2008 - Self appraisal

Yesterday, in cafeteria I asked my colleague whats his plan for the new year... he joked another 12 months of his life is wasted, so no plans... I know he didn't mean it. His joke triggered me to look back and see what I did in the last 12 months.

I have a habit of giving "treat" to my friends at the start of the year, (sometime in jan/feb). The reason is simple; I know lot of good things will happen in that year, and its the treat in advance. Yes, swalpa optimistic. Now lets see what has happened so far..

I think I've watched highest number of movies this year than any other year in my life! I have started watching hindi movies again ("patta kaalile padum"nu summava sonnanga, progress is not made when mistakes made are repeated, lol). The first hindi movie I watched this year is sholay, reminded me of MGR + nambiyar old movies. Taare zameen par is the best hindi movie, I became amir khan's fan again (the previous time was after hearing "paapa kehathae hein badam karega" in chitrahaar, lol). All other hindi movies were "yet another" hindi movie. Bommerillu, happy days, saroja, beta house, the incredibles; I could say they topped my list. Genelia & katrina retaining their position in the top of my list ;-).

Now something serious; athampa office front; A hectic year in office (as always ;-) ), I did the work what I was longing to do for the past years; shipped a product with a significant contribution from my side. Good job kuttuva, self-pat ;-).. I know I am on track to become Chief technology opeecer ;-).

Photography is something which I tried different this year (or atleast in a different way than I did before ;-) ). Bought Canon SX 100 IS, which I felt much better than nikon coolpix series I tried before. Friends & nature were always my focus, got decent appreciation from both of them ;-). Few a times, I clicked inside temples, and I have started admiring the architectural supremacy of our ancient times. Brahadeeswara temple is the best I have seen so far, and the more I read about it & raja raja cholan, the more admire.

Market & me: have incurred some losses, just got misled by suggestions, expert views, etc. hope I will recover it in long term, arasiyalle ithellam sagajamappa :-). Globalization is the main reason why I got something to work on, and also the reason for losses ;-). kootti kalichu paartha kanakku sariyaa thaan varuthu :-p.

Books; I didn't get much time to read books this year, since I think I have spent most of my free time watching movies. Tao of physics is one of the best picks of all the books I have read. The explanation of eastern philosophies & the latest happenings in theoretical physics was neat & simple, but the correlation/gluing of both was not convincing. Still, the book is good one to read. I usually don't read biographies, (the last one that I had read was Mein kemph, four years back). I hesitantly picked "The man who knew infinity", (Ramanujan). Later felt, it is a good one; almost all the details, his works were covered in this book; to be noted, with unbiased views. (Of course, I skipped the mathematical works which was hard to understand).

Madurai: I contributed something to the money flow in madurai, by building a house (in fact, my parents contributed the most, in terms of effort & also money). Guess where it is? In the narrow kansa mettu street, where I was brought up, most of my childhood memories revolve around it. I dont remember precisely any of those, so I havent written any related post.

Most of my travelling was to madurai for the first half of the year, to check the progress made by our engineer. The second half, I got some breathing time. In september we (with my other friends) went to chikmagalur, one of the best trips, I rate it in the scale of the coorg trip which I went with my schoolies. Then in october it was the trip to tanjore region, to celebrate my parents shashtiabthapoorthy, the best time with parents. Many of us dont know why we celebrate milestones like 60, 80, but why not something like 50, 75 etc. The reason is simple, by 60, person would have seen 750 full moons, and by 80 he/she would have seen 1000 full moons. (which adds sense to the figures 60 & 80). BTW, the trip was a very good one, I felt very happy for my parents. And Tanjore looked more beautiful/green than the madurai regions.

Bride hunting: Peer pressure is high, many of my friends have become parents, but not much progress in this regard. It will happen when it will (this is the most repeated phrase from the senior people of my society), and also if something can go wrong, it will :-p. So I am keeping my fingers crossed ;-)...

What's a year without a mathematical touch? I got a forward mail on why the ambulance number is chosen as 108, I didn't understand the rationale, but I liked the mathematical logic behind it. Add the last two digits of your year of birth to your age; it will be always 108. (and if it doesn't hold good for you, then read it on jan 1st 2009, it will). Next year, after your DOB, it will be 109. The proof is simple, I leave it to you.

Wish you all the very best year ahead, keep rocking!

How to talk to girls

First read the following tips:

- Girls don't like desperate boys,
- Show off your skill, which you are good at.
- Life is hard, keep moving on, even when a girl ditches you!

