What is is, what was was and what will be ?

The day Sweth and me let our grey cells run wild. I had though about this for a long time, but couldnt put it in words :) and finally I let it run lose in this mail chat with Sweth. Check it out at her blog

Flight to The Apple

The below post is an account of my flight to New York. Its quite long and is a reproductin of what I wrote during the flight..Its just a rambling journal with no preambles and fullstops...

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Well here Iam on the way to New York..the Big Apple. I was plucked away from the bustling, crowded and dirty Chennai Metropolis, and frankly speaking it did not require much of an effort :) !!

I had to come to the airport alone, as there was only my roomie and he would have to go back alone.


All the close friends I have made in TCS are great people, characters with their pluses outweighing their minuses. We were not able to do things together as often as we would have liked when we had the opportunity and now since we don't have the opportunity, its a bit fustrating. Distance does have its good points :) !! Each of us is discovering the others again. And its a nice feeling.....

........
The flight from Chennai to Bombay is over and the flight was not pleasant at all. We ran into numerous in flight turbulence. There were instances(when I was half asleep) when I thought we were travelling on road. The shaking of the plane only served to make me lose my sleep.
And worse I had a woman, who must have thought she was travelling on a bullock cart, as my co-passenger. Half the flight we were fighting The Battle for Armrest and the other half The Battle of the Legspace.

Just got into the AirIndia plane that is going to take me fom Mumbai to London and then New York. Theres a medieval air to the plane and worse the air hostess are a mistake. They blow away the myth about airhostess being glamorous. At least the Chennai-Mumbai flight had an airhostess whom you keep ogling at, for air india they give you cineblitz and filmstar :( !!

Hope this darned fligh goes well. My acco at New York is in a limbo at the moment. I thought I could move in with some guys, but that didnt work out. So not sure where my
stay is going to be. Hopeful that cabbie with a TATA sign does show up at JFK.

Man when is this flight going to start. Me feeling a bit let down coz I didnt get a side seat :| ! Maybe I should have specified this when I got the ticket booked by TCS :) ! Another time I guess...

Unbelievable !! The air hostess is fighting with one of the passengers, practically yelling at him. Unthinkable in any other airlines. But then in a Govt owned/run airlines, their job is not going to be on line whatever they do, short of bombing the plane. And moreover the average age of the airhostess makes them susceptible to assert their authority the smallest chance they get..hmpf...must miss their kitchen I guess. Wonder when AI will grow up. I guess not till the Indian public does. When will they ever equate quality with money and not economy. And when wil they ever stop allowing every other person to walk over them. I guess I would have to grow for them to change.

We have reached Delhi. Its morning out here and as far as the windows show, the legendary Delhi fog is in full form. Visibility, though is not very bad, but it would be scary to ride in such a weather. Do miss the bike :( ! Wonder when I will see it again and in what condition it would be in.

Feeling tired and hungry, guess the journey is going to be tiring. Maybe if I got some sleep it would be better.

We are on our way to London now. Right now we are flying above the clouds. To those who do no see this often, the site is amazing, its akin to travelling the antartic, minus the freezing temperatures. The suns out. I guess when you fly above the clouds the suns always out (of course if its day). Yesterday we had experienced certain inflight turbulences. Wonder how it would be today.

Just got some refreshments so settling down with that.

Shucks a girl on the flight would have been nice. Well good things in life are a bit hard to come by. Hmmmmm...good things ?? moot point :D !!

Hey I can see a medley of land designs now. The farms demarcated by hedges or surface variations. They look beautiful like the drawing in a childs drawing book. Wonder which country are we over. I dont think the middle east would have such waterways and adjoining farms as I am seeing, so I guess we must be over some European country. Wow, I see whole plots of blackish rock like structures, which must be fields with some sort of crops. It makes an excellent contrast to the rest of the light brown and green hues.

Theres smoke coming up from some place down there. Wonder whether they are spraying pesticides or if theres something on fire down there !!

