Then and Now

I had read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead when I was in college, my dad's colleage gave it to me. I didn't like the book - it was just like any other "romance" "novel" read by chicks. I didnt know about Ayn Rand at that time, she is supposedly a great author and a beacon for atheists and some sort of free-market enthusiasts everywhere. All my b-school aspirant buddies and most of my b-school buddies rave about her. Now I read that book again and still couldn't find it interesting. Now I know she is a famous author, so am I supposed to like her? Like her, because she is famous and liked by others?

Radio in Chennai

This places seems to be very famous with spammers :-( Anyways, I have been listening to the radio for the last 2months in Chennai. Chennai has sort of become a pioneer, but not for the usual reasons. Till a few years back, before I left this place, radio was heavily censored for "vulgar" content - only the clean version of any song was played, even words that can have a political meaning were blanked or bleeped out. But, I have noticed that the explicit version of the songs are played - using words that mean various things from dangly bits to synonymns for copulation, and various nicknames for the females. I don't know how no one is saying anything.
When I came back, I noticed many billboards around my house (which happens to be close to a women's college and school) advertising a female contraceptive "Miss-Take" The ad showed a happy female hugging a male with his face hidden. The next week, there was a report on Kumudam Reporter (or Nakkeeran, who knows, all these mags seem the same) about how Miss-take is "encouraging teenagers to make mistakes" (clever wordplay, huh?) I was expecting this sort of a thing and wanted to take a photo of the boards, but it was too late. I didn't make the connection between the position of the billboards (4 of them) and the college/school (which I now think were the target audience ;) But I noticed the prepare to get assaulted billboard featured here (Conservative City) with the manly part covered, was still up (the board I mean) with the part still covered. This board is in Loyola College, and Loyola College is one of those straight-laced Christian run colleges!

Yauwee! (or My Boring Life)

It's been over a month since I blogged last. I am not dead yet, but I have been sent to Heck, where this not so mean looking guy spanks me everyday with what looks like a big spoon. I also go everyday to a place, where there are lots of boxes filled with people in it. I think, they are being put there to be harvested. Once they grow out of that box, I think they will be moved to a bigger office with windows. Don't believe what dilbert says, those places are not as cozy as a womb. My routine has been set here, no mountains to trek, no places to hang out all night. I am now spending all my free time looking after two kids - one 3 year old and a 1 month old - the former always crying and the 2nd always sleeping, eating, and pooping. Good boy, he doesn't cry that much, like what Emma does in Friends or something or the other. Au revoir!

Sigh

I am spending the last few minutes in this office now. I quit it and am going back to my home town, Madras.

Namesake

Just following some intermanational nooz...
This American soldier killed in Iraq has been revealed to be a madrasi!! From Madras, USA, not the Madras.
Still, sad news.

Anti-south Songs

Nothing to do, so some south bashing songs.

-----

HOTEL KERALA-FONIA
Copyright The Yeagles

On the road to Trivandrum
Coconut oil in my hair
Warm smell of avial
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a bright pink tube-light
My tummy rumbled, I felt weak and thin
I had to stop for a bite
There he stood in the doorway
Flicked his mundu in style
And I was thinking to myself
I don't like the look of his sinister smile
Then he lit up a petromax
Muttering "No power today"
More Mallus down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel Kerala-fonia

Such a lousy place,
Such a lousy place (background)
Such a sad disgrace,
Plenty of bugs at the Hotel Kerala-fonia
Any time of year
Any time of year (background)
It's infested here
It's infested here

His finger's stuck up his nostril
He's got a big, thick mustache
He makes an ugly, ugly noise
But that's just his laugh
Buxom girls clad in pavada
Eating banana chips
Some roll their eyes, and
Some roll their hips
I said to the manager
My room's full of mice
He said,
Don't worry, saar,I sending you
meen karri, brandy and ice
And still those voices were crying from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them pray

Save us from the Hotel Kerala-fonia
Such a lousy place,

Such a lousy place (background)
Such a sad disgrace
Trying to live at the Hotel Kerala-fonia
It is no surprise
It is no surprise (background)
That it swarms with flies

The blind man was pouring
Stale sambar on rice
And he said
We are all just actors here
In Silk Smitha-disguise
And in the dining chamber
We gathered for the feast
We stab it with our
steely knives
But we just can't cut that beef
Last thing I remember
I was writhing on the floor
That cockroach in my appam-stew was the culprit,
I am sure
Relax, said the watchman
This enema will make you well
And his friends laughed as they held me down
God's Own Country? Oh, Hell!

-----

Sambhar of 69

I had my first real six rupees,
stole it from my father's pants.
went to a madrasi hotel,
to eat the sambhar of 69.
Me and some kadke dost,

had it all and we caught bukhaar,
jimy puked, joey got ulcers,
and Bagga ne maari dakar.

Oh when I went back there now,
the food was as stale as ever,
and though it was 1999,
still the sambhar was being served over there,

that was the worst food of my life.

Therez no use in complaining,
when you got no other place to eat,
rushed in the evening to the doctors clinic, but he too was at the toilet seat, yeah

standing there waiting outside,
nurse told me I will wait forever,
oh and when I held my breath,
I knew that I had to use that loo there
That was the worst food of my life.

Back to the sambhar of 69.

Man I was getting killed,
I was full and restless,
I needed to unwind,
I guess nothing can wait forever - FOREVER... NO!!!!

And now the dhabas are changing,
new dishes have come and gone,
sometimes when I pass that old madrasi lane, I still smell it, I can't be wrong.

Standing in those unwashed clothes,
the waiters still call me in there,
oh the way my nostrils burn,
I know that it will be served forever,
what was the worst food of my life.

yeah it was the sambhar of 69,

the sambhar, the sambhar, the sambhar of 69

-----

No analysis of these songs.

Papillon

I completed the book Papillon last night. It was a rivetting story, something along the lines of The Count of Monte Cristo, or Robinson Crusoe.
There was something I found very funny in this book. When Papi lands in Trinidad, there is this captain who says how a 'civilized country' like France treats people inhumanely, and the King would never approve of such ill-treatment. Supposing the story is true, and the captain indeed said this in real life, I wonder if he knew about the penal colony in India, Andamans? Was he aware of how His Majesty's Indian Subjects were treated in such places? They were not even common criminals, they were political prisoners. Or was he aware of the treatment of Indians in British India?
Makes you wonder, huh?

MP3 Player

Got a 6-mo old mp3 player (MuVo 512MB) today. Sounds ok, not bad! No text display, don't know in which order the songs are played. It was only for 2000 rupees, which one guy in office says is a steal. I hope it doesn't conk out too soon!

Some people hike it a lot!

Yet another trek, but this was my first monsoon trek. I should say my pre-monsoon trek, as it was very hot and dry going up, and cool and very wet coming down.

This thursday Gautam calls me up and says they have planned a trek to Gorakhgad, somewhere near Kalyan. It was supposed to be a simple trail, followed by a steep climb to the top.