Guess, who would have given these tips. Nope definitely not me. Its by a nine year old kid, who has written a book of ~40 pages on pleasing the ladies.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12022008/news/nationalnews/i_wrote_the_book_of_love_141817.htm

a true "pinjulae pazhutha" payan.

Absense of mind - Release 2

This is my second post on absence of mind. If interested you can read the first one here.

Yesterday I returned home late after visiting my friend's place. I searched my bag to find the gate key. I was surprised to see it was missing. I hardly remembered taking it out from the bag, either at office or at my friends place. Later found that I had left the gate key along with lock, hanging in the gate itself. Now I got shocked, how the key is still in the gate. Looks like I had forgot to lock the gate back while going to office. (then I hardly remembered putting the key in ;-) )... Hope it wont happen again.

Couple of weeks back while leaving office, I was searching my ID card (with a tag), which I usually keep in my desk. I searched all over the desk, but didn't find. Went to couple of my colleagues desk whom I was talking to sometime back.. but didn't find out. I didn't find out till my neighbor pointed out that it is hanging in my neck.

And the list is long....

Terrorism - When it will be just history?

Terrorism is shaking the entire world, when it will be just history?, period.

Few snaps from TOI and I found it good.

The future students will be memorizing the terrorist attacked dates. Slightly different from our days, we memorized when Babar invaded india or Raja raja cholan invaded sumatra.


Courtesy: TOI

MJ - The king of pop

While I was driving back to office in the morning, I was thinking of writing some article about Michael Jackson sometime, my favorite during my college days. The first time I heard about Michael was during my school days, when paandiarajan claims "michale jackson yen machan, yen aatathe paarthu kapsa adichaan".(what it means is, MJ plagiarized from a kollywood actor). Then, the first time I watched/heared his song is in my first year of college, after that I became a great fan of Michael. I watched almost all of his works and realized how much of his steps, choreography, style are copied in indian movies. (and ppl like paandiarajan took the credit of his works :-p ). The stage performances from him are the best of his; good choreography, good team work.


He became the king of pop, I have seen many videos in which fans were dying for him. He rocked the world. But, somewhere something went wrong. He became a publicity freak, did anything for it, accused of child molestation cases and he became infamous.

And why this blog? The first news I read today in office is about him, he converted to a different religion. And got one more reason to write a blog.

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/nov/21mj-turns-to-islam.htm
ci

Catchy warnings

There are lot of things to notice on road while driving: shops, new vehicles, number plates,... (my favorite time pass while driving is to look into the number plates and find any 'magic'ness in the numbers).. One more thing that I have started noticing, the warning messages; that are pasted, mostly at the signals. Many of them are creative, and catchy. Here are quite some which I found good.

Speed is a five letter word, so is death;
Slow is a four letter word, so is life.

Helmet or hell met?

Speed thrills, but kills.

But none of these matches "vootle solltu vantiya?" from auto drivers ;-).

Classical languages

Today I read some news on classical languages, and got some interest over how it is classified. There are four match criterias for classifying a language as classical:

00) High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years.
01) A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.
10) The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community.
11) The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

And the languages that are matching these criteria are: Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu. I have intentionally listed these lexicographic, not chronological, for obvious reasons :-P). In some places its mentioned that pali & prakrit are also classical, but I am not sure how true it is, and I doubt anyone will make it an issue, since its hardly spoken these days.

I am glad that I have got a chance to learn tamil & sanskrit, anyways, I don't remember any of its literature stuffs. Definitely both these classical languages have played an important role in my life, particularly in academics. And also now I see a reason why should I learn kannada & watch telugu movies ;-)..

I am going crazy now by imagining few robots arguing/fighting for classical status for C, C++ etc in 5000 CE, period.

Thamizhan endru sollada?

Issue: Mistreat/Genocide of tamizhians in Lanka, the island country, demanding ceasefire.

October 17: Members of Parliament belonging to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam tendered their resignations to party president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Friday.

Nowadays, the ulterior motives behind political parties are not so ulterior, it's obvious, 100% for political gains. Mamta bannerjhi - Singur 'movement', Raj thackeray attacking northies, are quite a good examples.

When malaysian tamizhians were ill-treated, the TN govt condemned it and urged the central to take some steps to stop it. It made a lot of sense to me, since many of our relatives, living/settled in malaysia. Lots of family here depend on them, both morally & financially. What not making sense to me is, TN govt supporting the tamizh speaking group from lanka, where hardly Tamilnadu lineage tamizhians can be found. Lankan army doesn't even let tamizh fisherman from TN to reach their boundaries in the ocean, so tamizhians from TN settled in lanka in recent times would be very very less. Tamizhians in Lanka could have settled pandya/cholas time when we frequently invaded sri lanka (Raja raja cholan invaded Lanka during 1000 AD is one such instance), which is long back.