I was right about the European country. We have been travelling over some eastern bloc states, places called, Lubov, Radom and we are going to pass Berlin on the way too. We are flying at an altitude of 38,000 ft (Wow!!), air temp outside is -61C (brrrr..) and speed of the plane is 884 kmph.

Finished lunch and boy it was bland. But guess you cant expect anything better in a flight.

Londons 466km away. We are going at 883kmph and we are at 12,200mt . We hve crossed Berlin and now we are passing through the Swiss countryside. We will be flying just south of Amsterdam and guess we should soon be in London. Am having a bad throat problem and I hope it doesnt get worse.

We are crossing the English channel and into England. We should be landing soon. . I saw a couple of ships moving aroun in the channel.

In case you are wondering about how I know so much about the route and schedule of the plane, its because Air India shows a graphic description of the route we are taking and current position .

We are landing now and my first glimpse of UK is a complex flyover, a sure sign of a developed nation. I can see glimpses of the famed English countryside and boy isnt it beautiful :). There is always an added charm of seeing the countryside from so high up !!

The plane is banking to the left now and god that a behemoth like this can turn at such speeds by simple twirl of knos and switches is scary..hmm... what if the guy sets a wrong knob or fogets to turn a swithc ?? I guess my fears are unfounded...:D !!

We are in the clouds now, at least on one side. The other side has got clear blue skies.

And lo behold London !! I can see a river bisecting the sprawling mass of concrete structures. Is it the Thames ?
This is my first sight of a developed nation and isnt it a wonderful sight !!

I see a park with a bunch of trees at the periphery and a large pond in the center. Hey I just saw a football stadium with an advertisment of Qatar Airways printed across the stadium. This is the first time Iam seeing an advertisment for the people who are flying. Man isnt there any privacy in this damn world anymore ? :)) !! I had also seen vast tracts of land which were football fields and cricket fields ! You wouldnt find something like that in the whole of India. Any wonder why we dont have world beaters in football. What is the use of skill and talent if you dont have the faciilites and opportunity to hone and refine it :| !!

We have landed safely at heathrow. Not sure whether they will ask us deplane or not! But all the preparations seem to point to that :( !! Shucks I just hope that this does not mean another set of security checks and (shucks) another long wait in the lobby.

Right now Iam in the transit lounge in Heathrow Airport. Hmm..now this is called an international airport and a busy one at that. Iam not sure of the statistics, but I think Heathrow is up there in terms of number of flights and traffic.

People over here seem hardnosed and exude a sense of efficiency. What is surprising over here is the ethnic diversity. There seems to be all sorts of colors here :). Hmm..this just makes the bombing in UK a bit harder to take.

The airport is huge and it has got 55 (that i know of) gates. I wonder how much mumbai and chennai has :D !!

Suddenly I get bitten by the travel bug. Hmm...travelling would indeed be nice, but you need to be quite comfortably settled for that :)) !! Wonder when my flight is going to start.

Ok boarded the flight and as usual the air hostess are a big let down :(( !! We should be taking of shortly and this time managed to finagle a windows seat. Since this is a weekday the flight is quite empty :D !!

All right, we are on the move. The distance to new york is 5555km and estimated time to cover it is 7hrs..Hmmm lets c !
Havent seen any airhostess till now, damn dont tell me my aisle is going to have a male stewart :(( ! Thats worse than an old airhostess :((( !!!

Was watching Miss Congeniality on the airplane movie screen. Ok movie.

Right now we were asked to fasten our seatbelts as we are going to experience turbulent weather. I just checked the window, and its beautiful. We are flying over the Land Of Clouds !! As you keep on viewing this, you can clear picture of the spherical contour of earth.
This is like fairy land. The only thing missing are fairies, elfs and pixies, but you do have humans though :) !!

Suddenly a feeling of helplessness flows through me. I just wonder about where Iam going, the land I have to get used to and the foreign culture I would have to imbibe. And after all my assignment is of a short duration, and so have to come and get used to India again :) !!

We are going to land I guess. Cant see anything except that we have descended into the clouds !! Ok I have my first glimpse of America and the first things that strikes me are orderliness and planning. Right now I just saw a huge tract of land in which numerous cars are parked side by side.

