a cost - cutting measure , the software engineer inside me said . That made me smile and triggered memories of office . It kept me occupied for sometime as "multiple threads of executions " were spawned ( many thought processes were running in my brain at that time ) and as if many "goto" statements were coded , I switched context rapidly between events , ideas and people . As this was going on , my body was still uncomfortable with the cramped space and the already switched on fan , enhancing the chill in the air . My shawl was like a thin wrapper around a bulky "Active X " struggling in its container executible . And if this is a bad comparison , you won't believe the stuff people dole out at work ( s/w ) as if its a piece of art ! Anyway , coming back to the chill , it was especially annoying because my throat was itchy and the bag (which doubled up as my pillow on travels ) bumpy . I thought , this was going to be another one of many sleepless nights I 've spent in trains and buses and a sleepy one at work / college the next day . The simplest solution I thought would be to turn off the fan and sleep peacefully . I just bent over like a mountaineer and reached out to try the switches under my berth . Then made use of the "Diet " mineral water bottle and managed to turn on a light , luckily nobody was awake at that time ... found the right switch and gradually the high pitched sound of rotating fan blades stopped . All the fans in my compartment went off ! There were 3X2 + 1 passengers other than me in that compartment . Obviously , there was a bug in the switching system or the design and anyway I didn't think anyone would mind the lack of chilling cold ! So , I settled down to a better rest .
After an hour or so , my half sleep was interrupted by one of the old ladies who was in a lot of clothing meant for the cold (sari + sweater + bedsheet etc) . "Who turned off the fans ? " she asked in a accusatory tone directed to all there . All responded negatively , I guess they were in varying stages of sleep . And I lay there still , wondering if they would find out . I guess one of them found out , but I didn't move , I just lay there ... in self righteous comfort . One of them got up and flicked on one of the switches near to their end ... and again a surprise , only their fans came on and mine remained unaffected ! So , "All's well that ends well " I said and drifted back to half sleep .

At 8 am the train reached Chennai Central . The latest I ve reached in an overnight journey by this train . " Not my lucky day " I thought as my eyes scanned the crowd for some sign of a pretty girl . I walked the long walk from S8 to the entrance/exit of "Central" dodging the coolies and a maruadi kid and his mother who were approaching me like a WWF tag team ... holding hands and moving in for a "clothesline ". They split and rejoined behind me . Carrying on beyond the auto guys (who don't bug me nowadays surprisingly) and into the subway , I noticed a wave of people . This wave was like a "compression - rarefaction" kind of wave , the way sound travels . People were moving up two alternate stairs to exits from the subway . One was closer to the bus stand maybe by 15-20 m . Most went this way , at half the speed the other group was going , but with double the number of people . I took the lighter path and avoided touching anyone or breathing into anyone's face for obvious reasons .

I expected the bus stand to be crowded and spashy like the last time ... but it was dry and buses were moving around easily unhindered . Thanks to the traffic cops who are functional at all times and at all places I go to . Sometimes I resent their presence but without them , it would be chaos . A college guy , from Kerala I guessed asked me the bus no. to Anna University . I told him the bus numbers . They carried on , with some other plan, probably an auto I thought . Anyway they were out of sight and a somewhat "empty " bus swerved in and stopped with the characteristic Chennai bus sound . Getting in , I found the all seats save the last filled . There were two columns of seats . The left side is meant for women , the front is meant for women and so I assumed that the back must be for men , or at least free for all . I sat down leaving one place empty , which a lady in her late thirties came to occupy . She looked at me with a vertical scan and said "Idhu ladies seatu "(this is a ladies seat ) . But I was wary of being taken for a ride , and replied " Yengiyo elidhilla , apdinu " (Its not written so anywhere ) . I don't know to read tamil , but clearly there was nothing written in that area , so it was a safe argument I thought . With some scorn , she asked "Madrasikku pudhusa ? " (new to Madras?) . I replied honestly "Oru varsham aachi , aanal idhu ladies seatinu yenakka yarume sollile"(Its been a year ,and nobody ever told me this was a ladie's seat ) .

She settled down next to me while her companion remained standing . Settling down , I thought "Abbada , thats enough friction for a day " . But no , someone must have heard me . A skinny girl entered the scene at the next stop with a brown stripes on white uniform and dumped a huge bag of books on me . I was shocked out of my wits ... "What do you want me to do with this ?" I asked , though it was pretty obvious madam was not in the habit of lugging her luggage like the way I used to in school . She said "Please hold my bag " , but to me it sounded wrong . She should have ideally said , "Can you please hold on to my bag " , or at least a gentle request instead. Anyway , it was in English I thought ... I could n't get the english speaking with school kids and college kids out of my system . She turned around and told her friend "Tamil therla polarku " (this guy doesn't know tamil I think ) laughing at my predicament . That made me a mixture of pissed off and embarassed . The conductor came in at that time and I asked him "Sir , Idhu ladies' seat aa?" (Sir ,is this a ladies' seat ?) . "Aaama"(Yes) he replied and I dumped the big back pack on my neighbour unintentionally ... I was so averse towards holding someone else's burden . Then saying the final "sorry" of the day (I decided) , I got up and stood the rest of the way until we reached Alwarpet ... somewhere near "Ramada Raj park " ,the only 4 star hotel I've stayed in . Sitting down , I reflected on the events and what I should have done . Alternate summaries and climaxes struck me , but that didn't happen and I was not going to make it happen on that day ! Let a different "me" in a parallel universe try it out , if he/she was led through the same series of events by chance /probability .

And that was the beginning of my day back in Chennai !

remo ...

2005-09-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

psychedelic ramblings ...

2005-08-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

What is it within me ?
That keeps me from being free,
A restraining hand on my shoulder
Leaving me by the day , colder .

What is it within me that makes me desire ,
For a thrill so momentary and consequences so dire .
For a love so great just now
And makes me stone hearted as soon as we make a vow .

What is it that makes me act so tall ?
When in fact all I am is another brick in the wall .
Like a true friend ,When all I do is pretend .

What is the reason I exist ?
I really don't know , but how can I resist
Ignorant bliss and a life of sin
Pleasure without pain , when I always win

Every moment lived for its sake
Worry and tension I do not take .
A good laugh is all I seek
Never mind if I am the bum so meek .
Attention I really do crave
Even if it makes me an unprivileged slave .

Knowledge ? I do not need
But by its feigned possession ,
My vanity I love to feed .
For little pleasures grows my greed
Guiding my thoughts and shaping my deeds.
Sole purpose in life ? Spread my seed
Make it grow - an unstoppable creed .
=============================================================
I like this one , kind of reminds me of the "who cares " attitude I had sometimes in college . But it also reminds me that what a person is thinking at some time , or may of have said at some time may very well not be what he thinks now ... or in the future

at the cafeteria..

2005-08-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

I walked into the room ,
People were taking a break
Work's tires most , invigorates some
Got to where the coffee's made

At the counter I glanced around
A girl stood in my line of sight
"Pretty cute ",I almost said aloud
And in her eyes something came alight

For a second I drew back ,
She said, "care for a bite?
"Smiling back , I started to reply
From behind,a voice said "will give it a try"

Words receded and was ready for a laugh wry
Instead, a smile came on, and our glances broke .
And we had spoken without words ,
With the certainty no talk could ever brew

A smile it brought to me ,
And funny it sure was
My friends laughed without a pause
...And to work we returned , to please the boss

====================================== MSK

A look inside

2005-08-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

This is something I wrote in college . It was in response to a note plagiarised by one of my classmates (didn't know it that point though) . Today I happened to find some of my college stuff , and thought it would be fun to share it ...and so I posted the missing Vitruvian entry which I didnt write at that time (regrettably.. becoz of quake) , I 'll post the remaining in a couple of days . Well, its all in railmani's point of view , and thats as straight forward as it gets ... so be warned !

A look inside

Underneath a rough exterior often lies
An understanding soul , who always tries
Not to hurt anyone and also cries
When he is hurt , maybe not tears but is hurt within .
Often , he wonders why all are cynical ,
With such brutal will power and so clinical .
The war turned cold long ago ,
But how it began , nobody knows .
We do realise that we aren't in Utopia ,
All women can't be Aishwarya .
Ergo , all men can't be TDH and still love ya,
When you treat them like bacteria .
As for the lack of melanin ,
And amplified curves ( using silicon?)
A perceived attraction for it , by those lacking
Can't be blamed on the innocent good looking .
If we go by one opinion , we are led to beleive
"Whims" and "fancy" are the pillars of womanhood,
Well , men too have pillars , much stronger and with solid foundation .
Reason guides actions and seasons change moods .
Some men are led through life's dark lanes ,
By a will to rise through hard work ,
Cause someday he might have to support ,
A woman who can't stand alone.
There are some who fall in love with a person ,
And others with her form (read figure),
The former are inspired to reproduce ,
The likeness of the beauty , and the latter just abuse
An undeserved opportunity .
A dictator's world , if you seek to create ,
(like neena gupta?) And yet say you would give a second chance .
We are afraid of what we are dealing with...a woman?
Sorry ... A contradiction in itself .
A passing thought ... in a liberated world
Of equal opportunity , seeking an advantage
Of being "weaker" genderally , has been untold as yet,
But chivalry it ain't and refusing to fall for it,
Is not unchauvenistic ,but coming of age .
Behind the scenes , a lot of work gets done ,
Men do it , but seek not recognition ,
Cause it gives them pleasure .
Though only few are spectacled (or spectacles maybe! ),
Myopia is a common ailment among women for sure.
An image is worth a thousand words , right ?
An illustrator ... you can't imagine such numbers , forget it
A cheap editor is not worth much , is he?
Often the greatest men , come in the simplest garb .
Often have we heard (from iisc profs. that too), an OS is not just the GUI,
The work is done by a Linux (non D) and the credit goes to the winDows !
Well , thats the way the world works ,
And those who understand ( learn Linux?) don't bother (read maal),
And those that don't ... why bother !
Lets pray together for a better tomorrow ,
For u and for me and the entire frustu public ,
That we come out of the trance and give a second glance ( and maybe chances? ),
At rough exteriors ,not for a prince but a person ,
And judge not by whats outside but whats within .