As usual, we met at Dadar station, but very early in the morning, at 6 am itself. Me, Gautam travelled together to Dadar, and as luck would have it, even our stud, Arjun, was in the same compartment as us. The train is fast becoming a rendezvous point for us now! He had a friend with him this time. There was a big group in Dadar, and we took the super-fast local to Kalyan. The train sped towards Kalyan through tunnels and over hills. From Kalyan, we caught a state transport bus (ST bus) to Murbad, and another ST bus from Murbad to Dehri.

Gorakhgad, about 2300 feet above MSL, with a set of caves at the top; dead-drop cliffs and drop-dead gorgeous views.

The group this time was Nisarga Brahman, a group started and run by Rohit of Peb-Matheran fame. This was a varied group, with high profile people like Abhijit, Abhi of DeepAbhi.tripod.com, the encyclopaedia which everyone consults before trekking around these parts, a professional from TrekShitiz, and two 12th standard students!

We thought this was a monsoon trek, so less water would be required, we were close to wrong. It was hot, humid, and sultry during the climbing part, which made us sweat even more than a summer trek. Atleast the sweat evaporated quickly in summer. But the view, even halfway across the climb was awesome. There were quite a few balconies where we stopped and enjoyed the view. We enjoyed the city in the last trek (night), we enjoyed the vertical faces of hills in this trek. There are so many places to trek in Maharashtra! No wonder the Sahyadris is called the Trekkers' Paradise. If I did one climb every weekend, I guess I would require two years to do everything, and still have some left. Makes me wanna stay in Mumbai more.

We reached the trekkable part, and came to the rocky area, which we had to climb through a staircase carved into the rocks. Thankfully I didn't worry about slipping this time. I even saw a tiny snake at the entrance to the fort, so tiny I could close it in my fist. I didn't try, it was supposedly a poisonous snake.

We reached the caves and explored around the ledge, which led us to a regular carved-into-the-rocks reservoirs. Some of the group started playing and horsing around, throwing ice-cold water over everybody, stepping down into the pool, etc. Even as we were climbing, the sky was partially cloudy with chances of showers When we were by the pool, it suddenly started pouring - rains with heavy wind. I swear the rain clouds opened up just a few metres above our head. Some of the group had climbed up to the pinnacle (I had avoided it) and they were stuck up there, and the rest ran back to the caves. While we and they waited for the rains to cease, we started with our lunches. Tepla and sandwich were the most popular food that day.

The rains ceased, they people who went up came down, and we began our descent. The rains had cleaned every one of us (most of us, I wore a raincoat) and the hills, and made the descent slippery. Quite a few slipped and landed on their butt in the wet clay. We got down to a temple in the base where we cleaned ourselves and started our return journey. The trip from the village to the bus stand was crazy - two jeeps were arranged, and there were 10-12 people in each jeep. Three each were hanging on the outside. I sat next to the driver, behind the steering wheel, while the driver sat next to me, half out of the cabin. Sounds funny!!

Then it was the routine way back, bus, and train, back home at close to midnight, wake up late and come to the office late, etc.

Developments, developments

It was coincidence, reading about Indians getting outsourced - one in Economic Times, and another in Dilbert! RBI employees are now demaning their jobs not be outsourced. Irony?
RBI employees demand barring outsourcing of services

Who is this new Sandeep coming in? Will he be as naive as Asok? Would he be an IITian too?

Ah! The irony of everything!

Someone on the net told this

Most of the time Asok is treated like dirt by the pointy haired guy. so much for "indians arriving on the global stage"

I am not being anti-IITian, or jealous of IITs, obviously!

A lot of developments in the office in the last 2 months. I am dazed by everything that happened, and the speed in which it all happened.

Now, it has started raining in Mumbai, very nice. A year back, I had no worry about getting soaked in the rain while coming to office. Now, I have to worry about both coming dry to the office, and coming in on time!

Peb-Matheran

It all started as an email from Gautham (Visapur, and Peth-Kothligad). He mailed the original Orkut gang about a night trek to Peb, and a 'stroll' to Matheran. I was enticed about sleeping in a cave, walking into Matheran without paying the entry tax, etc. Only Shishir and Aditya did not join this time. The plan was almost cancelled at the last minute as the person who knew the trail was not coming. Fortunately, he (Rohit) confirmed at the last minute and I started packing my bag. This time there was no arranged bus or taxi, we just took a local train from Dadar to Neral, and started walking from Neral station.
It was late in the evening, and the sun was just about to take a dive. We started walking towards Peb fort. We took a lost of rest stops, and as it turned out, it would be one of the easiest patches of the trek. By night, we had reached a patch of rocks, climbed up it and came to a ridge between two peaks. The view from there was awesome. From there, we were saw a huge rock and thought we had reached the peak, but when we went up, we came to another clearing and another cliff, which we thought was the peak. Even that was not the peak, we still had to climb. From this tiny clearing, we climbed up that rock face, and came to another clearing and another rock-face. This was not the peak, yet. We saw two paths circling from that clearing - one to the left was 'blocked' by a jutting rock, and we realised we had to crawl under it to reach a set of caves. The other way was a very narrow path which led to a different set of caves (the main ones), but the path was missing at some places, and only some footholds carved into the rock face. We didn't want to take a risk in the darkness, and decided to camp in that clearing. We had our dinner - bread, butter & cheese, chocolate bars, and teplas. It was beautiful, sleeping under the stars.
The next morning, Gautam and Andre decided to explore the two routes.
They found out one led to a set of caves, and another led to the original caves and a ladder. We decided to take the ladder route and started walking. The ledge was very narrow, and at some places, the trail abruptly stopped and reappeared a feet ahead. We found out that we were at one end of the fort, and our destination was the other end, and we had taken a different route.
We reached the caves. Two gurus were supposed to live in the caves (and they were said to meditate for months together in the other set of caves). We thought they were like those Himalayan swamijis, totally away from civilization, rolling ganja and smoking pot. They were not. We did not see them at that time. We walked through a set of slippery patches, with very little foothold and hand support, and reached the pinnacle. Surprisingly, this pinnacle had a well maintained (with modern tiles) samadhi or something. From up there, we could see Matheran's Panaroma point, a lake in the distance, a watchtower ahead, and lots of monkeys. The pinnacle even had a tall makeshift flagpole attached with a ladder.
We didn't know where to go from that place. But, in the ledge below, we could see some people waving at us, and we decided to walk down. We quickly found out a steep trail, and took that down to what we thought was a village. It was the temple where those swamijis lived, with a heifer, and a dog.
All through this while, we were overcautious about water and carried about 4 litres a head, which turned out to be an overkill. But, better safe than sorry. One of the swamijis prepared tea for us; he turned out to be part-time swamiji, doing his MBA, and had come up for vacation! They told us the correct way to Matheran, and we proceed towards Matheran.
It turned out to be one scary experience. Earlier it used to be a simple trail that went along the mountain, and joined the railway road to Matheran. About a year back, the trail had been washed away in mudslides, and what remained was just a narrow path which went missing at places, filled with scree, and loose rocks. We inched our way towards Matheran, careful not to slip and fall anywhere. Thankfully, the railway people had put up some ladders at crucial places, without which this trek would've been impossible. At one place, Gautam, started slipping down, and Arjun, the unshakeable guy, started shouting for help. Thankfully, Gautam did not fall down, and we reached the railhead to Matheran.
We walked along the rail route to Matheran, towards Matheran. It was a scenic tour. We could also see many places were the rail road was washed away, or covered with mud from last year's mudslide, blocked by huge boulders, etc. Unfortunately, there was one guy who was waiting at the tracks, and did not allow us to go ahead; instead, we had to walk through stinking horse-stables, through the main entrance. In Matheran, we befriended a nimbu pani seller, went to his house (for a fee), had a bath, had lunch, and took off for sight-seeing. We went to most of the places from my first Matheran trip. Unlike last time, it was very dry and dusty this time. Late in the evening, we took a taxi to Neral, and headed off to Mumbai.