And finally Iam in New York :) !! Thankfully the Taxi Person was there holding up a placard with TATA on it !! And after a weary and long ride, I reach Homestead, Secaucus. I just have a shower,fall down on the bed and pop off to sleep, a commodity I have had little of for two days !!!

Helmet Conundrum...sigh....

Indians have been notoriously lax in following safety measures, whatever be the situation. Only in recent times after a lot of propaganda and media exposure, have the Indians slowly understood that prevention is better than curer and safety procedures are a means to avoid hefty hospital bills...

Well in this scenario the attitude of puneikars on the proposed move by the State Govt is bizarre to say the least. Check this link .

While a section of the populace is questioning the legality of the move to make helmets compulsory on the grounds that it infringes on their personal freedom....

Come on....you might as well make euthanasia legal (in fact that is not a bad idea...but thats later in another post...).Wonder how the same person would feel if
he was involved in an accident? I'm a rider and I know the importance of wearing helmets. I have been involved in two spills and in the second one I owe my life to the Studds Ninja helmet I was wearing.

What's even worse is the reaction of legislators or to not give those dumb people such a professional word I did rather call them the MLAs.

....asked the state government to urge the Centre to bring an Act exempting the two-wheeler riders from using helmet.

Of all the crappiest comments politicians could think of this should be the worst. I wonder who else in Pune is going to wear helmets ? Car drivers ?? Lorry drivers ?? Sheesh.....

Helmets are compulsory in certain states, though I do not all the states, I do know that Kerala is one of those. Immediately after the order stating that helmets are compulsory in Kerala numerous road side shops sprung up selling helmets for as low as 150/-....sigh....and boy these helmets are so flimsy that all you have to do is to tap it gently on the tank for it(helmet) to get a dent....sigh....

Sometimes democracy stinks......

Onam...

Recently one of my friends had asked us for a write up on Onam , as his mother wanted to celebrate Onam at Frankfurt and so wanted some details about the festival. So I sat down and put all I could think of about this festival in words. I have reproduced it here.

Before I put in my post, Sanjesh had given a small write up on why Onam is celebrated. I will put that in first as I guess that would be the correct chronology.

Sanju's Post
A long long time ago, an Asura (demon) king called Mahabali ruled Kerala. He was a wise, benevolent and judicious ruler and beloved of his subjects. Soon his fame as an able king began to spread far and wide, but when he extended his rule to the heavens and the netherworld, the gods felt challenged and began to fear his growing powers. Presuming that he might become over-powerful, Aditi, the mother of Devas pleaded with Lord Vishnu to curtail Mahabali's powers.

Vishnu transformed himself into a dwarf called Vamana and approached Mahabali while he was performing a yajna and asked for alms. Pleased with the dwarf brahmin's wisdom, Mahabali granted him a wish. The Emperor's preceptor, Sukracharya warned him against making the gift, for he realized that the seeker was no ordinary person. But the Emperor's kingly ego was boosted to think that God had asked him for a favor. So he firmly declared that there is no greater sin than going back on one's promise. He kept his word.

The Vamana asked for a simple gift — three paces of land — and the king agreed to it. Vishnu in the guise of Vamana then increased his stature and with the first step covered the sky, blotting out the stars, and with the second, straddled the netherworld. Realising that Vamana's third step will destroy the earth, Mahabali offered his head as the last step.

Vishnu's fatal third step pushed him to the netherworld, but before banishing him to the underworld Vishnu granted him a boon. Since he was attached to his kingdom and his people, he was allowed to return once a year from exile. Onam is the celebration that marks the homecoming of King Mahabali. It is the day when a grateful Kerala pays a glorious tribute to the memory of this benign king who gave his all for his subjects.

My Post
Onam is indeed the festival to welcome Mahabali. There is a saying in Malayalam regarding Onam "You should feast during onam, even if you have to sell your house" . The whole point being, that when Mahabali comes to visit you, you should not be unhappy and hungry (This is a gala time for beggars, suddenly you have them in all shapes and sizes :) !!! ).