- Railmani

ECE 2004, The Vitruvian entry which was missing ...

2005-08-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

1st and 2nd year

Electronica 2004
Now that the deadline is well due .... Abhiram probably won't or rather can't add this to the branch diaries of our beloved "vitruvian " . But what the hell , it feels empty without a tronix entry ... so here goes nothing
First year : As an intro , you could say that the tronix batch was a heady mix of brains , brawn , beauty ( naah not much ), talent and a lot more . NObody could have ever predicted how all these individuals would behave and interact when put together .We don't need to bother about that cause its all over now .
second year :
The classes kicked off almost immediately with PSB starting off with some advice in the typical PSB style . Most people were listening to him , except a few in the last bench (one of them was MSK ) . Mom welcomed us to the branch with a .... "Welcome to the branch" (accompanied by a smile ) and started off ... I dread the name "Signals and systems " !! Other staff we had were that chotu Rajashekhar for "Electromagnetic waves " another deappetizer . Giving him support was the transient Punekar ( whatever happened to him ! ) .
The classes went on in full flow , and everybody was tuned to score the maximum, there were a lot of close scores expected . PSB , with his refined ways taught us the fundas and tested us on them . MOM taught us in her own way and most of us didn't learn well ( who knows why !!?) and eventually received the shock of their lives .... just imagine Kudva got a 7/25 in a sessional !!! This also happened to be one of Saand's (panty) high point in college cause he got 8/25 !?! EMW classes used to go on , and most people used to go on too ... to krishna's and library etc. at the same time .
There was a bunch of people who were newly recruited into clubs and were in the thick of all the action almost immediately . With the highly intellectual lectures of PSB (and to be honest , if u aren't upto date with his classes ... sleeepy) , OHT (over head u know what ) classes of MOM and other subjects to add , it took a toll on this bunch ( there were exceptions though - Viegas the one ) .
With exams done , the fundoos had done extremely well ... Kudva the one had smashed all papers inside out , close behind was ullu and subhash and malavika ...........

is work for money alone worth it ?

2005-08-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

To this question , a year ago I would have answered , "what work ? its all the same ... its the pay alone that matters .." quite confidently . But now I am seriously beginning to question this notion .

Sometime during the first couple of months of my work , I heard from a more experienced guy , that technology can be very good to you and it can also ruin you . If you can adapt to new technology and keep pace with the others , fine , you ll always be useful to your or some other company , but if you stick to one technology and refuse to learn ... then when the change comes , you are obselete !

I always regarded any advice about my career with a lot of skepticism ... at the bottom of my heart , I always knew that I ll never enjoy any work as much as I enjoy playing quake or sketching or reading . But to actually come to the point where its evident , its like a rocket about to blow up at myfeet and throw me up a metre high ... making me an easy target for any snipers around (11 , all quake jargon , 11 = l.o.l) . At times like this when there is no such thing called "satisfaction" after a job well done , it boils down to how , much you can keep any emotion out of it and get it done as quickly as possible . Something like when I used to hold my nose pinched tight while gobbling down milk .

Recently I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends . He is one of those guys who is asked to work weekends , whole nights and any other inhuman combination of work hours possible . He was using some choice words against this act when I asked him why bother with this work if its so irritating .... to which he said , nobody is going to pay as much money as he was getting in a software job ! Coming to think of it , it is true ... a very competent English teacher I met in CAT coaching classes said she got only about 10k per month and a Call Center employee earns more than that . Then think about the complaining software engineers ... who earn 15 to 25 k .. maybe more so easily comparatively . Coming back to my friend , he earns a lot alright , but at the end of the week and many a time , at the end of many weeks ... all he does is go back to work ... and come back home and sleep like a log. The lifestyle is absolutely pathetic . He gets up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon and eventually has "brunch" at 4 or 5 , which is a combo meal (breakfast + lunch + snacks) . And then his day at work begins , with endless phone calls and other such inane activities for which , hiring an engineer is criminal .

A few words from one of my really amazing lecturers in college (Mr.I R Rao .... actually he was the most Roarkian guy I ve ever seen in my life ) come to my mind whenever I think about work . He said , "... Placements ? Even if you have not managed to clear all your subjects , you have the stamp of your college on your forehead and you ' ll get a job " . The reason you get that job so easily is because any idiot can do the same thing , but you have the advantage of the conventional qualifications ( actually over qualificiation is a term which does exist practically ! ), ie being an engineer from a reputed institution."The job , will be like giving you a golden broom and asking you to sweep the floor ... " That statement has come true to such an extent to so many people around me and myself , its something which every aspiring software engineer should know, and every student who goes blindly to the CET cell to choose Computer Science and ECE because thats how the mainstream is flowing . I am not saying that software is not a good industry , in fact for the software engineer who is genuinely interested in this work , it provides an immense oppourtunity , everything can be learnt with just an internet connection you can even get at home . Some of the best technical guys I 've met in the last one year are not engineers ! They are BSc graduates (chemistry ...mechanical) , NIITians ... and other different educational qualifications . We , the engineers entered proudly , because some of us were chosen with so much confidence in our abilities that it was insulting to think that these guys could be better than us ... but the truth is far from that . With a lot of hard work and a genuine interest , those guys are excellent and much more focussed on work than a typical engineer who is looking to go the management way .

Suddenly I am so spent that I feel like concluding this exhausting post ( for me ) because I ve been playing quake with matter over the net and that is an experience which leaves me drained and satisfied ... something like an orgasm . So goodnight folks , I hope I struck a chord somewhere and looking forward to any comments ...

thoughts of a smitten being ...

2005-08-03T13:12:00.001-07:00

I saw her one day , in a place of study
She walked with a spring in her step ,
And a twinkle in her eye .
Something stirred within me , a feeling which knotted in my throat.
No words would come and all I could do was watch .

She was a beauty , my entire being said.
My neighbours said no , but their greedy eyes I espied.
Flitting like a butterfly she flew from flower to flower .
I watched her brush me , as she flited by .
For no words would come and all I could do was watch.

Never had I known a feeling called "love",
What it meant and how it felt .
I thought this must be it , for it lead me like an obedient cow.
With love came suffering and a confused mind ,
How can it hurt me so to be in love , could I tell her what I did not know?
But no words would come and all I could do was watch.

My days of being near were numbered,
Our separate ways we went and the same way I felt.
Thoughts and memories I oft remembered ,
The proud walk , and the soft talk and all the tiny things .
A spectator I remained in the sands of time ,
For no words would come and all I could do was watch ...and write .

2005-07-22T04:43:00.000-07:00

sleepless in bangalore....

2005-07-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

Its been more than 3 weeks at home now ... by far the longest stretch of time I 've ever spent at home ...properly . At times , the boredom gets to me and makes me do crazy things . I remember in college , everyday was a day of "manmaani" ,towards the end at aleast . After beginning work , this continued for some time but you know what happens once you start working , routine becomes a way of life or at least unavoidable . And so it happened to me as well in Chennai. But suddenly one day I had a bittersweet surprise ... I had jaundice ! This forced me to bunk office and stay at home like a caged tiger who had been suddenly put on a vegetarian diet (hehe) .

Coming to the point , yesterday night(or is it yesternight? ) , I was lying in bed ... it was around 12 am . I just couldn't sleep , and thats when it happened . I had a flashback of many major things which happened in my life . Right from the time I had some of my most difficult confrontations ... which were mostly in school to the time I had in college . School brought back some bitter sweet memories . I had very few friends in school ... and only one was close ...and in my mind everything we did and all the stories he told me came as a flood . Delving deeper into each incident and conversation we had had , I remembered how much I had admired him at one point of time , and how much things had changed over ... 10 years ! Coming to think of it , he has hardly changed , he still looks the same , talks the same ... but yeah once out of school , we shot out in totally different directions . The four years I spent in college , I totally forgot about him and when I did remember it made me feel guilty for not keeping in touch for such a long time . Somehow through very rare phone calls I had a vague idea what he was upto . College finished , we met a couple of times , I started working in Chennai and after a year's time I got in touch and the response was as cordial as ever . We planned to meet up and that is an event in the future .