Trek to Peth, Kothligad

Another trek this weekend. There were mails from Asif and Dnyanesh about a "hot trek" to Peth and Kothligad. The mail was enticing, about trees shedding leaves, golden grass, a test of survival, etc. I was not so sure at first, but at the last moment, I called Asif and confirmed my trip. I also got Gautam (from Visapur trip) to join me this time. Gautam, the epitome of stamina, joined us from another trek the day before! Apart from Dnyanesh, the entire troupe was different this time. New people, more fun!

Peth (village) and Kothligad (fort) are about 30 minutes away from Karjat. Peth village is at the foot of the fort, at a considerable height! To go to Peth, you have to walk from Ambivli village (in the flat ground). We had our breakfast, Poha and tea, at Ambivli village, and started walking up towards Peth. The ascent was a little difficult - considering the hot sun, dry weather, and my not-used-to-exercise body. Along the way, Asif taught a lot about the various trees, showed us birds building nests, and interestingly, fire ants building nests in trees! They build by joining together leaves with their saliva and possibly sap from the tree itself. The hike up took some considerable time, as I and some people took frequent rest breaks. Thankfully, this time we took sufficient water to last us till we reached Peth village.

Peth village was very dry this time of the year. We rested for some time in the village where we had aam panna, lots of glasses of it. I think aam panna is raw mango juice mixed with salt and spices. It was very tasty and refreshing in that hot climate. After spending some time there, we started climbing up towards Kothligad fort. The big part of the trek was up to the village, and the fort is not far away from the village. Towards the end of the ascent, it became very scary (especially for a person scared of heights). Some parts of the walk were along narrow ledges, with only the rock to provide a little grip. The fall down would've been the fastest descent, down hundreds of feet, and an even faster ascent towards heaven. Thankfully, Dnyanesh was there to encourage me and helped me climb up to the fort. At one point, he left me to rest in a safe cave, went round the fort on that tiny ledge, circled the fort and picked me up to the right place! I am absolutely mortified even by the thought of it.

Kothligad is a small fort, with a lot of caves, a water tank, and a temple. The temple was that of Lord Bhairoba. The fort was specially designed for stocking armaments and ordnance. Once we went up there, there was aam panna and lime juice waiting for us. Again, we had lots of it. From the fort, there was the pinnacle, which could be reached through an enclosed staircase. This was the first pinnacle I reached in all the treks I've been to. After some time, we started our descent to Peth village. It was much faster this time, and through a simpler route. We had two kids acting as our guides and they showed us the right way down. Once in Peth, we had our lunch at 5.30 pm - food made in the village itself. The rice reminded me of my village. We had rice, bhakar (rice chappati), drumstick curry, dal, and aam panna again. We were now ready to reach our buses so that we can be in Mumbai to go to our offices the next day. The descent down to Ambivali was much faster this time. We almost ran down the hill!

In the village, we rested for the last time, washed our faces, and had some cool drinks. I had a pepsicola - not the american cooldrink, but the indian pepsicola, frozen juice inside a thin, long plastic pouch. We used to have that a lot when I was a kid, but they don't exist anymore in the towns. We then took the bus back to Mumbai, and I just crashed down into the bed after a refreshing bath. I was so tired, I couldn't open my eyes in the morning, but got up anyway and reached the office.

Jeep Safari, Trekking, and Valley Crossing

It was a very hectic three-day weekend this time, and more adrenaline filled than the last week.
On Saturday, André (from Visapur trek) and I (from this blog) decided to join up and go climbing mock-rocks in Hiranandani Complex, Powai. The route itself was very scenic at some places. We stopped to have our photos taken at Powai Lake. I was awestruck at the beauty of Hiranandani Complex itself when we entered it - broad roads, splendid architecture, only rich people, no slums or homeless people, etc. There was this place called Hakone, where we climbed an artificial rock and went go-karting. The climb itself was very small. There were three levels - easy, medium and hard; we both did the medium one pretty easily (60 bucks each). We met this girl called Tina, who was the 'instructor'. We wanted to try the hard level, for which she said, we can pay her directly and she will 'talk with her manager to get us a discount' We all knew there was no manager and it was going directly into her pockets, still, being Indians, we paid her and did it (André did it, I could not cross three-quarters of it). Next, we went go-karting. It was a small track and I had not ridden any car before, just those hot-wheels kinds. I could say that my first time was on a race-track! My lap timing was 34 seconds (average 34)
I've been a member of Ryze for about 6 months now, but haven't used it. This Friday, I just logged in, went to the list of events and activities to do something over the weekend, and saw that a group called Nature Knights was going on a jeep safari and valley crossing trip to Ratnagiri. I thought maybe I should join and gave Dhyaneshwar, the event organizer, to be included. This was on Sunday, early morning 6 am. The trip started somewhere in Marol and I joined them in Andheri - met a few good people. We went around Mumbai - Bandra, Chembur, Sion, etc and took the highway to Ratnagiri. Early morning was very pleasent. We stopped for breakfast and tea somewhere near Panvel, and the details get hazy from there.
We stopped at Pali, so that we can conquer the fort Sarasgad. Somehow, we had split into two groups, and our group did not have water. The other group had loads of water, but ran out of water by the time they reached the top. The view from above was spectacular. There was some water collected in artificial pools all around the fort. The method of collecting water was very ingenious - they had cut pools into the rock, below a main rock. When it rained, the pools first filled up and then water starts flowing down, the water might hold till the next rains. At that heat, it was the coolest water I washed myself in. Coming down was not so difficult, but treacherous. Still we managed to climbed down, right down to a well. We were so overjoyed by the sight of the well, we threw out cautions to the wind and gulped down buckets of water, supposed to be some kind of poison for city-slickers.
After Sarasgad, we were on our way to Ratnagiri town, another Shivaji-era fort, but near the sea. On the way, we saw a river and stopped our jeeps for a quick dip. A quick dip translated to 45 minutes in real-time. I found out something there - when you want to sink, the water makes you float; but, when you want to float, you sink anyway! We stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. As soon as we got into the jeep, I fell asleep and woke up maybe half-way across the ghats. A few hours into the remaining distance, I puked. We reached Ratnagiri late night at around 10.30 pm, where food was waiting for us - very good pulao, and very good aam-ras. That night, after a very long time, I slept in the open air - in the terrace of a temple. This fort was a little different - there was a motorable road which led us directly to the fort, and a good view of the harbour and the sea on three sides.
Next morning, we woke up pretty early and I couldn't wait for the Valley Crossing. We had planned to finish valley crossing, take a dip in the sea, take another dip in a river, and head back to Mumbai by evening. But plans did not go through as planned. There were a lot of people trying to cross the valley, along a single set of rope-and-pulley. The organizers pulled you across a valley, with you strapped in a rope. I had assumed we had to crawl upside down, along the rope. Still, it was hard work for the organizers - as they had to pull a lot of people , non-stop, from 10 am to 7 pm. I would like to see the buffy people spending so much time and money in gym try to do a tenth of what these "skinny" guys were doing. We started back at 7.30 am, and again, somewhere along the ghats, I puked again. We reached Mumbai at around 3 am. That was not the end of that three-day long weekend, I couldn't open my eyes the next morning, so it got converted into a four-day weekend.