The celebrations or the preparation for celebrations start a week back. All the children in the house are woken up early in the morning. And each of them is given a flower basket and set free to roam the countryside :) !! They go about collecting as many flowers of as many different hues and colors as possible. During our time...there used to be a flower called rice flower(i am sorry i don't know the english name for this, rice flower is a literal translation from malayalam, i will see if i can get the name.), which grows like a thorny hedge..scars obtained while gathering this rice flower are displayed proudly among kids and especially in front of girls :) !!

The children come back, empty their basket and indulge in the most enjoyable part of onam celebrations. They create the flower carpet...the children start drawing the outlines and to fill in the interiors of the carpet with elaborate details, the young auntie ( who is also supposed to be a beautiful girl ) is coaxed and cajoled.....then this lady sits down and starts to draw a most beautiful design. This arrests the attention of a handsome young hunk. He is drawn to the flower carpet like a moth to fire and is engulfed within the elaborate designs and patterns drawn by a now very conscious and shy girl.....The seeds of love are sown and the natural and rustic beauty of a kerala village carries these two love birds on a new journey similar to the intricate patterns, which had begun the mischief in the first place.....

ahem...now to get back to the point....:)....

More importantly Onam is actually the harvest festival of kerala. This is the time when the monsoons are receding and the rice crops, sown just before the monsoons, are reaped. All throughout Kerala, farmers and their family's go to the farms (how else would the love birds ever get together :) ) and make sure that the farm work is done in full gusto....The harvesting is accompanied by songs called pulluvan pattu which adds to the enthu while harvesting... (you can hear this as a backdrop in quite a lot of malayalm films.)

In addition to this, a particular caste of people dress up like thaiyams (technically they are not, I just mentioned them so you could understand.) called Baeden, thats the closest pronunciation i can think off and no its not got a german touch ;) !) and they go from house to house and retelling the times of Mahabali. They talk about how life was during Mahabali's reign. There are some very good poems on this. But I am zero on malayalam literature so cant give you an insight into them :( !! In short, during Mahabali's reign there was no robbery murder or poverty. There was no beggar or homeless person....

Towards the south they have another folk ritual. This is the famous Thiruvathirakali, where a group of girls, dressed in the traditional mundu-veshti or set-mundu (this is what sanjesh was looking for, and is a sari like dress, or to be more clear consider it as a sari. The sari is white and the border of the sari matches the blouse worn. And to be frank this is one of my weaknesses :D ) dance to the tunes of a song. The dance is executed in a circle, in the center of which there is a traditional brass lamp and a small statue of Mahabali made of cow dung (I am not sure of the cow dung part, I thing they use wet soil too !!) The song is slow and the tempo rises and falls depending on the particular song. The unique aspect of the dance is the intricate steps that these lady's execute all the time moving in a circle. Its beautiful :) !!

On the last day, i.e the main day of Onam, the patriarch of the house rewards all the workers who have worked for him, by giving them clothes and a token amount (varies depending upon the capability of a household) !! The workers are usually farmers, but other classes of laborers are also rewarded. Then everybody in the house is given new clothes which is called Onakodi. The children love onam most for this, and trust me it is a sight to see them all dressed and decked up and going to the house of friends and relatives to check up on the flower carpets. You should see the look on their young faces trying to be modest, but knowing inside that they are looking very good, and ultimately what is evident on their face is the remains of a lost battle against the knowledge that you are looking good : ) !! And boy it looks heavenly on children !!!

Now you usually the panchayat also has a panel of judges who go around the locality and rate the carpets of each household. Also a new funda that is doing the rounds now, are a group of people dressing up as Mahabali and Vamana, collecting from each house. Since the rains have now gone, this ensures that the local clubs now have enough money to buy bats and balls to keep them busy during the summer :D !!!

Hm mm... I think I have covered what I know : ) . There must be other small and lively rituals, but I don't know of them...... !!

A New Party in the Horizon......

The congress in Kerala has undergone another split....this time the split was under the aegis of veteran Congressman K. Karunakaran..and guess what they named the new party ...