Memories of one friend brought back memories of other friends . One of them I can never forget , he was my classmate in P U college and I still remember some where at the end of first PU , he had a realisation ... that life is serious and only hard work will pay. His self esteem was hurt when we used to call him a particularly annoying name . And for sometime he took it and then one fine day he stopped responding ... he stopped hanging out with us . I was a bit closer to him than the rest and on approaching him I found out what the meaning of an "ego " was . I had it myself , but seeing it so strong in another person was a revealing experience . True to his word , he never joined us again and surprised everyone by doing very well in the exams and the CET !
He did better than me , but when he realised that I had something called reservation , he spurned me and my friendship ... and went his own way . Thats something I doubt I 'll see again in my life ... a valuable lesson on perception .

Many more memories ran through my mind that night , but I ll save them for another day ... there is something more interesting I want to say . Somewhere in the middle of this memory bank flood I decided to read something . Getting up , I went to the book shelf and found among the many books my bro had bought and never read (!) a book called "The Betrayal and other short stories" by Sivasankari . The first story was kind of big , so I read some of the smaller ones .And to my pleasant surprise I found them really fun ! The stories were actually written in Tamil and then "transcreated"(the word on the book) to English by a couple of ladies . Most of them dealt with middle class families ... and the point of view was usually that of a house wife ... if you ever wondered what could possibly go on in the mind of a housewife , this you got to read . From just what goes on in the mind of a lady bored at staying at home the whole day to what happens to one who suffers a loveless marriage and how she deals with a "unfaithful" husband (this one is brilliant ... "The betrayal") . Each story other than the first one is quite small , but the number of issues it raises about the life of a woman , whether a child , or an old lady and the insights it provides at family life and its delicate intricacies are mind blowing ... believe me ... there are not too many books which impress me so much . I was so engrossed , I stayed up the whole night and finished it off ! At the end of it all , I saw the cost of the book . It cost a mere 90 bucks ... now thats something which we spend so easily on a meal every day which more often than not we forget in a day . But this book I ll never forget ...

I went to sleep at 6 am and got up only at 11 am much to the chagrin of my dad ... but sleeplessness put to good use can bring a smile to your face many years later ...

anniyan ...

2005-07-14T05:47:00.000-07:00

In college , there was a guy called "dhevaru" (god, in kannada ) who once told me I should be given the title "onegar of krec" (complainer of krec) ... because i had a very vocal way of venting my dissatisfaction about anything out of place . That was one point of view ...anyway that came to my mind cause i am gonna write a movie review .

A couple of months back I got a video through mail in office ... it was a trailer of "anniyan" ... a film by shankar (indian , boys,mudhalvan....) . I am relative newbie to popular tamil cinema , but once i went to chennai and got along with the local folk there , my view of tamil , tamil cinema ... changed quite a bit . I had to admit there was some real talented work happening there .

Anniyan is a story about a very "paavum" guy (innocent...bechara) who is a lawyer and can't tolerate injustice in any form ... (brings to mind a line from somewhere ..."its not the magnitude that matters , its the nature of the action ") . He faces situations which cause deep impressions to be left on his psyche . His kid sister dies early in his childhood becoz of electrocution on the roadside due the negligence of many people . Everybody goes scot free because the crime cant be pinned on anyone in particular . And as he grows up , he falls in love with a girl who is his relative in some way( could nt make out) but is unable to express it . This is another source of fuel for his emotional pressure cooker . He becomes a lawyer who upholds justice in every little thing possible and this as expected is percieved as eccentric (Howard Roark would have been proud of this guy ! ) . People treat him condescendingly and don't take him seriously .

His life goes on in this very unsatisfactory way until one day something in his mind gives way and he becomes what his deepest subconsious wants him to be . To take care of the injustice around he becomes "anniyan" , who in his mind is the care taker of the hindu hell "narakam" . The best part about this is he himself doesn't know that his brain is multi tasking to run many operating systems ! So our pal the lawyer complains about the wrongs happening in chennai through a website anniyan.com to his alter ego "anniyan" . And anniyan punishes the guilty with death as prescribed in the vedas for "judgement day" . The most gruesome punishment of them all I felt was when he ties up a guy and adorns him with gigantic leeches ... they squeeze him dry to leave something grouse behind.

As if one alter ego wasnt enough , another comes up .."remo" ... ramp walk model . This guys created by his mind to satisfy the romantic urges of our hero . He patafies the babe easily with his cool attitude and crazy stunts (like walking backwards on a heavy traffic road) . Things go well for the alter egos , but our hero is as dissatisfied as ever . The babe commits a heinous crime right in front of his eyes , the crime being tax evasion ! In a short time "anniyan" is after her ... and owing to the babe being a very familiar person , the processor ...the hero's mind gets confused and the alter egos "remo" and "anniyan" with conflicting interests in her come and go rapidly , one trying to kill and the other protect . A superb fight sequence with an entire kung fu school ensues as anniyan tries to punish the babe . Anniyan , wins hands down , but the babe is nt just a babe ... she has a brain too ! ... she realises that its the same guy whos remo and anniyan and the lawyer . Appealing to his mushy side (though she doesnt really care abt him) ... she escapes and eventually gets him to NIMHANS.

Diagnosed for multiple personality disorder , the babe falls for him , for evidently hes crazy abt him . This apparently is an exit sign for the remo alter ego . But anniyan is still on the loose . In the true "Indian" style , anniyan organises a town hall meeting to spread public awareness about his one man "punisher " company . Having done that , and made the people pee in their pants with "al qaeda" style videos , he manages to give a slip to the cops ... namely prakash raj whose bro anniyan fried in oil earlier for serving bad food on a train . Seeking revenge , the cop traces out our hero and gets him a torture room to make him admit his crimes . He uses extreme weapons of the medieval age on out hero who takes it all like a bakra , but once the mental anguish crosses a limit , he shifts to anniyan mode and normal mode like a toggle flip flop , as a result ... putting the cop in a major confusion . The cops get beaten black and blue and anniyan runs out of batteries after some time .

The final destination is the court of law where the hero's father , a lawyer himself gives a good presentation to the judge (reminds me of devenders and malavikas presentation in coll .... the one with the quantum computing ) . And so our hero goes scot free against his own will , because the law can understand stuff like alter egos in Chennai !!!

The conculsion is a happy one ... a treatment of a semester ..sorry six months is enough to get rid of the remaining alter ego "anniyan" . The hero is normal when he comes out and loses his Roarkian qualities (wat a pity ) ... but alls well that ends well , he marries and goes off on his honeymoon on a train !? But in the ending scene "anniyan " lives again... akin to "i ll be back " of the terminator .

Its one really entertaining film if you understand tamil ! watchable even otherwise , esp if you can get a tam babe to translate it for you ! Watch it , highly recommended by me ....

- msk

Some memories of college ....

2005-07-12T04:30:00.000-07:00

Today I met some of my college friends online , and like before I learnt something from their eyes about myself .

I ve been at home for a couple of weeks , cause I have a case of infectious jaundice (hepatitis A ) . The first few days were miserable , tasteless food and being weak and helpless . But its improved steadily and now am almost back to normal . In the last couple of weeks , I ate food for its nutritional value alone and with salt alone as my saviour , the word "food " has taken taken on a new meaning for me .

Being at home only with family to lean back on and faced with the prospect of passing 24 hrs for a month at home was a little too much ,the reason is I have been in and out of family life for the last 5 years . 4 years of engg. and a year at work . This is undeniably the only time I ve truly spent with my parents in a very very long time . It should have been done a long time ago , but destiny has a strange way of getting things in place . Looking at the way things stand from their point of view , it certainly makes sense for me to look for a job in Bangalore .

Like I was saying in the beginning , I met some friends online and got a morale boosting which can only come through some real feeling ... and this felt great . Thanks batta and chandan if you are reading this ... I really appreciate it . Some hesitation and doubt about my career path still exists , but what the hell its always there in whatever we do, so I am going for it . This brings to my mind a beautiful saying I once saw in an unlikely place called Yercaud ... It said " You can't see the end right from the beginning , but going forward you can see more of what is ahead each time ...until you reach the destination ". Somehow that sentence stuck in my head .

Now I am trying to get back to Bangalore , or atleast to see where I stand as far my value as a 1yr experienced s/w engr goes . Another day in the life of karthik ends .... bye until next time

a year as a pro

2005-06-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I completed a year of service as a software engineer . Surprisingly , there was no overwhelming emotion like in the movies , I coming back home from office and my parents are waiting for their brave son who is the breadwinner and the apple of their eye . And then they would take out an "aaarthi" for me and I would yet again relive the joy of the first day at work and the first salary !

The above scene is not really feasible , because I work in Chennai ... my elder brother is also working . We are n't into that much melodrama , at least where happy events are concerned , sad occasions are another story . Like in the case of the death of a dear one , the emotion is writ deep on the close ones' faces . Others are not really moved , some pretend , some are concerned truly and most others are silent spectators .