TN govt expressing grief for their situation is different, which could make sense, but going to the extend of resigning the ministership does not. Moreover the govt is interfering with the internal issues of a different country, when we have enough internal issues to be solved. The govt/ruling party could very spend this energy in resolving the dispute with the neighboring states. We are not friendly to our neighboring states, though we are part of the same country, but friendly to neighboring countries for no good cause, which is absolutely ridiculous. Grow up kicha, the motive is simple: Racism/Groupism, for political gains.

P.S. The above passages does not mean I am not a fan of tamizh/tamizhian, in fact, most of my favorites are from TN, I love tamizh more than C/C++.

Disclaimer: We/Govt/Ruling party is used interchangeably, rephrasing is required wherever applicable.

North East West South

I have always had a good habit of NOT reading news papers, right from my child hood. :-). But now a days I am forced to do read them, to kill my time. Today I was skimming through Times Of India (TOI) found couple of interesting news .My paper-wala rated TOI as number one news paper in India (and I subscribed to it because it's always filled with masala news and nice pics). 

enna kodumai sir ithu... a testimony for the speed of our system, court, lawers etc... now that guy will be really feeling ashamed in front of his great-grand children,  (getting caught for just 45 bucks, cost of a capaccino in CCD, hehe)

Inflation is very smoker's friendly :-). On the serious side, thanks to those hundreds of thousands of children who have kept the production cost of match box very low, since the inception of independent india.

ma people

People tracking my blog may know that I hail from Indian philadelphia, the real city of brother-hood. I always wanted to do something which will be immediately recognized by ma people. But I have never succeeded. I am writing quite a few of my failures.

I joined guindy engineering college, supposed to be number one in my state; most of ma people mistook it for annamalai university, few thought I didn't study well, didn't get a seat in local college, few thought my father paid huge donation for studying in metro.

I joined HCL technologies, those were the days I really felt proud of being in software company. most of ma people didn't recognize that it is a software company, some thought I work in a calculator company; some thought I work in some mechanical company.

It didn't stop.

I joined riverstone networks, it was a startup company with a strength of 40 employees in india office. So you would have guessed what I had faced.

Then it became Alcatel. Now I was able to convince few of ma people, not all, that it is a big company with a strength 50K+ all over the world. Still many are thinking that I can't make it to Infy, TCS, Wipro, which are the only companies famous among ma people.

mudiyalai.. :-(

Integer 7

I saw some interesting information about "7" in a musical website, and copy pasted the excerpts from it. I found these interesting because number 7 or it's multiple has appeared more frequently in my day to day life. I don't want to list those (and get critical comments which I already got for "3 and me" http://kansa.blogspot.com/2006/06/3-and-me.html")

The integer seven is an interesting one. There is something special about this number 7. There are seven continental and seven seas in this world. The number se7en is famous within Indian Cultures and subcultures. This number 7 is life, Universe, and everything for them. Indians strongly believe that there are seven re-births after death. They believe there are other seven worlds in Heaven. Lotus is emblem of Hindu Goddess. It has seven petals in its last bottom corral arrangement.

There are seven wonders in this world. The number of stellar objects in the solar system visible to our naked eye is seven viz., the Sun, the Moon and the five classical naked eye planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The number of colors in a rainbow is seven.

Bond.. My name is James Bond 007. You might have feed up of hearing the same old dialogue in his every movie, codename for James Bond, a movie fictional secret spy agent.

We can add and pile up this list more…

And finally coming to subject matter, there are seven musical notes starting with first seven alphabet C-D-E-F-G-A-B ...

IT GOES ON.

26th august

கலையாத நினைவு நான்
விலகாத உறவு நான்
சிதை ஏறும் போதிலும்
மறையாத பந்தம்
விலகாது நண்பனே
நமது ஆன சிநேகம் - Salangai oli

By today it is 3 years, missing my friend a lot, still not able to accept the truth.

This is how windows work

I had a peculiar problem (might be a common problem) with windows. Few months back, whenever I plug-in the USB cable (from home router) to my laptop, windows crashes! Then I gave my laptop to system admin of the office, but no use. appuram vera vali illai, I started living with it. Whenever there is a power flap windows crashes. Once, the tube light in my room flickered, guess what, laptop crashed!!! Then I totally stopped using the USB port for networking.