Democratic Indira Congress-Karunakaran

It would be hilarious to see the party workers going around holding placards with the abbreviated party name.......:D

Katrina and its aftereffects

Katrina has been touted to be the worst natural disaster to hit USA. The mayor of New Orleans ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city...

At a news conference 10 a.m. on August 28, shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin, calling Katrina "a storm that most of us have long feared", ordered the first ever mandatory evacuation of the city. He established several "refuges of last resort" for citizens who could not leave the city, including the massive Louisiana Superdome, which housed over 9,000 people (A National Guard official said on Thursday Sept. 1 that as many as 60,000 people had gathered at the Superdome for evacuation along with 550 National Guard troops as Katrina came ashore. (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina)

Its the aftermath of a disaster that is disheartening. The numerous amount of people rendered homeless, the life they would have to rebuild, the threads they would have to again pickup... For some its easy, provided that they have already planned for such circumstances, but for others who live life king size, its going to take a lot of effort and pain.

What saddens even more is the circumstances the children would be a witness off. They would be pulled out from familiar and comforting surroundings and pushed into a state of chaos. It would toughen some, but it would also break some !!

As is seen everytime, the aftermath also brings out the latent survival instincts in man. He suddenly forgets his civilized upbringing and resorts to the easiest way known to him to attain something. Looting !! With the avenues suddenly open, I guess everyone is susceptible, but nevertheless it is disgusting, that man cannot keep his greed in check even during such tragic circumstances !!!

It seems to be a jinxed year we are living in. It has been a succession of disasters one after the other. The new year was heralded by the tsunami, the destruction and lives laid waste by it pushing the new year celebrations into the background.
Following this was a series of earthquakes in various parts of the world, each bringing with it a fear of a tsunami. Everyone was on tenterhooks, though thankfully the disaster did not repeat itself.

Then came the floods in Mumbai.(also check thislink) The floods in Mumbai brought in its aftermath, water borne diseases. That some relief workers succumbed to this only added to the somber tone.

The list is not over yet, but I really don't wish to continue in this vein. Wonder what more does this year have in store for us......

An article in frontline

Hmmm...after my post regarding the Gaza pullout, I read the following article, which came in the latest issue of frontline. The story talks about the cruelties perpetrated by the Israelites when they occupied Gaza.
Blinded by the gesture of Israel, I forgot for a moment that war leaves no victors, it leaves behind only the dead.

The article raises some pertinent questions regarding the motive behind evacuation of Gaza. Since I'm in no way a competent enough to comment on what could possibly be the outcome, I guess I will just wait and watch what happens in that volatile region.....though I do fervently hope that the outcome at the end would indeed be good....

Gaza Pullout

The ongoing evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza has been officially said to be complete. The cartoon by Keshav in Hindu sums up situation quite well. There have been soldiers consoling soldiers, soldiers consoling the people, people consoling each other. It makes me wonder how strong must these Jewish people be, that they move out of the land which they believe is rightly theirs and which they have earned after being homeless for such a long time. I wonder what would be the case if the country were India and an Indian Govt had made such a decision.

The first thing that would have happened is that the opposition party and the local party present would have called a series of bandh and hartal thereby granting the license for the baser elements of society to indulge in their vandal tendencies; conduct competitions on who would break the most number of windows, who would be the fastest to set a vehicle on fire and go about destroying the local shops and public services and utilities. After they have been give enough time for all this, the police gets into the picture and invariably there would be a police-locals confrontation with casualties on both sides. Then there would have been the usual political oneupmanship and drama and what not and.....and finally the strip gets cleared. Welcome to the largest democracy in the world !!!

The Jewish people are an interesting race and I some how like them, although I don't know any Jew. Theirs have been an eternal struggle to establish their place in this world. They have constantly faced ridicule and hatred throughout history, but they still survive. They fought for the land which they believed was rightly theirs and even won it. And now they have relinquished a part of that land for peace. It is a gesture of some significance for I believe that they expect to be "paid" in full for this token of peace.

Whether this helps them achieve a "hard earned" respite from violence has to be seen....I hope they do.....