I started off to say something totally different , I guess that characterises me , start off in one direction and end up unconsciously at some other destination . Getting back to the topic .
1 year , I thought something ought to be done , so I sat down and penned some rhyme , censored and politically correct stuff so that it was palatable for the office crowd ;)

Here it is :

A year Fresher than yesterday

A year ago ,on a day like this ,
A student stepped into the world.
No doting teachers , no helping friends
He expected , it ll be tough to attain bliss.

From the west to the east coast he moved ,
Stopping by in between to meet family ,
And entered a new zone of opressive heat gamely.
A new life began , from expectations ,far removed .

Met new people , competitive and competent ,
Brilliant at work and more so at fun !
The Soft war(e) was around us , the race began .
The game had rules and pretty fast we learnt .

Knowledge accumulation and dissemination boiled down to ctrl -c and ctrl -v.
The senior senors helped us out with the intricacy .
Drawing with code , how hard could it be ?
Without master , it could ve been the end of me !

From the humble beginnings of "hello world" we climbed ,
To message maps and connection points we reached .
And to take a snapshot view , off from the pending tasks
Comes to my mind a question :
"Fresher" was he for the lack of experience or by comparison ? "
I am sure it will be more fun to answer and than to ask .

- railmani

a year nearly??

2005-06-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

Its been a hell of a long time since I wrote anything at all. I remember getting frustrated with the idea of nobody ever reading anything I write ... until I read a blog today by PC , about trekking . From there to some other blogs , and the bug bit me again. So , get ready for the return of railmani !

An update of whats happening in my life . I am currently in the post appraisal stage of my first year as a software engineer. Got a small raise , and was appreciated as was everyone else ... until i found out that not everybody else was appreciated ! So felt good . This was quite some time ago .

Almost come to the end of a year of my career ... another 5 days will do it ! Been a mixed bag until now , but the overall feeling I get is good , so it works .

In the meantime I am preparing for a new career , preparing for CAT .
My brother has got a job , a managerial job ! and so the pressure of being the only earning member is down , not that there was much .

I have to dedicate a blog to the quake tournament conducted recently in bangalore by my friend . That I shall do over the weekend .

Now I am gonna make my page look cool !

back from hibernation

2005-01-20T07:08:00.001-08:00

Well, its been quite some time since the last blog . I was moved into a mode with no real motivation to save the occurences around me . Fixing bugs for months on end is no exciting job , I can guarantee that .

But other interesting incidents did come up . Quake has made a re entry into my life ... in the form of a tourney ... and more recently , some interesting stories of a friend of mine came to the fore , and is generating a lot of interest in certain elite circles . The tsunami came and went , but couldn't budge me from my slumber . My geared bicycle ( ! ) is still in good shape and i enjoy riding through the chennai traffic ... helps me dodge rockets and rails better i guess 11 .

Work is not as interesting as it was some time back . Due to some politics (dp) in office , things seem dour , and some impressions of people changed quite a bit .

Got myself a dvd player and a tv tuner card ! ... life is good , but i really wish there was more time in the day and that my LAN started working :(

If i am getting into MBA , i can say that i ve seen some really amazing case studies right in front of my eyes ... though how good i can be i dont know ... but my admiration for the boss grows .

Thats pretty much it , the financial year is about to begin , all the paperwork is in the pipeline ... I hate nothing more than this ! if anyone feels the same , best of luck to u and to me 11

ciao

extract from chappar gandus

2005-01-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

Hmm, I see that the prospect of gossip about all our(pseudo) love affairs has generated quite a bit ofinterest . There is the truth and then there is theopinions which spin around uncontrollably . In a placelike college , it becomes difficult to distinguish thetwo . By popular demand , u wanted 2nd person pov , i amafraid that it will be a breach of trust to do that... i personally would want to spill the beans , butof course i ll try to set a trend ...Please don't use this info for any other reason otherthan perusal and deletion ! or just plain abstraction.I saw her for the first time in the cet cell ... itwasnt love at first sight ... but definitely , shecaught my eye . And then came college , I was sopumped up about a new beginning to my hormone abusedlife , that i was hitting upon all and sundry withoutany "level" . After the initial ruffle , it becamemore reciprocative and i started making friends withthe girls , except one . I had something in me whichmade me say all the wrong things and generally gobananas in front of her . Trying to be the best infront of her , i became a kind of obsequious bot . Life went on and my feelings grew and though I knewthat the right thing to do is always express yourfeelings , i could n't do it . I know that its one ofthe things i regret to this day . There were a lot of intermingled issues during thiswhole fiasco if i may ... which is not worthdiscussing . That was one of my (mis)adventures ... there isanother one ... A friend i gained initially became more than a friend( plz rmmber this is fpv... ie purely me)... and well,as u all know the ice berg beneath all theconversation is the body language . And that was theone that sunk the ship ... I ve heard of ppl being very sure about the partnersthey fancy ... but i have been cursed with an elementof doubt in many things , so that story as well as theother comes to a premature end .In the time between all these events , i did pen someof my best and only rhyme ... if anyone is interestedi can put it up on my blog site .Oh man, i almost forgot the most well documented firstperson pseudo affair ever ... see my "blog of thecentury" in railmani.blogspot.com Well , thats about all i will say , its free tointerpretation .. looking forward to some more stories, urs truly , msk

quake going to rock bangalore !!

2005-01-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

Hey guys , Its true ... a quake measuring real big in whatever units and whatever scale is going to rock bangalore in the january of 2005 .
Thanks to "Maverick" and his never dying love for the game , we are going to have some unforgettable moments in the game's history( ok , cool , u need some melodrama to bring up the josh , u know 11).
Anyways , the venue is a place called XSG in Koramangala , and the gametype ... your favourite : ctf . And to top it all, the qualifier will be the oh so lovely duelling keeps !! The other rounds are still under discussion , but it promises to be one hell of a tourney . Teams are expected from other clans ( q: are we a clan ? should we be ? i think so ...) . Seeing the quality of quake in many places , I think we stand a great chance as a college ... as a clan ... all we need is that little extra bit of josh !
The date is scheduled to be the 15th of this month , as of now .
Keep looking out for this spot for further details . you can put in a comment as a reply to this ,
Come on guys , looking forward to a gory orgy , 11

fare thee well , my quaker ,

- railmani.

paranoia

2004-12-15T05:52:00.000-08:00

Hmm, this is a familiar topic for me . I have always been afflicted by this queer phenomenon . In school , I always thought that I was one guy , never identified my self as a part of any group . So when I expected some trouble , I was always a lonely sufferer . Waiting , for the misdeed to be discovered and then expecting the punishment was as you could imagine , hell . At times like these , it never occured to me to confide in anyone , not my parents , not my brother , not my so called friends . I was a loner .

As I grew up , this quality still remains , but as with many other aspects , its hidden in wrappers . For a person who wants to analyse the behaviour of an adult , especially in a place like an Office where things you say and do matter , his/her skill should lie in body language . The notion that nobody realises what you are up to is not at all valid , because at every interaction with a peer or a superior , you are judged . This might sound surprising , but I realised when I faced feedback from the bosses , that the impression they get is primarily from what you speak and do in front of everyone ... that is projection of the self to a crowd . This is a major factor in selling yourself ... because I know how powerful an impression a teacher creates in the classroom can be . Once again , Mr Rao comes to my mind .

How is this related to paranoia ?
The fact that you are being watched and judged is the answer . This can be seen visually at any workstation where the boss walks over suddenly and demands an explanation for that day's failure to deliver , or something similar . Things can get pretty ugly , when accusations ( maybe valid ) fly when the responsibility for an action is to be taken . But at the end of it all , it could be an excercise to check your behaviour in a real situation ... so the only way to stay ahead of this is to remain calm ... no matter what .

I can correlate this to another thing called killer instinct . The lack of paranoia , I would define as killer instinct in certain contexts . Certainly , in quake , if I never had paranoia , I could thrash anyone .

2004-12-10T04:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday , I relived some of the fun I used to have in my college days....

I have a colleague , who is from ECE just like me and a very fun loving guy ... somewhat like "matter" you could say . We have to submit an assignment ..in fact two by the approaching monday and we decided that tonight we would sit and finish it ..somewhat like our college sessional preparation . We had dinner at a place called Pizzaurant ...u know what it was about from the name . Over there we talked about the good old ECE days when a lot of over head transmission used to occur and things like DSP and signals and systems where things were so hopeless that it was like a 360 degree shift back to zero pressure !!

We commiserated about the plight of the EEE guys in my college and his college ( seems that the universal truth is true outside KREC ! ) . And during this deja vu , there was a "politician screwing " session going on . Two guys , a really old and a middle aged guy were facing the music from an NDTV newsreader ... he was asking them what the rationale behind Sonia Gandhi's , and other politicians' lavish birthday bashes was . To this , these guys answered with utmost contempt , the same old crap about Indian culture , people's love for the leader , wishes that she should live for a 100 years !! This was real fun to watch, this newsreader was screwing them left and right , from the top and bottom , no respect and all, only straight questions , in english ... was real fun watching them stutter and splutter trying to justify things with not one fact , but abstractions !