Harvard Author Caught Plagiarizing

Commentary on The Onion:

Harvard Author Caught Plagiarizing
Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan, who was paid the largest advance for an unpublished author, admitted to having "unintentionally" borrowed passages from author Megan McCafferty for her book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. What do you think?

Kim Bellings,
Croupier
"It's sad when a negative stereotype is reinforced by incidents like these, but I've always said: Indians are dirty plagiarizers."

In another news, Sanjay Kumar, formerly of Computer Associates, is not an Indian but a Sri Lankan. Still, he is a Tamil. Is that reinforcing a negative stereotype that Tamils are crooks, and corrupted?

The Case of the Boss' Minion and the Mysterious Timesheet

He comes in on time and leaves on time. He spends an hour chatting with his buddies here, an hour or so in lunch, fag breaks, etc. That's 6 hours a day available for work which translates to 30 hours a week. He also spends a lot of his time trading online, searching for household items, planning trips, etc. That can be maybe an hour or so, which effectively leaves him 25 hours a week.
Basically, he does actual work for utmost 25 hours, but his timesheet always shows more than 40 hours. How is that possible?

I wonder how many of the valued employees out there have to fill in timesheets, and how many fudge the time entered? Yesterday morning I filled in my timesheet and realised I can fill in enough time on the work completed in the previous 16 hours to satisfy 28 hours!

Chennai in Google

Hi resolution satellite image of Chennai is available on google maps now, after debuting on google earth a couple of weeks back. Now, LTTE can use it to plan some stuff!

Chennai on GOogle Maps

For some odd reason, they have left out Chennai city and centred it on Chennai Airport! You can see runway 07 clearly along with some planes (they look like ants.) You can see Meenambakkam, Guindy, Saidapet railway stations, Guindy race course, Velachery Aquatics complex, Mount Road, River Adyar, Guindy Engineering College, IIT Madras, the elevated MRTS, the Raj Bhavan.
Surprisingly, Chennai looks green, and the traffic density is very low!

Almost all the people I went to college with gave me a piece of trivia - the main building of my college looks like "E" when viewed from above, because, according to them, it is an "E"ngineering college. I disputed some, and realised it was fruitless. Now, I present the proof

Guindy Engineering College / Anna University

Orkut Banned, please help

Orkut, the site of choice for friends and others, where I met some good people recently, and found some long-lost friends, has been blocked in my beloved company. I've tried everything I knew - using IP number, orkat.com, and proxies, but I've been unsuccessful till now. What would little Manoj do to play now? For the last two weeks, I was spruced up and ready to go (to work) that I have been working 5 hours of my 8 hours spent here, clearing all my backlogs (except a few remaining) I am so dedicated that I even slept in the office a week back; nothing official, but neither I nor my roommate had our keys after we saw the movie Munich, which ended at 1.30 am. Instead of waking up our neighbours, who had a set of keys, we just decided to go to our offices and sleep there. Now, I think the vanity is wearing off. Anyway, saw Ice Age 2 last night, and went back to Jai Jawan Chicken andFish Centre - they stopped selling chicken after the birdflu scare, but restarted it. It is very difficult without having a non-veg activity partner in this city.
If anyone could provide a workaround to this Orkut ban, I would erect a statue in your name.

Poly ticks

if JJ,MK,VK,Vaiko,Ramdoss,Thol Thiruma,Vasan,Tha Pandian and Mahendran are travelling in a boat and the boat capsizes, who will escape?
Answer: The people of Tamil Nadu!

Take a Hike, to Visapur

Read the description of the trip to Visapur.

The sun is too lazy to come out!



Good Morning Sunshine



Visapur Fort - 1



Visapur Fort - 2



Visapur Fort - the other side



Cruel sun, taunting us; Peek-a-boo, I see you!



Hanuman, guarding the gates to Visapur Fort



Visapur Fort, the ramparts



André & I, in that order. I am not fat; I am wearing shorts and that is not a big bottom, it is my rucksack, hehe.



Slip means instant death



A Chakki in the fort's centre



The buffaloes that were threatening us



The singing girl



A Cricket match in Lonavala

Lohgad Visapur Fort

This was by far the most exciting and adrenaline filled weekend in the 25 years and a few months of my existence.

This weekend, six people came together on orkut, and after much deliberation, decided to hike up the hills to a Shivaji era fort, Lohagad, in Lonavla range. The decision was made quickly and the planning even quicker. Six of us, five initially, including me, decided to meet at Dadar station, take a train upto Malawli village, and start our trip to Lohgaon, the base for climbing up to the fort. Unfortunately, we missed the last train at 11.30 pm. We were now left with two choices - either take a private taxi to Malawli or a bus to Malawli. We went with the former and got a Tavera. It was crowded with 10 people, still it was fun to begin. André and Gautam couldn't stop chatting all the way :-) The taxi driver didn't know the place we were talking about and overshot Malawli and led us up to Kamshet. Now, he was in a desperation to ditch us and make his trip to Pune. The first major bad thing to happen was when André lost his wallet in the Taxi. I still have a suspicion that he dropped it in the taxi and one of the four other riders (who were got by the driver to fill his quota) must've found it and kept it. We got down at Kamshet and waited for the first local between Pune and Lonavla. Instead of waiting in the railway station, Aditya, Gautam, André, and I decided to go for a small warm-up trek in the nearby hillock. It was a cold night and by the time we reached the top and came back (it was very small) we were feeling very hot! The other two had gone down to Kamshet station and found benches to sleep peacefully. We caught the first train to Malawli and walked towards the village, crossing the place where we were supposed to have got down in the first place. After some watery tea and a couple of cigarretes, we decided to start walking to beat the sun. Little did we know that the sun is all too powerful and would beat us black and blue by the time we finish the trek.