Escapism...

After my last post I was wondering what is it that I like in films. Then while reading some other article I got. Its films which portray escapism that arrests my attention.

Film artistes are lucky...

Film makers are lucky in that, they have a visual medium to vent their furstrations and anger and what is more even get money in return :( !!

Yesterday saw Bharat Chandran I.P.S. Its a complete masala film and one without songs (thankfully!). The protagonist takes on the entire political establishment in Kerala and makes sure that every politician he meets recieves a mouthful (need I say why I like the film so much....:) ).

The anger he feels against society in general and the very much existing politician-criminal nexus, can be related to by a lot of persons in Kerala.

Lot of film makers have taken this subject up and do bring out beautiful movies. What is really refereshing here, is that each person brings out the subject in his own distinct (and refreshing) manner. A few directors even make a mockery of the entire system by carefully crafting scenarios and scenes which are a direct take on the establishment. Its very creative and quite a pleasant watch.

In all this one should not forget the mimicry artists. These guys, impersonate the political characters so well that the common person relates more to them than the actual persons and trust me half the time its difficult to tell them apart. This should give you an indication of how competent the politicians are.

I have seen the proceedings of the Kerala Legislative assembly a few times and needless to say it is indeed very comic and indeed, very "creative". The way the politicians express their views and opinions are more appropriate to a drama stage rather than an Assembly.

That we have to live under the rules and laws bought into effect by these morons is really unfortunate !!

Politics sucks and politicians stink....

Politics must be the only legal illegal job available. I dont understand what motivate one to become a politician other than for perks that is available to one and of course the potential for third party "perks" !! Guess this must be the major draw here.

I wonder what motivates these old men to keep living on and on (Karunakarna in Kerala comes to mind!). Dont they ever feel like having a breather from all the mud slinging that goes around ?? Dont they ever feel like retiring ? Maybe they really like this "fast life" or they are power hungry parasites !! Well whatever, I really hope that I never have to interact with a Political "Leader". Of course we dont have any real leaders anymore, rather only populist cannibals.

There has been some cross border firing with Bangladesh now. India should be the only country in the world with an uneasy relationship with all of its neighbours :( !! One probable reason is that Indians are perceived to be a soft lot. And I guess, Indians have given lot of indications to that effect. They always have this tendency to let other people walk over them, whatever be the field, sports, politics... I guess its something inbuilt in the Indian psyche....

The firing from across the borders by Banglaadesh is another indication. That this was a country we once helped regain its freedom does hurt. That we have to take this lying down to diffuse the situation is adding salt to the wounds. Sometimes you just dont want to know is happening around you and just carry on with your life.

Being a mental retard would indeed be blessing sometimes....

In a new abode.....

Shifted in with Bejoy two days, officially that is...I was anyway staying with him for the past two weeks. So now shifting in officially with him means I have got to split the rent :( !! Well all good things have their own price ;) !

We have started cooking over here and ok its fun to begin with...but certainly going to tax you if you have to do it day in and day out.. Suddenly I understand why mothers, or to be more specific housewives get mad for teeny weeny things during morning and afternoon...I have to hand it to mother for having done this for so long and in between , find time for washing, cleaning and being my hindi tutor...Phew !!

The new place is quite roomy and new and much better than the dump I was staying in. The owner of the dump though was quite a nice person.. The ironies of this world, they never will cease.

I lend to a bank :)........

I came across this definition of an account at

A bank is a business that is based almost entirely on financial transactions. In addition to acting as a lender for loans and mortgages, banks act as a borrower in a special type of loan called an account. The lender is known as a customer and gives unspecified amounts of money to the bank for unspecified amounts of time. The bank agrees to repay any amount in the account at any time and will pay
small amounts of interest on the amount of money that the customer leaves in the account for a certain period of time. In addition, the bank guarantees that the money will not be stolen while it is in the account, and will reimburse the customer if it is. In return, the bank gets to use the money for other financial transactions as long as they hold it.

Now that is a novel thought :)... I mean come on your lending money to ICICI or Citibank. And isnt it ironic, that its the worlds richest people who borrows from a bank :).......