The fiasco entertained us for some time , then we got back to the office cafe to catch a coffee and get back to work . We used the special luxury couches placed there , and as expected couldn't get up , until hours later ... such is the power of the couch !

Bitching they say is for the ladies , I say men do it as much , could u call it dogging ? hehe
Well, if u haven't tried it , I highly recommend this to all, especially when u have a deliverable the next day , its the most fun to talk about all those meaningless little things which happen . Those pretty things who u always dreamed about at home . Those small hints of attraction , even bigger hints of "f**k off" and countless others . At some point of time , if u can just forget that u r in office and think of it as a mating ground or rather courting ground ... it makes a lot of sense . With the males(analysts) being optionally towards the younger (s/w engr ) .

I found out about some people who actually can live their lives sorting people they know into acquaintances , friends , lover(s)! , family , as if its an addressbook or something !! Well , in this work culture , that might be the right thing to do , or maybe it is the right thing to do anyways .
But , I ain't like that , and an old dog ain't learning new tricks until forced to .

Another kind of people I found out about , the ones who change colours like the chameleon . I know that in situations where they are screwed , people can be really down and really break down sometimes . And later when things are alright , come back and say that it was nothing and get back at you for being there !! Well .... personally, I dont care for such things much , dont know if its a good thing or not , consistency of behaviour or atleast character is a desirable thing ...at all places ...work, friendship and relationships . And that coming from the most impulsive guy around ... hey but I am consistently impulsive right ?

The day ended with a ride back home on a CBZ at 1 am , and getting back to office at 9 am is no small challenge .....

different faces of the s/w industry ..

2004-12-08T05:01:00.000-08:00

I was sad and I was lonely ... a year ago
Going through the moves without much ado
All around me people were going places , they were getting placed
I ... watched on silently , nothing showing on my face
And then it happened on a sunny day ,
It was summer you see and the heat was holding sway ...
They came , they saw and they recruited me !
I was overcome with ...joy ? somewhat , but felt more like "why we?"

But that was long ago , and now I am something more ...
Learning the ropes in a different arena , I entered a novice to the s/w core ,
I worked and worked and still felt bad
Until I realised that there was much fun to be had ...
Be clearer to your boss , I learnt , for hes watching you
Wherever you are , good or bad !
So when you like some work say it so , and hate something ... could make you mad
Many things I learnt from this boss of mine ...
Saying what you feel can be done with a smile
Telling you to work can be made to feel like a cup of wine

Through a crisis you 'll be put ,
Just to see, how well you can earn your cut,..maybe ?
No way , its to see how you can handle your butt
The more levels there are between you and the boss
The more screwed becomes the words that are put .
A tear or two can easen things ... when you are under pressure
But boy can it screw up your future pleasure !
An enterprising attitude all the bosses seek ,
Show that you are strong , not that you are weak .
If you have an idea , make it a product and sell it to him ,
If he buys it , you be sure that chances are not actually slim!

At many times a thought comes by ,
Am i the winner in this bargain or is there is something beyond the blue sky ?
I get lost in thought , and am rudely awoken , by the harsh ceiling lights ...
The sky is blocked , the lights are there to remind you ... we are paying you so high ,
So you better work hard , cause the day of appraisal is ever so nigh !

Between the boss and I ,
Lies another experienced guy .
Hes the jack of all (MicroSoft) trades ,
Technically speaking , he would have got good grades (were in school).
The boss who was , has taken a break and the jack takes over and reports to him ...
A new complication enters our simple bug fixing life .
The communication to the highest branch now is filtered by a knowing hand .
A few days later , a feedback is in order says the experienced guy .
I am interested , because he said it , as he looked into my eye .

"Come out with what you think " he says ,
A thought not spoken , is a thought not used .
A mind capable of brilliant things , is being wasted by not .. marketing ..!?
"Come on, I know all of this", I thought , but being silent ... is it such an ill spot ?
Being capable is not enough , for this is not school ... or for that matter college
Where the grades can come and go , without a thought passing through the gray matter ...
More vital is to "do and show " , for a good deed done is not a good deed seen ...
Some facts are difficult to stomach , especially where you are told you suck !?
"I know what I am , what the f**k ? " comes to the tip of the tongue ...
But think some more , from the boss's shoes ,
Move with the peers and do what they do .

Taking an initiative is brownie point always ,
And it earns respect , for your dedication and creative ways .
Pressure can change things sometimes , the egg may become harder when boiled , or sometimes start cracking ...
The boss ain't eat no egg , he just likes watching and learning .
Tested and tried until you are for a better place to hold ...
A promotion will have to wait , my friend ... so be bold
And make progress everyday , without being told .
"Cause at the end of the day" , the boss will always say ...
An idea thought is of no use , ... produce it and sell it to him ,
then your chances aren't actually slim .

--- railmani

chasing your dreams ...

2004-11-25T07:45:00.000-08:00

I had a good learning experience recently ...

I have been working in my company for the last 5 months . I joined as a college recruit , with little or no knowledge about the company ( not that it mattered much at that time ) . Later on entering the company , I was chosen from among the freshers to be in one of the most happening projects in the company called "iobi" , ( something like a yahoo messenger , but with much more functionality , imagine getting your phonecalls on your office monitor and then forwarding it to your home phone or vice versa, handling ur mails and voice mails and all that stuff thru one application on ur desktop ! ) . Well , it was amazing the way this product was projected to us as freshers , special care was taken to make it appear special and it did !
At this point I was chosen as a recruit for this project which incidentally required c++ training experience ... the irony of the situation was that most of the people there were compsci people ... I was one of the small no. of tronix junta ... i was chosen and put into a project for undisclosed reasons over the programming bonds from iits and iiits !

Anyway , it was an unique and novel situation to be in for me . Getting placed in this company was mainly due to my ignorance or computer science subjects ... and getting through the 2 hr interviews ( 1 tech -> hr :)) was a breeze . And then again , singled out for my ignorance of the computer science ( i did ask a question to the head of this project at his presentation to the freshers " what hopes does an enc guy have at ur project " ) ...and for asking the right question .
Coming through all this , the expectations from the people at the project actually was and is pretty high .

Initially , getting to just be with my project partners ( totally 8 in no.including me ) was something not so easy , but slowly , things got better . We got to know each other better and even the boss who was himself a student a year back at ISB and he , us .

Some of my preconcieved notions about working in a software company came crashing down literally ! The idea that individual labour brings about more productivity cannot true in a software company . However brilliant you are , if u just take the trouble to or let down ur ego for a second , you can hit upon a better solution that can make life much better for you and the company and everybody else as a consequence !! I always thought that problem should always be taken head on and being at it for long periods of time will eventually break it down . But often I realised that the reverse is true , instead of the problem , you can end up broken down ! Thats when someone called a "boss" comes into picture . Though , ideally , say according to a person like Ayn Rand , or IR Rao for that matter , you should be mature enough to know that already and its natural and all, this is exactly what the boss figure kind should be equipped to handle !
If hes heading a group of programmers , he should have been or should still be a programmer himself/herself and empathise with the employee and offer help , suggestions , criticism wherever required . Nothing can be more disconcerting than to be under the thought that ur boss doesn't care about you , in turn u dont care about the job , and ultimately u screw up ur career , not his !

I was at some point of time last week , literally bored with the work I was given , it was like asking 7 night mare bots to play against one hurt me plenty !! Thats when I said it out loud to him . He took me in to the conference room and we had a 1:1 talk on what my misgivings were . I got a good lecture about" following one's passions " . If you want to do something especially more than you are , you should be that much more enthu in achieving it . Sitting at a place and complaining that its not coming will get nobody nowhere . Well , I got the message very clearly and as a reward for being open mouthed , I did get some work in my favourite area : graphics .

Chasing my dreams in this field or any other is something which I have never done fully at any time . My sketching skills are still sketchy , poetry is highly dependant on my mood ... programming not worth mentioning , but at the source of the problem lies something , believing that things will happen on their own . It does to some extent , I understood ... but to take it that far where u want to go , there is no substitute for hard work . And thats why ...this is one dream I am prepared to catch , the prize to be paid for this I dont know , but I will make it worth it .....

"man is the fountainhead of creation " - ayn rand

the stack is filling up

2004-11-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

Whats happening to me these days ? I honestly feel I am letting go of apprehensions much easier than i used to ... a few years back and in childhood . I was an able suitor sometime back and now I am a regular at the gym ... even the instructor calls me "body builder "...that he calls almost everyone is another story altogether . And then the latest to the list goes my bicycle !

Yes you read right , I bought a cycle ... initially I argued with myself that a bike was a better option and I could roam the city with it and take the babes with me and all that ... but coming to think of it , the buses were a better option for long distance transport and there were no babes to talk of ... no gf either . And on the poisitive side , the sheer thrill of going downhill on gravity is exhilirating and when you think of all the money and petrol you are saving , and the calories you are burning , with the cycle actually going places ! ( no offence to the gym cycle ) ... its a gr8 feeling .

Today , I took the initiative and with a little help from the roomie from a different zone , I managed to get up and come all the way to office in guindy from adyar , cycling on sardar patel road ! Sounds impressive right ? Well , the actual figures are something like this , its about 5 km and quite a bit of the distance is downhill ... any way ,the ride back home ought be quite a challenge then .