The trek started at around 7 am in the morning; we were all raring to conquer a fort. After about some 30 minutes, the sun had come out completely and was showing just a part of its power. Three of us couldn't walk that much, so we slowed down and fell back. Fortunately, we found a small shack selling very good Nimbu Pani (lemon juice). We all had 2 glasses each and got charged up. It turned out we were on the foot of another hill, and Lohagad was another, just across us from that point. We gave a look at that fort (Visapur) and thought we could do both of them in one day. So we started walking up towards Visapur fort. The path was full of thorny bushes and rocks. After walking for maybe 30 minutes, there was no path going up - just a path that seemed to go downhill again, and a tiny clearing towards the steep face of the hill. After some deliberation, we just walked along the path. Instead of a well defined path like in other treks, it just narrowed down into a single track through the brush and bushes. We decided to take a chance and tried to find the road to the top of the hill through that thin line. This took us almost two hours at the end! Sometimes we went through flat ground, sometimes we had to climb up steeply. Sometimes the path disappeared completely, only for us to walk through the step-like structures created by seasonal waterfalls. All through, we could see the coming closes towards us, our only fear was what if turned out to be a dead-end, like thousands of Mughal soldiers had found out the hard way a few centuries back? We had almost run out of water by the time we reached a small temple just below the fort, carved into the hill. It had a carving of Hanuman, but it was painted bright saffron! The trek uphill was coming to a close, and just a few metres ahead, we reached the ramparts. We were told that there would be a lake in the middle, but what we found was just a small tank filled with mud and very little water, a big disappointment.

At the top, Arjun, one of the trekkers, promptly went to sleep in what must've been the barracks, like a true urban soldier. Even Shishir, the most experienced trekker among us, was very tired, mainly due to lack of water. André and I decided to walk along the ramparts and took a few "action shots." André was born model material, he knew how to please a photographer. I just copied some of André's poses. Aditya and Gautam (the youngest among us) tried to do a level 3 trek, and climbed the small hill within the fort meanwhile. We had to share space there with a bunch of buffaloes, which must've been scared by the sight of people, and got ready to charge us. We met another group of 4 trekkers, who told they came up another way, in about 30 minutes! We were surprised. The other group decided to go our way and we decided to go their way - we decided to swap ways. Now we had to find a waterfall (dried up) and climb down that. After 30 minutes, we could not find it. When we decided to give up and walk back the tortuous way, Arjun found out the waterfall just ahead of him, and climbed down first to lead us by example. We got all our stuff ultra secure and walked to the bottom. The descend was almost vertical. At a point, there was a path visible to the right of us and just a few more metres of waterfalls below us. One group of three took the trail and another three (with me in it) went down the falls. We finally reached the trail and found out it was where we decided to follow the trail earlier. After carrying 60 kgs of me and my rucksack, my legs found themselves very easy to carry my a-little-heavy upper body, and I felt like I was floating. The other group meanwhile had some trouble due to the blazing sun and lack of water. The last few precious sips of water had probably saved someone from fainting. From there, we knew the lemon juice shack was just a few minutes away, and we walked as fast as we could towards that. We were very happy to reach the shack and sat down in the shade; the temperature in the shade was a few degrees higher than in the sun, still shade was shade and we all sat inside and ordered a round of nimbu pani for all of us.

There were three little kids playing inside the shack, one was the daughter of the lady running the shack. This little girl was very cute, and whatever her mother told her, she repeated the lines again and again as a song! I then ordered a Zunka-Bhakar (chapatti made of rice flour, and some vegetable stew) and found it very very tasty. I eat everyday in a Zunka-bakar shop, but did not feel like having that any time. The lady told us that the store was up only on the weekends, as no one else came that way in the week days. She was referring to people like us, the trekkers from the big city, trying to do heavy stuff that we don't normally do.

After sitting in the shack for about 30 minutes, we did not feel like getting up at all. Reluctantly, we got up and started walking down. Four of the gang went down fast and two of us (Shishir and I) fell back. We tried to follow the route taken earlier, but we lost our way and instead went into an orphanage. The people in the school started shouting at us and didn't even let us drink water from the cooler there. The manager told us to come to his office where, he said, he will give us water. With our parched throats, we went to his office only to be shown a store just inside the gate. We were not complaining and just bought a bottle of ice-cold water and sat for a few minutes. In the meanwhile, the other four had reached the base village where we originally started, somehow found an auto and went to the station. They had left one guy back to receive us, and sent the auto back to pick us up. Shishir told that the auto felt much better than any low-cost airline he had travelled in.

To finish the trek, we decided to take a train to Lonavala and decide there, whether to take a train or bus back to Mumbai. At Lonavla, we had a medium-sized lunch in a restaurant. Refreshed, we decided against the bus and took a train to Karjat. Gautam decided to stay in Lonavla, see a few of his friends, and come back the next day. Five of us bought tickets and took an express train from Kolhapur to Mumbai; we had to travel in the unreserved coach, the general compartment, which was very crowded. I had travelled in such coaches earlier, so I did not feel like it was overcrowded, while some did not like the journey, which they felt was awfully overcrowded. We had to wait for another 20 minutes in Karjat, for the Karjat local to VT. I was so high with the trip (the trek, not acid) that I even ordered an oily vada-pav from a guy in the platform. As soon as I sat in the train, being awake for over 28 hours, I immediately fell asleep, only to be worken up by Aditya just before we reached Dadar. The train ride from Dadar to Andheri was fun for me. I had never felt this dirty in my life and was proud of it for the first time. After reaching my house, I just hit the sack and woke up at 10:30 in the morning. So much for starting a work-week after a rejuvenating trip.

Freaky Weekend!

This weekend started pretty normally, with me going home early on Friday evening, to this movie called "Being Cyrus." It was an Indian-made English movie, about a bunch pf Parsees. I think I was the only non-Parsee in the whole theatre. It was a nice movie. The next day was fine, too. I slept in till 3 pm, woke up at 5 pm, and went for breakfast, lunch, and dinner combo at 7 pm. I simply love days like these. The next day, I decided to go watch a Tamil movie in Matunga. The place was Aurora theatre in King's Circle, and the movie was "Kovai Brothers." I could say without thinking (also after thinking for a long time) that this is one of the worst movies ever made, but still better than most Tamil movies. I regret to say this, but the 'jokes' were funny in parts, and Nameetha was every Tamil guy's dream girl - fair, short and chubby. Later in the evening, I and my room mate decided to go to a bar. We had heared that the earlier 'dance bars' were convereted into live-band bars; so we decided to see what it had to offer. The bar we decided to go was 'Blue Eye' on New Link Road, Andheri West. The place was kept very dark, and the waiters were very friendly. They all wanted to shake hands as soon as we entered. There was no live band, but unlike other bars, this had many women. I thought there was some party or something. The bar didn't have a menu, they had only beer, whiskey, and vodka; and no mocktails. As soon as we ordered, we two were accosted by a pair of girls o-O then another pair. The waiter tells us that they are 'professinal entertainers,' they will sit and chat, timepass, will 'play with us' and we can take them out O-o. Bloody hell! Mumbai version of some very friendly people! We just gulped our drinks and ran out as fast as we can. After we came out, we could not stop laughing our arses off for a very long time, we didn't know why!