Rain.....

There has been many romantic notions about getting wet in the rain throughout the world. But no where else has it been embodied in such a wide variety of colors, shapes and emotion than in our films.

Be it a lustful encounter, a romantic duet, a sorrowful parting or an electrifying first meeting rain is a "natural actor" to give the scene an appropriate color!!

But frankly for me its a nuisance, especially when you have to wash your own clothes and you dont have good water in your house to take a bath.

Chennai is one place where rain is a "Natural Villain". It just has to rain for 5 minutes for the roads to be awash with muck from the open garbage cans (if any) and open sewer :( !! Worst in Chennai you cant even pray for no rains cause, as that is the only source of water for the millions of people over here. Funny why none of the bright brains in Chennai never thought of the sea a source of water. Desalination plants are quite common in the world now and certainly Chennai could use that as a cure for its water shortage.

But then bright ideas are never associated with politicians and bureaucrats.....

War of the Worlds

Went and saw war of the worlds yesterday and it was dissapointing. Guess Spielberg goofed up on whether he wanted to portray the aliens or on the hero or maybe he made a casting blunder in tom cruise. Although histrionics wise Tom Cruise was good, but some how he didnt gel in with the movie.
Maybe Spielberg had to compromise on somethings while he made the movie or some other problems, but the only thing is this is certainly not one of his better movies and he has made some good ones at that !! I had seen one of his earlier movies Duel and trust me that is some movie.

There is an interesting comment by the narrator at the end of the movie(WoW)

"..man has earned his right to live on planet earth at the cost of millions of lives spent in acquiring immunity to all the diseases and viruses that has been in existence on earth for a long time...."

And at the end of it all what does man do ??? He goes and finds love with (of all creatures) a monkey and relinquishes his right to live on this planet and this, for a feeling of bliss(??????) no longer than the snapping of a twig....

God sometimes, you wish you were a woman :( !!!!!

GreenPeace

There is regular greenpeace gang at the landmark on nungambakkam. They cornered me once made me a subscriber...well I intended to join anyway but I guess they would have been demotivated if I acquiesced too easily :) !
So I have started receiving their newsletter and while going through it was wondering, how extreme these people must be. I mean the people who are active campaigners with GreenPease. They must be either completely committed, sincere with a truckload of guts or completely callous.. there is no other way anyone can be a part of that community !!!

My onsite thingy is driving me bonkers..its like I dont exist for my company at all. If I had some stron moral principles in me I would have quit and joined another company...but the lure of dollars is not easy to just brush aside... Been hoping things would get settled one way or another but till now nothing has happened.. have tried calling the MATC people and as usual they dont pick up their phones :-/ !!

Hmmm.. maybe I should start a "whineyard" or something could help me :) !!

An Accident

Guess this was overdue for a long time now....Although its my first real accident....unsurprisingly I have no sense of acheivement, meaning I guess I should not be repeating this milestone :).

I have played down the accident quite bit to myself and others too. But I know that I was very lucky. Very lucky to have worn my helmet, very lukcy to have gone at a sedate pace(60-70), very lucky to have noted beforehand that the guy in front was trying to stop, very lucky to have noticed the dumbass cop running into the middle of the road from nowhere.... Yes I have very lucky !!

I distinctly remember feeling dizzy after banging my head with the helmet on the road and my sight all going fuzzy...i could only see outlines of people and that too a very poor outline... i was scared that i was loosing my sight.. but thankful.. i was just dazed.. If I had not worn my helmet, I really wonder whether I would have been alive or not !!

But whatever Iam just glad to be ok at the moment... My elbow is still recovering from the laceration whis are a bit deep and its healing.. i banged my chest on a post too and thats paining too...:) !! And most of all I was lucky that Solo, Jai and Arul where there to help me out.. Especially Solo... have a lot to thank him for...

Dont want to repeat this incident, although I can say that Iam not exactly responsible for the accident...But what I do know was that I was not concentrating enough while riding....