Another member to be added to the stack of activities is the french renaissance ... actually this only refers to moi...and my revived will to learn a little further in that romantic language ..,
It seems the company is going to be good , with the madamoiselle who returned 'false' to a certain function call I made and a few others .

With the performance appraisal approaching , I am beginning to feel that I am not upto the mark , considering the amount of work partners have done and are willing to do compared to me . The work is just not inspiring to me ... is my argument , whether its valid or not I don't know ... but thats the way it is .

The time is 8 :55 and the day begins now ...

post message

2004-11-18T05:54:00.000-08:00

There is this thing in the stuff i work on , its called " post message " .... a VC++ function . It will ask some program to do a carry out some task and then continue on its path of execution .
I ve observed that this is the was that many people and teams also function in this and probably many other organisations . The boss gives the employee some work and goes on with his ... the teacher goes on teaching irrespective of whether the student has understood or not ... The prospective lover sends a bunch of messages on the mobile without waiting to check the reply to the first message he sent ... and after all the damage is done wonders why he didnt wait .
The disadvantages of this obvious , ... but that is the only way some things work ... I can think of a place where this method is both avoided and used a lot , the conference room. when one does not want anyone to ask any questions about what is going on , just don't give any details ...brush over and make sure everything sounds very convincing even its all crap . I ve seen it work with a lot of people ... even the most observant of leads sometimes go with the flow . The whole concept of email works on this principle ... if the recepient responds fine , otherwise what the hell... doesn't matter anyway !

Often the intranet chat also seems to take on this avatar ... where the person is not responding at will and to make her respond ... u need to post provocative messages or atleast something relatively more interesting than the previous time of post . If there was an award for the most creative ways of starting a chat ... i would definitely at least apply for it ! for I know some people who could be termed "cyber casanovas" .... one particular guy comes to my mind ... we used to call him "gutlee" , now hes breaking the hearts of many a mysore girl .

A very potent tool in the right hands , the intranet chat can also be a more potent tool in the hands of the organisation which wants to deal you a heavy hand ... cuase u would provide them with all the proof necessary to chuck u out if the necessity arose !! by chatting about all subjects under the sun ..on an infrastructure privided for "company purpaoses" whatever that may be .

All said and done , the electronic media is truly amazing ... with the kind of connectivity that we have now , theres no scope for romantic letters and long awaited telegrams and the like ,... everything is instantaneous and its all over in a few seconds ... this also applies to a lot of other things in the privacy of the home .

A thought to finish off" As the sphere of knowledge grows , the contact with the unknown increases .... " - psb

Its like a law, no contradiction anywhere and is universal ... think about it .

a rhythm or a groove ?

2004-11-10T07:30:00.000-08:00

Things seem to be getting more and more familiar now . The code , the partners , the office and all the people who come here everyday . Initially I was timid and having just learnt a lot of etiquette and stuff from the non technical training was out to please everyone . Made a lot of acquaintances . Practically spoke to everyone I had met earlier in the training . There were a few people who I did want to say a lot to . I think I ve managed to do that to . And now , the scene is changing slowly . The bosses , the colleagues all appear human and not wretched participants in a rat race . One thing I discovered about all of them . They have a sense of devotion to work .... I used to find this in college too . I too have it in me ... and this place is bringing it out ... but there are good days and then there are bad days .

On a good day , I get to office on time , or just a few minutes late and everything goes gr8 , I ask all the right questions and have some of the answers . The attitude is good on such days ... I am out to grab things ,but when u are feeling tired and sleepy or just plain disinterested , it imiediately shows on the faces of people around you . It makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with them , when in fact the problem lies with u!!

I read enuff fundas and hear them too to last me for a life time . Some are given by caring seniors , who generally say, be careful , plan well in advance to do what you want in the future .
This is something I am immediately unable to answer .

I got an interesting perspective on this issue ... "I am new to this work , but I want to give it my best shot , and effort and that is my goal " , said my illustrious roomie . Made me wonder ...

The developments in the fiasco of proposal are not many , I still communicate regularly with the dame , and its fun becoz that urge of impressing her with stuff is gone . Now we are really friends .

The diwali holidays are approaching , and the company did its bit by giving a big box of sweets to all employees - including tech , non tech and everyone else ..the same type of box . To put it in c++

The Company superclass , gave each employee thread an object containing an array of sweets ... and this resulted in a response which when decoded said " Making progress everyday - the motto is alive " ....

Blog of the century

2004-11-06T05:04:00.000-08:00

A few years back, when I was in college ... I was faced with a situation . The situation that everyman fears probably more than death itself . I personally find it difficultt to believe that anyone except someone exceptionally sure of hinmself , or someone who seriously doesn't are about the consequeces can go to a girl and say to her " will you marry me ? " .
Now the number of people I know have done exactly that has increased from one to two .

Now let me get into the narrative ....

A few days back in this company I work, I had proposed to a girl and she had rejected it ...not summarily , but with a very strange reply . She said that her love was abroad in the states and he never reciprocated this feeling . Come to think of it , it seemed totally ridiculous to me at that time , a software engineer falling falling for such a sentimental trap .

And I ... even after knowing this , fell into the very same trap ...or rather was embezzled deeper into it as I tried not to . And this eventually led to my asking her the question that can make or break a relationship once again ...

Using all the logic and reasoning I had learnt from books , movies ,friends , relatives , going to be relatives and personal introspection , I presented very convincing arguments . The result was announced initially by the opponent , but who can stand up to reason and reasoning . Through the course of the conversation , the truth emerged . I was eventually shocked . I initially assume that a person tells the truth . And in this case I must have been blinded by the situation's novelty and its implications .

The whole story of a sentimental lover dreaming about a lost cause and story of a virtual widow and all that ....was as it really is ... a cock and bull story ..a big crock of shit , As Al Pacino says in "Scent of a woman " . The truth emerged as the lover being very real and very close .... living , ironically in the place of my birth !

The story ended with the my experience being updated in the relationship dept . And also that all things are'nt what they seem to be ... people aren't always truthful , who knows the reasons ? but it still remains a fact . So now, I can proudly say that I am "just friends " with a person and this will make many people feel "j" ... :)

I personally always say the truth , at least I don't lie through my teeth ... selective presentation of facts is the safest and most diplomatic approach to life in the office and sometimes personal as well .

I still have serious doubts to the question of "falling in love " phenomenon . Something which is sometimes very interesting to think about and at others the most banal concept ever . Anyway , I have entered the "single and looking " phase again and will for some time in the future :(

So , guys whoever is reading this , never let feelings get over reason ... reason is always right and "Contradictions do not exist , examine your premises "

Tiny nothings = something

2004-11-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

Nothing of great consequence or significance to report today , but a lot of little things do keeo happening all the time . The little pings on the intranet , which are so pleasant when they are unexpected or for that matter even unexpected ...from the girl you like . The word "like" is used here because I am not sure of the feeling . I could go on about that and beat around the bush for an eternity ... but whats the point .

There was a really cool game in the mail today , one in which the mouse control was laterally inverted and you have to direct a square through mazes ...pretty difficult at sight , but for a q3 defragger , its no big deal . She was struggling to get through the 10 th level . I came back and finished it at a stretch ( 20 in all ) . Thus the game ceased to excite once it was done . Anyway , sitting next to her and doing it itself was worth it :)

A really pleasant surprise greeted me the other day, when Shrikanth told me about his crush in college . I couln't have found a more similar case like mine , but I refrained to counsel too much , because I myself am an experimental model . And the implications of wrong counsel could be huge .

The roomie is doing a lot of things in secret ... he suddenly got a snail mail from Tampa , Florida yesterday which ! I was so surprised ...that I wanted to open it immediately , but that was against my policy and so he was spared some embarassment and me some shame .

My natural flair for comedy is coming out now,all the people are familiar now in the project and this is acting like a catalyst . Pjs are so many a day that even gutlee might be shamed by the sheer cheek of the ppl cracking them .

Went shopping over the weekend , to Saravana stores ... only to be stuck in a human traffic jam . Come to think of it , it would be infinitely enjoyable if there were only young women in the crowd and you are the only guy in it . But the truth is far from the opposite even. The crowd is predominantly female and all are aunties and ajjis and girls ... shoving and pushing without any restraint . I was taken aback and stayed that way until I was safely through the stampede .
The city is teaching me things in a way I never learnt before !

Nothing can always be shown as something if rephrased in the right way and thats what I did for you right now , ... enjoy

the gym

2004-10-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

There have been no interesting developments of late . My engg drawing coaching was a big flop , considering my student (Shrikant - house owner's son) didn't do well in his test . Well ... in the time we had , which was about 2 hours , I did a fairly decent job of explaining the problems his teacher had done in class and hoodwink the students into believing that they had understood . Hmm , I always told him to follow what the teacher says and ask until understood . I followed this in school but later after entering the state board in 11th and 12th , there is very little of understanding in the classroom or for that matter even in tuitions . The whole focus lies on getting the portions completed and giving notes which will help in cracking the theory paper . I remember that when in school or in puc, I never understood the reason of doing labs . It was a big pain in the neck , ...it was because I didn't understand the theory in the first place . The whole point of labs was to consolidate on theory and convince oneself of the "Truth" .