Really?

What do you know? Looks like aamchi Britannica is not 'just 69% better than' Wikipedia. Nature (American) seems to have fudged the results in the comparison between Encyclopaedia Britannica (British) and Wikipedia (American.) Invested interests, eh?

Ayyaho!

I am confused. When some US company wants to open a plant in India, to utilize Indian labour, pay them Indian salaries, sell the manufactured stuff in India, at US prices, get tax-breaks from governments in India, make US profits, take back all the profits back to the USA, why is it bad? Dell can't make computers in USA and ship them to India; General Motors can't make cars in USA to be driven on the wrong side of the road and export them to India where people drive on the right side of the road; Coca Cola and Pepsi can't make soft drinks and send millions of crates halfway across the world.
Apparently, there are no users of Dell Computers in India, only Customer support people.

Last night...

Last night, we decided suddenly to go to Khar. No reason, just like that. There is this restaurant "Rajasthan" on SV Road in Khar (West). I thought it was a pure Rajasthani restaurant, with the waiters dressed in Rajasthani costumes - white kurtas, and big, colourful turbans. It turned out to be run by Rajasthani muslims, so they were all dressed like Pakistanis.
The roti I ordered turned out to be thick, like the lips of a camel (just a guess.) It was tasty, but it was too much for my madrasi mouth and tummy, so I had to stop with just one roti. As always, those muslim cooks make great stuff with goat; I had brain masala. Brain turned out to be too soft (North Indian goat?). After that, we threw all caution to wind and had Egg Briyani. With a full stomach, we then went to Bandra, again on a whim, this time to Bandstand. The time was half past ten, but the place was still crowded with overly amorous couples. If you concentrate enough into darks rocks in the dark sea, you can see various naughty things going on in the shadows. The main tourist attraction for me this time was Salman Khan's flat, Aishwarya Rai's flat, Sachin Tendulkar's flat, and Shah Rukh Khan's bungalow!

Syriana

Saw the movie Syriana this saturday. Supposedly inspired by true events, but with fictional characters! I stand by what I said for Crash, except it gets upgraded to: Be a good man and die like a dog, be a prick and rule the world.

Cochin...

When they say Cochin is the Queen of Arabian Sea, it is an understatement. It was a beautiful town filled with beautiful people. My rich cousin lives there with his flat by the backwaters, with a spectacular view. My routine for the last three days was wake up at 1 pm, watch movies till 6, and go out to some tourist attraction. The food in Cochin was also great, probably the few places in India where you will get beef.
I went boating on saturday, went to Fort Cochin, the first European settlement in India, on Sunday, and nothing on Monday. Fort Cochin was awesome, with small, clean roads filled with white tourists sitting by the promenade and eating fresh fish and prawns caught in the backwaters, buying a lot of junk, etc. Tried squid here, wasn't that great, but not bad.
I wish I had a few more days of holidays to spend in Cochin, could've visited Lakshadweep Islands, and a few more towns in Kerala.
I wish I could retire early, go settle in that place, and chill out all day by the backwaters. Maybe, buy a boat and become a tourist guide...

Mumbai Rains

Woke up this morning, and saw the sky open up in Mumbai. I was very surprised as this was not the rainy season here, and it doesn't rain out of turn. Looks like it has been raining a lot for the last few days in Tamil Nadu. It usually rains before the summer starts there; summers where the temperature can become as high as 45 degrees celcius.
This afternoon, I took a 3 hour break from office and went down to Fort area for lunch and to exchange a jeans pant that I bought which turned out to be too big for me! The total journey was for 2 hours 30 minutes, by the way. The climate was mild as we went and the sky was grey and dull throughout. Also, as the clouds cleared this evening, I saw two parallel rainbows - B-U-T-ful!
Maybe for the first time in my life, I was sad I didn't have anyone to spend the time with. Honest, just as the sky is blue.

The Third Eye

Hindi - Teesri Aankh.
Supposedly a crime thriller, based on the high number of porn CDs involving college girls and the media's 'sting operations'. The hero is Assistant Commissioner of Police, Sunny Deol, who is somehow involved with this and goes to England's Mumbai, London to completely wipe out this porn syndicate. He also saves the honour of many college girls back in Mumbai.
My roommate, who has very low tastes in movies, agrees with me when I say: people must be made to watch this movie for small crimes. He also wants a ban on releasing these kind of movies.
The only saving grace that got me my 40 bucks back was the large number of British strippers shown throughout the movie.
A reviewer on mid-day called it the Turd Eye. LOL

Crash

Saw the movie The Crash last night. The main lesson is if you are good, you will suffer. Be a prick and you will get things done your way.

What is democracy?

Democracy is criticizing someone for criticizing others who are exercising their rights.

Some Guy: "May be after protesting in the day time,they get back to call centers for work in the evening.LOL"

Today I was interviewed (sort of) by a friend.

Q: what do u think of this treaty
A: nuclear treaty?
Q: ya
A: they had treaties with nazi germany, thousands of south american countries, vietnam, laos, cambodia, iran, iraq, ...
now they have a treaty with india
...
Q: whats the adv banner u see in this link
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/01/videotaped.assault.ap/index.html
iam seein incredible idia.com
A: i see cnn.com/international
dude, they are based on your computer's IP number and cookies...
Q: ok
A: if you visit india news regularly, then you would be targeted that...
if you visit pakistan news regularly, you would be shown "where to buy assault rifles and rocket launchers"
Q: lol
dei
A: sorry
Q: ipadi anupaathye

Banned Chinese Search Terms

In the list of search terms banned in China, I am surprised India doesn't find a mention :o
Arunachal Pradesh (a little) and Aksai Chin in Kashmir ('gifted' by Pakistan to China) don't even find a mention. Isn't India worth much to China?

Taxi Number 9211

This is the story of how seemingly unrelated events lead to people trying to kill each other. You know something like this will happen when the same scene is shown three times, from different perspectives. This was the earliest I had seen a movie, so soon after release - just a lag of one day (I must be growing up) Supposedly inspired by "Changing Lanes", maybe just the concept. Nice to watch, once.
You know the movie was nice, as the theatre was half empty. Bloody Indians, don't like good movies.