Yesterday, I gave a try again with the USB (gave enough time to windows for self-recovery :-P). To my surprise, it didn't crash. I was happy about the self-correcting windows, and was browsing for almost half an hour. Then my roomie, sitting beside me, lifted his hand for picking up something behind him. Windows crashed.

Some crazy idea

I got some crazy idea this morning. That is, to manufacture ozone here and fill the holes created above the antartica. Did some search in the internet and found the link convincing that it is not viable.

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/makemore.html

Tuticorin express

A blog after a long time doesn't mean that I was busy, just that I didn't get topics ;-).

I travel more these days, but the destination and transport remains the same. Yes, its madurai and the train is tuticorin express. I happen to see a lot of interesting things while travelling and yes, the blog is about that.

Panic passengers
These are the kind of passengers who are always in panic even when train comes 30 minutes late. Most of them would be "rules sigamani"s ;-).. as soon as the train comes, they get into the nearest entrance of their coach, even when the berth is at the other end. The result is, Chaos.

Berth hoppers
These are the kind of passengers who never get near-by-near berths for group. Once a gang of youngsters were in same cabin as mine. All were colleagues, making a trip to madurai. One guy asked in tamil, "engalle oruthanukku next coach vizhunthirukku, if you don't mind, neenga antha next coachukku poga mudiyuma?".. I said, "I mind, and Sorry". I usually don't like transferring, especially not to next coach. After sometime, another guy from the same guy, asked for the same. But this time in English. A BIG NO this time.

Last century friends
The best part of travelling we will get a chance to meet our old friends. I have met many of my such friends, some did nursery with me, some school mates. Last week, a guy with big spectacles, and thick moustache approached me..

"Hey krishna ram.. how r u? (actually he asked in sourashtra), mee aswin ra...".

Actually I was not able to recognize him.. but tried to pretend.. asked him "SPVM school mate?"...

he replied, "no da, TVS lakshmi"..
"oh ok, after noon batchaa?"..
this time he got angry over me... "no da, forenoon session, XII A, your class mate... and you dont remember me..." and walked away. Even after 5 mins I was not able to recollect, my bad memory.. Later I walked to him and apologized for this bad brain, and made a general talk.

A different part of my pleasant trips.

LKG school mates

I have seen couples who talk, talk, talk... for hours. I don't understand what do they talk for such a long time... (is that why I'm still single, huh?). For couples, it made little sense to me. I came across a case which was not understandable at all :-(..

Once in our cabin, a girl was sitting, in the side lower berth. (Three of us were travelling). In the next cabin a guy was standing talking to TTE, ticket checker. After the TTE gone, he just looked back at the side lower berth. He started giving talk to the girl, it all started like... "hey you are ** so and so ** studied in *** school, LKG right?"

My friend was keen listening to this. later we were teasing their conversations (aming ourselves), and went for sleep. My friend woke up at 3 AM for peeing... and was shocked to see both of them talking again. Even though I didn't understand the rational, I really appreciated their talkative nature, with their only commonness being LKG school mates.

Signing off for now.

Year 2007

Am I sitting idle? Then why this crazy idea stuck my mind.... to list down the movies that I watched in 2007, and the list of books too. (I think it is good exercise to my memory, which is very-forgetting these days).

Movies first:

super duper mokkai movies: Sillunu oru kaadhal, Kannamoochi yaenada, Vel, Malaikkottai, Thottal Poo Malarum.

movies for self-sadists ;-) : Azhugiya tamizh magan, (as name says), Pasupathi, aval appadi thaan, parattai endra azhagu sundaram.

Yet another movie: Om shanti om

Good movies: Katrathu tamizh, Sivaji, Billa,Polladhavan, Kadalora kavithaigal, kireedom, Paruthiveeran, Pokkiri

Best movies: Beautiful mind, Mozhi, Chennai 28

Animation movies: Toy story, Toy story II, bug's life, meet the robinsons.. This is the new thing I tried this year. The book "Icon" inspired me to watch animation movies.

Wow, I have watched 25 movies this year.. I think this is the highest in my life in a single year.

and now books I read:

Digital fortress, Midnight children, Freakonomics, A tiger for malgudi, Iraq plus sadam minus sadam, Fountain head, Life of pi, The inscrutable americans, Kee.pee - kee.moo, Prelude to foundation, Srirangathu kathaigal, Icon, Swami and friends, Malgudi adventures...

Out of these, midnight children is the worst I have read, and fountain head is the best.