Now that school and college is over , I have a 3rd person's pov on the student and i find it hard to see how anyone could be inspired by the way the subjects are taught in colleges . First of all , Engg Graphics must be taught by someone who loves to do it . Understanding it doesn't mean that he or she can teach it . Getting the message across is the more difficult job at hand .

Now coming to think of it , the job of teaching small kids addition and mutilplication and all that must be a really difficult job . I was punished by a teacher in school because i couldn't do multiplication after taking a leave on the previous class . That was really ridiculous it seems now , but at that time it was terribly unfair . Anyway , some learn and some give up , I learnt .

The situation is not really different nowadays , there are situations from which you can learn and improve ...its all upto you to take it up and make use of it . The boss today made sure that I learnt something about the "addressbook "today . Pretty simple actually , when someone who has done it already explains it to you .

On the social side , I am getting into a groove . Not really bothered about going out and making friends and all that now . My project partners are pretty ok to pass the time with and the work day goes fine. The last three days though have been unproductive ... no irs from my side for the last 3 days .

Anyway the weekend is approaching and theres a lot to be done in the gym ,
adios

inspired by DAL, invoked by kudva

2004-10-26T01:52:00.000-07:00

This was written in response to Kudva's request for a poem to DAL ... if a disc jockey is called dj and a radio jockey is called rj , is a poem jockey a pj? 11

I walked along the beach one day ,
a place called adyar, far far away
at the crack of dawn I had a thought
how things were when I had with a passion fought
the scene was the hardware lab
i initially thought the partners were drab
there they were going for the circuit with gusto
i knew that if i wanted to make a difference i too had to grab
a chance to show i was as smart as a crab !
at a point of time when the going was tough
i could not listen and said it rough
"i do what i want, i work alone "
would have been better to have been hit by a stone !
than have the skinny guy throw moral at me
but behind the harangue there stood a man
a man with a firm beliefs and build so wee
all i did was give a smile so wan
follow his path i did and was taken back in
He sat through and made me understand grim
And thus made me a fan of him
Often when I was in a sticky place
In my thoughts or in the exam craze
The mind would grow dull
Thats when the time would come to go to DAL
With the right guidance at the right time ,
a lot of fun with it the exams were passed
For all this work , there had to be a fitting pay
And so the time was spent in virtual play

The arena beckoned all in many ways
Some lived there to frag and be fragged
Others watched with support that often swayed
DAL came,saw,commented ... with him it was never adrag

The place of learning never missed
A day without the perpetual pen
In the hands of DAL ..it wrote like it kissed
The paper , to which was added zen
Innocently he did what he knew best
But there were evil minds at work in the shadows
Crowd behaviour often threw caution to the windows
All sources of a noise was directed to DAL
By the jealous people of the learning hall
A good spirit he took it in and the laughter rangclear and true
why sometimes I had no clue .

The legend of DAL still grows in a different place Iknow
Some lucky dame is watching for sure
For some surprises sure will come to be thrown
And for a day which is past
I wish again and hope for a paid repast
from the one only DAL ti guy !

- Karthik

dan dee yeah !

2004-10-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

The hype was big and the food was sweet ... now I know the reason why the Gujjus are fat !
Of course the babes are hot , but thats a totally different issue altogther . The office cafe was sparkling with lights and a stubborn crowd . A part of it refusing to stop dancing and the others refusing to start dancing ...the latter being more .Joined the fun and petered out my energy quickly .. wonder how I ll be later in life ! Any way the short burst of energy is always worth it , esp if you have your special one beside you at least for a moment .

And then theres the work , today was a good day for me , showing some independance to myself first and then to the boss ...was most satisfying . Earning ones worth is really worth it , watsay ?
The nine nights approach ... thats what all the fuss is all about . The religion is present without even if not within my head !

Come to think of it , a thought came to my mind suddenly ... I like to face things alone and doing it in a crowd makes me feel insecure and unproductive and for many others its the other way around . Hmmm, maybe I could turn it into an advantage but then I do agree that the other factor is as maybe even more important in a workplace . After all who would like to help a guy who never speaks unless required .

The home beckons again ..more so because now I have the licence to ride a bike with gears and can go to unexplored territory within the home city ...but not much time to do so :)

Heading back home to help the dude with engg drawing is the present task ... gbye

Listening .. a great quality

2004-10-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

At times in the office , it gets so frustrating when you don't get feedback from the people around you ... whether you areof any help to them when u take your time out and help them or when your boss is happy with your work or not or just when your friends seem to be in silent mood .
The last is the main reason my mind works overtime creating imaginary plots and possible solutions for them and then fail them and again start over . It can get to be a very tiring process... the immediate and most feasible solution is to tell someone about it . Once thats done, some how the load just lifts . I discovered this thing very late in life :) but still just the same better late than never .

Also the average woman likes the communicating guy much better than the silent brooder . Having been both selectively for quite some time now , I have been through a mixture of responses . The knowledge of what is to be done and what not to be done doesnt necessarily mean that you can immediately go out and start doing it , right ? maybe you can , but for me its always been a slow process ... esp in matters which involve other people .

Today , in a familiar group discussion , just a hangout kind of people who know each other .. I did it again and was feeling left out ... generally you can't hang out with someone just sitting there doing nothing right ? Thats the reason I feel so stupid sometimes ... something like writer's block , or just plain cynicism donno . Anyway , I was brooding about it and decided to tell someone about it and the girl I had/have a crush on was the logical person . She listened or rather read and that was more than I wanted . I didnt need any solutions ..that comes around eventually , but that made my day :) ...although it was well into the night .

The quakers of college have revived to some extent , thanks some to yours truly and the "dot "
Great networking happening for me on the written frontier but the oral is lacking drastically .
Anyway , tomorrow is the dandiya dance in the cafeteria and that must be fun ... all the girls , some pretty are gonna be there . Still not decided whether to dance or not . Will see ...
Boozing for it is not an option , so ... it has to be conscious and for that i need to sleep now . Good night , dreamless sleep

Waning and new interests

2004-10-18T08:01:00.000-07:00

The day I lost to "sir" in quake , not once , but several times is still fresh in my mind . The humiliation of defeat is not one of the things I am used to taking .But when its rubbed in again and again its getting to me . If I win a match against him , I will literally .... this brings back memories of IR Rao and his first year "fiasco" ... not really a fiasco but ...

The time of the year was august 2000 I think ..and at that time , I had just entered one of the best colleges ( engg) in India . I was living amongst the smartest people in the country ... popular belief says that iits rate top and then come recs in the second rung ... I don't know about that , my pals in coll were simply amazing . I too was one among them at some point of time . It was a mental block which its all about . Education ... as it is suppposed to be was something and is something of a dream . That dream can only be lived by you , if are ready to take the effort to convert that vision into reality . That was what IRR wanted to show us in that short time we spent with him in first semester.

Honest thoughts from the heart and each hour spent with him was a glorious experience ...learning the true " meaning " of meaning itself . I for one didnt know that a ten ruppee note was not actually 10 Rs , but a representation of ten ruppees . A ruppee is a value which is represented by a coin with ruppee written on it ... its not a ruppee itself !

Well, its twisted ... I know but when told the way we were told by Mr.Rao , things can't be forgotten . Sushya has the distinction of having said to the gr8 man " Your paper was easy "
about his unsolvable sessional papers (mid terms in iim terms) and that at that time was the greatest thing I had seen in my life . And so life went on peacefully , until one day the girls complained to him about the lewd stuff some of the perverted guys had written . Proceeding from there on ... we received a great deal of gyaan told in the IRR style . Perversion was redefined by the man , until it was so firmly established in my mind that its hard coded in my brain I think .

The remedial measures we were to take to restore the class's respect in our own eyes was to scrape off the filth from the tables and chairs and revarnish the furniture ! It seemed ridiculous to accede to such a request especially if u were n't guilty .But I was a little guilty ..of drawing a batman figure on a table . And so I joined the ranks of the guilty ( inspired was I by the man ) and did my part in cleaning the tables and chairs . And after that the amount of trust shown by the man in our actions made each of us proud . Still can't forget the feeling at that point in space and time . I seriously doubt I will meet anyone like that again ... or hope to become like him 11

The life as a software engineer goes on ... the feeling of novelty is wearing off slowly ... but the feeling of familiarity with the colleagues is welcome . The partners I never used to speak with are reducing in number . But there is still one girl ... donno what to do about it , so I ll leave it at at that ... professionalism is enough right ? at the workplace , can you be friends with all , is it necessary ? any comments are welcome .