"I play a completely sensuous wife. The whole world is going to feel like marrying me -- I can bet on that. Every man who watches the film will wish for a wife like that,"

I agree wholeheartedly with her :D

Getting Ridiculous day by day

Utterly disgusting

Kayame Ithu Poyyada

I was sad when I started my computer this morning. I had received a very very sarcastic mail from my boss implying I was not working well - either I was buckling under pressure, am unable to organize properly, have lost the enthusiasm, or he was simply expecting too much from me. It was for some minor infraction in some document I sent for his review before leaving for the weekend. Turns out it was just a copy-paste error (I pasted it twice) and it had no bearing on the validity or accuracy of the document. He was like, because of that he couldn't carry on further. On friday itself he had (sarcastically) told me that I was not working properly. This was just the icing on the cake. After cursing silently a little bit, I composed myself and looked at the errors he told me. I explained them to him, s.l.o.w.l.y.
I got another job after that, and I sent it promptly as it was some work which I had done a month back. Again, the devil was in the details. He caught on some minor mistakes (I removed some stuff, but forgot to remove the stuff that said this stuff was present in the document) and (again, in a sarcastic tone), some stuff which I knew didn't exist, but he said they existed anyway. I composed myself (again) and checked it properly, checked it again, and again for the third time. This time I was bloody sure I was not wrong. I walked to his cabin and explained everything properly. What I did not tell him was we had the same dialogue about two months back, with the same result. This time, he told to make some changes (the current version was approved by him) and I put it in anyway. I predict, I will just copy and paste this paragraph again in the next quarter.
Coming back to that email, I read through the old emails he sent me and every one was written in the same sarcastic tone. I have seen his emails to others, with a friendly tone, some jokes thrown in, tons of smileys, etc. But I don't know why he has to be unduly harsh on me - I actually like this guy and offered to help him personally many times.
After pondering for a long time, I realised, everything is just a Maya. You make your own version of the Matrix and my version is the mootrix.
I am not sad anymore :)
I was wrong in saying I am entirely innocent, I accept my errors and oversights. (Thanks Prabhu, for bringing me down to earth)

Moview

Went to see Rang De Basanti last night. I didn't know why so much hubbub over that movie. It was an average bollywood movie, with hindi speaking europeans, glorification of vandalism, violence, drinking, and all those vices, DIY patriotism, etc.
There are four friends, and another one. The another one is an airforce pilot who gets killed in one of those MiG-21s. The defense minister is supposed to be responsible for buying crappy products for those flying machines but he throws aspersions on the another one's ability. The friends protest this when the police break up their heads and puts the pilot's mother into coma. All these happen after they get all patriotic after 'acting' in a movie made by a colonial policeman's grand-daughter.
The saddest part of the movie was when these four friends were compared to the freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and his friends! They died for a reason - to take revenge on General Dyer, the Butcher of Amritsar. These four die only because their friend died. Never mind they vandalising national monuments, bribing policemen, endorsing coca-cola, etc.
Fortunately, no one got jingoistic during/after this movie, as it happened during Mangal Pandey.
Jai Hind!

Post V-day blues

Yahoo! once! more!

Yahoo! again!, this time with their India! Privacy! Policy!

• Yahoo! will send personally identifiable information about you to other companies or people when:
• We respond to requests from any Indian or foreign government, security, defence, revenue, regulatory or other authority, agency or officer;
• We respond to subpoenas, court orders or legal process;

• Scenario 1: Someone in the party in China decide to arrest me and torture me just for fun, and they say this post reveals I am an Indian spy, and wants Yahoo! to hand over my details
• Scenario 2: Jayalalitha Jayaram gets pissed off and sends her thugs in khakhis after me. The police in the first state in India to solve a crime under the IT Act 2000 tells Yahoo! that I am plotting to do something wrong
• Scenario 3: The Indian government decides all Tamils are terrorists because LTTE are Tamil and there are Tamils in India
• Scenario 4: The honourable justices in the courts of law in India decide this is an obscene blog and decides to "silence" me
• Scenario 5: PMK and DPI band up together again, and take offense against certain posts, and decide I outraged Tamil culture and coincidentally, the party in power in Tamil Nadu at that time concurs with them

If any of these 5 scenarios were to come true, then I am in deep shit.

Valentine's day activities: a summary

Today evening I was chatting with my friend. Here is snip of the chat (hope he does not mind).

me: hi da machi
my friend: hello
me: how was your valentine's day?
my friend: lots of proposals da
me: wow!
my friend: and I rejected all of those, as usual ;-)...

the conversation continued and we ended with discussing the differences between project management and product management (what will happen of me if I am like this?!)

Ok, coming to the point, I know that most of the fellow bloggers are very much eager to know what I did on this day!

Here you go!

7:00 AM: Alarm in my mobile phone wakes me up, switch it off and go back to sleep

7:45 AM: I woke up (no on was there to make tea for me)

8:20 AM: Late to catch the bus by 5 minutes, take an autorickshaw to work

9:10 AM: Reach office late by 10 minutes, fortunately, sneaked in with some managers without a late mark

10:00 AM: The canteen guy makes my usual lemon tea for me. Tea is bitter than usual (good start to this day)

1:00 PM: My highly promiscuous roommate sends a message saying that the passes he had to Enigma club were not available - he was taking his colleague who had a few hotties by his side. Another lonely night at home.

6:00 PM: Start work

8:00 PM: Advice some developers here to go spend time with their romantic interests, but they don't listen to me.

9:00 PM: Start walking home?

DIC(K) Workers

DIC(K) workers, Congress, and politicians? Are they trying to tell us something?

Holy Issues!

Some not-so-well known controversies, regarding Hindus. (My favourit is 'Handy Hindus.' The BJP, RSS and others protested over M F Husain's (NSFW) paintings. Don't Hindus deserve the same amount of airtime as those Muslims?

IPKF

Even BJP did not have the guts to send Indian forces to Afghanistan. BJP was USA's closest ally, closer than Musharaf. They were willing to 'help' USA willingly, whereas Mush had to do it under threat of 'nucular attacks'. With the Commies supporting this government, I thought that was the end of Indian action anywhere outside India. Those sneaky Congress people are sending commandos, apparently to guard Indians working there. Before we know, USA and NATO will take the first flight out of Afghanistan and escape, while Indian jawans will be 'keeping peace', like they did in Sri Lanka Déjà Vu?

Animated!

Why wasn't there any other incidents in India, about the whole cartoon controversy?. The shaithan in me wants to ask, are Indian Muslims not muslim enough?

BBBlues

My bossman was coming late to the office for the last two or three months; he always told that his wife was not well, so I assumed she was sick for a long time. Yesterday, I happened to ask him about his wife, and after much reluctancy, he tells me they are expecting their a child! Due in two months!! His other minion knows, and I didn't know yet? That's it, from now on, instead of not working 5 hours a day, I will not work 6 hours!