Cant even think of what would have been the case if there was pillion with me. Hmm..well maybe I wouldnt have had an accident. For one thing i wouldnt have been going even at that sedate pace, it would have been slower and I wouldnt have let my mind wander either :) !!

Lessons learnt : always wear a helmet and dont day dream when doing a group ride !!!!

C development

Have to start study on the way a C development project works or how the design is to be accomplished. I have a client interview for next week and have to see how things go... I am trying to get some good resource for this but was not able to generate a good enough search query.. maybe somebodys blogs will give the info I require.
Joined British Counicl Library as a temp member.. but there are not enough Technical books over here.. so am in a fix.. but I guess I should be able to manage someway or the other here.. at the least the rooms are pleasant to read over here...
Wonder whether I would be able to use books from outside over here...Have to ask and hope that they do allow it...

Stephen King.........

Had heard a lot about Stephen King before.. but stayed away from him because I though that he was a horror specialist... but later on I got introduced to him in a different light through Swetha.. She lend me "The Green Mile" and he is a beautiful writer.. Two days back took "Hearts In Atlantis" and suddenly I am hooked.. have to find another good book of his soon (not horror of course)...
He is one of those writers who is able to express what you feel.. there are not many who can do that.. I have read Tagore and he does it I guess, but since his works get translated from Bengal to English I guess Iam getting an abridged version of his works !!
I have asked Swetha to suggest another Stephen King book.. She suggested IT.. Well i better not be a horror one.. else she is the one who is going to get nightmares....and ... gulp.. me too :( !!

Onsite....

Been released from my previous project and now desperately in search of an onsite project to boost my meagre financial reserves...
Anyway wishing is all fine... the problem is that u have to get around the maze and labrynth... that matc creates around u to reach there... these guys must be the incarnation of those designers and planners who revel in creating mystic passages and notorious labrynths from where there is no return.. unles the creator deigns to think that the victim is in much need of help and succour... well maybe this is a part of growing up in an organization... trust me i just dont want to grow up :) !!

All at sea.....

My study schedule went a bit awry. Perl was pushed aside and started ahead with C. I didn't update the blog, because a friend had created a forum to post any doubts queries or success stories. Its still in nascent state (me being the highest contributor should be proof enough of that)

There is a lot of things in C that I had not studied in depth during, college, which is again an indication of the college I was in. This is not a way out for me, for if I was dedicated, I guess I would have done all these things by myself !! What I ultimately mean to say is that I should have decided which college to attend and worked for that. Unfortunately, I cannot go back to that, so I guess now I must chose my company carefully !!

I have started with C++. Currently I'am just reading upon the OOPs concepts and trying to gel it into my mindset. Structural programming seems a bit foriegn once you start reading upon OOPs. The simplicity of the concept behind OOPs is quite staggering. I mean come on.... its like duplicating what you "think unconciously", when u see the world in general. And the way the whole concept has been implemented in C++ is also quite clean and well, I seem to understand it ; ) !!

Started in a small way with Heavy Metal. It comes with sharing the bay with Abhishek !!! Hearing him talk about Maiden, Judas Priest e.t.c, just made me feel like giving it a shot. He started me of with Jose Satriani, and though its hard rock, it certainly is quite good !! Lets see where this leads to :) !! Hmmm...........

The new year is here....

Perl has suddenly taken a back seat for some time and Iam just doing C now !! Wonder whether this is a good practice !!

Am going through recursion now. And its cool, How a simple line does the work of 3 or 4 lines doing iterative procedures !! Its an elegant way of looping.

The new year has come, but unfortunately, it was preceded by a calamity of proportions not dreamed of !! When nature is angry, I guess there is nothing anyone can do about it !! but allow it to rage itself out !! Just stay out of the way. I cannot think of the destruction some families would have faced ! How they would have had to start there life all together again !! Cant imagine the studetns who would have to start there life all together again, and worse those who would have to change there entire life !
Kids who do not understand what is happening ? I hope to lord that something good is done for them and they will have a good chance to continue from where there were so cruelly cut off !!

My thghts my prayers.....and a good part of my luck to them......