I recently found a treasurehouse of stories on my office intranet ... gr8 asimov and many others present !! Spent the major portion of the day following a story ..." the bicentennial man " ..learnt that the movie is not all that loyal to the story . There were a lot of additions to the original story to make it more watchable . In the end I ll say the movie is a really great adaptation and modification ... the unanswered call of "andrew", the robot who turns human after 2 centuries ... is answered in the movie version, makes the viewer happy and I too really liked it .Typically in novels such ends are left incomplete and are meant to leave the readers think about ... no moral conclusion is offered ... rather thought if provoked ... thats why I love sci fi . gr8 read , worth the time spent .

thats it for the day ... this makes my load of words a lot lighter :)

return of the "jeddi"

2004-10-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

I am "Back with a bang" , (remembering the first T shirt the bangys designed in the first year in college ) ... the college memories were recently stirred by the convocation ceremony held last weekend . Expectations were high on my part . I was hoping the whole quakers community of the batch of 2k4 would be there to celebrate the "final orgy " , but disappointment awaited me .
I made a big mistake of not spending time with the people there and sitting in front of the dumb ole pcs watching quake demos and playing ctf ...

Nothing remarkable happened in those two days ... the hype for the convocation was big ...real big , especially the enc crowd was there to make it all happen ... The best outgoing student , the D's , the kandu fundus , the trimurthys , the manis and everyone else came from the four corners of the country ... the closest corner being bangalore

Meeting the teachers wasn't a plan in my schedule , but I did try to speak to mom ... but ditched it when i found she wasn't really interested .

On the high side , saw some great quake demos and vids , defrag rocks ...!!!! great people those guys are who can fly around with rocket jumps and climb walls with plasma guns . And then the final between czm and zero4 was ammmazing !!
The way z4 gets raped by this kiddish looking guy ..czm , the arena was ztn and the quality of gaming was just amazing ..I used to think that unkind was the god in this particular arena ...but czm is ulti ulti .

The office life is going on .... development work is happening ... finally . Got a feel of the future today in a teleconference and later a code merge. Very cool watching this happen ...
will continue tomorrow with more exciting stuff (11)

ciao

monday morns

2004-10-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

A weekend at home has a good effect of relaxing the nerves ... makes the world seem much les dependant on the stuff that goes on in office . The newly earned status of a working man is also very nice ... dad is not as stubborn as he used to be earlier and well , I don't have to ask him for money each time for anything i need ... not that he ever refused , but there is no guilty feeling now :)
Anyway you are now reading the blog of a valid licence holder for 2 and 4 wheelers , whats the bige deal u may ask ... it is , becoz a car was always something like a space ship for me , some kind of a divine vehicle which ony the rich had and only the great drove ... but now I am doing it ! so its even better . About the bike , well I love riding the bike , because being on it , man and machine is the best feeling sometimes ... signifies a passion and a drive and a will to break barriers .
Convocation is approaching soon , and well looking at the nitk homepage , it seems pretty clear I won't be able to collect my degree certificate in person , although I will be available there ... pretty lousy , but I deserve it I know . The ceremony may not be great but having that photo sitting (standing) among the smartest people in the country would have been a great thing .
There might be a sloution, got to go there and check it out I guess .
The plans for the quake games are on though . The juniors will be instrumental in this thing , if they don't theres no point in going at all .
The week begins again ... and this time , I am before time for work ! !! , hope the lack of sleep in the train doesn't get me this time too ... otherwise looking forward to the weekend , incidentally I had a lot of ideas about starting some kind of enthu over here to make people start writing actual mails and not just forward things as they do indiscriminately . Will go about it and then report ; )
Getting back to work ......

tension kai ko lene ka ?

2004-09-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

Well , the documentation night mare isn't over , but the hot head phenomenon has subsided (hopefully for good) and a new perspective is making the going easier . Communication with the boss is very important , I learnt yesterday ... the issue was that I was putting pressure on myself to complete a job which takes time to be done well... and I was trying to speed up without asking his opinion... eventually though I did ask him how I was doing, and surprisingly he really meant that there was no problem and time was not a problem , the quality mattered .

Relief is a great feeling especially because going home for the weekend without any office thoughts is very important ! else my hands would be in bangalore and my mind in chennai :)

I did a really gr8 thing today (??) ... I told a girl that I had a crush on her . I didn't know what to expect cause it was my first time ever . Shes a cool one , though and has no problem talking with all the guys in the company unlike me with a withdrawn approach to girls . Well .... I am not sure what I am going to do next , so work will go on as usual . ... until then missing (in) office

early bird gets the worm???

2004-09-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

The day started off with getting up to the sound of my watch alarm which wasn't loud enuff and repititive enough to get me out of bed and running . Reached the office at 10 30 , although I am supposed to be here by 9 am . Well , the reason is very noble , its to get used to the future steady job requirements ... but in 2 days , its difficult to change ... eventually it will happen though .
The documentation will go on i guess , because its not as simple as it looks . Working alone is still not very comfortable , need help at some point or the other . Everybody's busy fixing ir's , ... i am still a v'ir'gin heheheh :)
An insightful comment made me go back at the job , with some renewed josh , but this heat in the head is really making my life miserable . I don't know how it will be percieved if I told my boss ... as earlier my doc told me it was just my imagination . How can that be possible ?
Anyway , one thing is for sure , it happens only when I am working on the code ... any answers my readers ( if getcount(readers) > 0) ;)
Not the most popular guy around , but being percieved as a loner is not good for me , I know ...and being told by another is even worse . I can't be normal in the office with all the stack in my head with stuff from the code - makes me less than human -- more like a machine .
That reminds me "The Matrix" was a gr8 movie for many reasons ... especially for the "mentally enslaved " ... the human workforce to operate machines communicating in the machine's language so that other ppl can then use these machines .
Well ... life goes on ....without quake ,and with out excercise . The moment of joy when the boss says "good " lasts for a very short time ...but at least it was there . The time spent at the workplace is increasing ... procrastination ... slow learning , lack of motivation ... whatever maybe , the *%()%( " hot head " is killing me

documentation nightmare

2004-09-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

On a day in the recent past , when I was still in the blissfuk days of preemployment and post college days , my brother told me of a "law". This law he said is nothing less than the "Newton's law of management " ... it goes like this : "Any work u do, will always expand to fit in the time allocated or available ( <=) " . I don't know the gr8 person who framed it , but u r right dude ... I am in the middle of ur law's consequences . My flow documentation is going on forever and forever ... yeah there were a few extraneous factors which did go against my favour ... but in this "grab ur chance " kind of world ... well u got to grab it . "Karorepathi kumar" voices all the thoughts in his head to all and sundry ..indiscriminately ..and especially to the "lead" ... and thus gets all the attention( and yeah another credit to the guy who said " the crying baby gets the milk) .
The flows went on for the best part of the last 2 weeks ... everybody took their time and then bang it was my turn out of the blue ... the feedback came and the work stacked up . Unstacking it is going on .... painfully slow , I always say ..go for the bigger picture and then everything will fall in place ... but to apply it in this scenario ( hehehe) will take a dude ... i know a few of those knid . Anyway , the details get me so engrossed , I either ignore them completely or go so deep into them that they eventually lead me into blind alleys or just dead ends . I found out with the help of "opener " Halid today that the dead and forgotten flows resurrect at some point and the tool of resurrection is the innocent ^$%*$%* debugger .
Whatevers happened for the weekend is so so distant , I need a $%&^ break from this stuff ... breathlessly waiting for the coming thursday night and to home sweet home i will return .

The Boss from "onshore " leaves today ... gr8 guy , can "basically " get things moving ... inicdentally I found out he was one of the guys responsible for starting the project I'm in ... so destiny intertwined the fates of so many of us ... OnResponse() to that Event ;)
He got a farewell gift from the entire floor and "basically" he was smiling all the way to the exit .

Expectations are real high it seems ... the focus being on fixing IRs ! I ve got a few choice words to say about IRs ... will save them for later . The only thing in this whole thing I am interested in doing is creating something or atleast look at something visual ... hope the dude who said " everything comes to him who waits " gets a kudos from my side .

Getting out of here with the documentation safely done is what i am going to do .... or try to do

adios

Still on the weekend

2004-09-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Today's a sunday ... but theres still work left over :(
Thats just the tip of the ice berg ..the problem runs much deeper , is it because I am too slow at doing the assigned work or because its so boring and mechanical that I can't stand it I don't know .... but yeah on thing is for sure , it needs to be done by tonight !

The day appeared dreary as it began at 12 pm ( when I was awoken by manmadha raasa's call ) ... but it turned out to be real fun as I got treated to a great lunch and an enjoyable movie . The movie wasn't enjoyable because of its quality , but because it was trying to wrap the weak script and lack of story so hard , that it was an insult to the senses .... not all senses though ;)

Diya Mirza heated up the screen initially with a zabardast striptease ...though she ain't as voluptuous as I would have liked . But nevertheless she was bloody HOT , wearing next to nothing. And not to forget the smoches , really shocking (pleasantly ) the way smooches are appearing out of context everywhere . Wonder when they will happen in the right context ?
Anyway , there was big group of people and the generous benefactors of the treat made sure the food was filling ( thank you so much aish,manmadha raasa , and anusha ) and the movie was fun too .

Now back to the present , I am back at the office finishing off the work ... positively said this time ... a few words of advice from the pros do help occasionally ... well , I gotta be getting back to work then , tomorrow is "judgement day" (:+())