(Nothing official about it)

Whao!?

I have joined the secret service. Yesterday the bossman invites me for a fag and gives me an important assignment. I am now a team leader in his eyes, without the associated perqs, ofcourse. I now have to "manage" three people, but without them knowing that I am "managing" them as (he says) they will resent someone so junior "managing" them. O.o He also tells me I am responsible for their performance, but except us, no one else knows that, with nothing to show for. o.O

Conservative City

I drafted this and let it rot for a long time, and since so many people are talking about it now, I thought maybe I too should vomit.

People are under the misapprehension that Chennai is a very conservative city. Actually, it is a highly hypocritical city (the whole state is). Unlike other cities, where everything happens in normal view, in Chennai, everything happens underground. In my vacation to my hometown, I found out a lot of things (due to me venturing out to certain places, where I've never gone before), that are inconsistent with this 'conservative city' tag.

Tamil Nadu has the highest incidence of AIDS in India - patient zero is supposed to be from Namakkal.
Tamil Nadu is the main source for eunuchs all over India.
Tamil Nadu might have low per-capita alcoholic liquor consumption numbers, but the profitability of manufacturers and sellers tell otherwise
Tamil Nadu has the highest number porn movies produced per head
Tamil Nadu is a top state in abortions - not just limited to female foetuses, but by underaged girls also.
If you believe the police statistics and newspaper numbers, TN has the highest number of prostitutes and gigolos.

Some people might think these are nothing, but I get my pants up in a bunch because these are the same people who jump up and down over the same things that they do in secret.

All data collected from some wellplaced sources :-| Maybe they could be misleading me, and I could be wrong, or could be bang on target. Maybe I am generalising based on a few stray incidents. Maybe I am trying to bury my head in the sand and say nothing of this sort happens.

I am what I eat

Don't you hate that saying? They tell that to prevent you from eating anything tasty. If you eat animals, you will become an animal yourself - bollocks!
If I want to be human, should I eat human beings?

Narnia

Succumbed to pressure and watched this movie. Looks a lot like Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, and some other movies. They said it was a movie for kids, but saw only one 3 year old who did not let us watch the movie in peace. The only interesting point was when model Anupama Verma came to watch a movie in the high priced Cinemax. She didn't look that tall in person, but bustier :-)

Republic Day

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there were thousands of kingdoms between three mighty rivers. Anyone who did not pledge allegience to the king was deemed a traitor and tortured. One fine day, an ogre took up the whole pie for himself and called it her precious. Anyone who did not recognize the King was sent to the blackwaters. Some became terrorists; later on they were called freedom fighters. Later a prince with little clothes came and liberated her. The evil step-mother was thrown out of the country and another prince with a different name married her. Now, anyone who did not respect this prince were said to be traitors and they all lived happily ever after. The people who called them traitors were among the 22000 fools watching 22 fools. Moreover, they did not anything about the princess or the princes.
Moral of the story: Every man for himself

One week of R&R at hometown and with parents. I thought this time my flights/trains would be on time, and I would not get a seat directly over the engine, but there are some things you can just wish for. The only time when they allow you to sleep in till noon, bring you coffee in bed, and make your favourite dishes everyday is when you go home for vacations. Also found out that my crashed computer healed itself miraculously and I took some of my favourite stuff back home. Ten whole days without computer was not that tough, or bad!

Chennai has been Bangalored

Microsoft comes up with a new map of India where Chennai is not one of the four mertropolises! Bangalore is, instead!!

New flat

I finally moved out of my flat, to a happy flat. Too bad, I don't do drugs.

Smells Fishy!

First restaurant of the year 2006: 'Something Fishy' in Chakala, Andheri East.
It looked like a very costly place, and it was. Since the company was paying for it, I did not think twice before entering it. The ambience was good, and the service was good too. Tiger prawns and crabs for appetiser; Rice, Prawns Curry, and Pomfret Curry for main course. I feel bad I couldn't eat more. I had ordered dinner for me at home, but I had forgot about it. Had I remembered, I would have been influenced by 'Sunk Cost Fallacy' and gone home instead. My absent mindedness saved me from this irrational behaviour.
It was an experience, eating with a Director, and 2 VPs; and coming to know people thought of me as an arrogant bastard. In reality, I am a very amiable dude.
Wherever I go, I see some sticks of bamboo planted in a pot, even my office has one. They say if that grows well, you will get more money. All the plants I saw are thick and tall! They correlate, but can't say if it is the cause for India's economic boom right now.

Trainings

Trainings rock! Unless, you are the one giving it. Either way, you get a day off from work, free lunch (who said there isn't one?), and 'skills' to put in your résumé! Little risk, as you are considered too valuable to kick out suddenly, and you might get some good work too!

JAM

Just another Moron . For people like these, secularism, communism, and atheism are synonumns - attacking Hindus, Hinduism, and anything remotelay related to Hinduism, and ignoring the wrongs of Muslims, Christians, and the British/Americans.
It wasn't Mao who said religion is the 'opium' of the masses (he did not even get the quote right).
Brinda didn't attack Ayurveda, but she attacked the use of bones in the medicines that guy prepared. I am not against that guy either - different people different strokes.
In his world, John Kerry attacking GWBush would mean Americans are not united and are betraying each other.
Blech!

Money, Money, Money

Certain amount of marketing is theoretically under my 'control'. I have to suggest better ways to 'connect to the customers', increase visibility on the internet, among many other 'stuff', basically web marketing. But whatever proposal I give gets shot down immediately due to 'lack of funds'. Any kind of marketing activity gets shots down for the same reason. I am expected to do anything and everything without a budget. The sales people and my boss keep bugging me to 'dp something more'; I have done everything what I can do, still I am expected to 'do something more' to 'make their selling easier'. It gets on my nerves everytime they say 'with my intelligence I must not say something is impossible'. My boss gets blamed even though they won't give him money for it, and the blame trickles down to me as I am 'incharge of it'.
Out competitors get the 'first rank' in google search because of google ads - I have seen the people involved in evaluating and recommending products have very little knowledge of search engines, know absolutely no difference between sponsored ads and search results. I tell this to my boss and he wants to know 'the basis for this'. I wanted to show him as an example, but did not. He believed me after an hour of explanation that 'pay per click' is the same as 'google ads' and that needs money.
I was always taught you have to spend money to make money, but no one believes in that here. If anything is for free, you have to milk it as much as you can, even if it becomes dry. I know one company that dropped its free demo after my boss 'took advantage of it'; My boss knows the owner of the company, so that guy did this, rather than ask my boss to stop extending the demo and pay for its use. Hmm!

(gasp)

Chicks with asthma - it is easy to leave them breathless

Déja Vu

German kid tries to roll into Berlin to see his Grandma! A few days back, I saw a similar story in the movie Amelie (French). The movie came out in 2001!