Me myself and Srinath

Interesting weekend...

2009-02-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

The weekend of 24,25 Jan was a long weekend as 26 Jan was a holiday and my parents were out. Decided on Friday morning that I am not going to laze around at home for all the three days. So searched in net to book tickets to some damn place. Finally managed to book an onward ticket to Trichy on Friday night and got a return from Pondicherry on Sunday night.Did some search on wiki on the places and noted down the names of places to visit.

Armed with the print-out of tickets, a print-out of TamilNadu map and Rs 2000 cash, I set out on Friday night to the Bangalore bus-stand. The onward bus to Trichy was crappy, but my enthusiasm kept my spirits up and got to Trichy on Saturday morning 5.30 am. There was a small coffee stall near the bus-stand serving filter coffee for 5 bucks. That was one of the best coffees I have had outside for a long time. (my coffee standards are quite high - thanks to my mom). Checked out a couple of hotels nearby and got a room in one of the hotels near bus-stand for 600 bucks.

Freshened up and set out to visit the places near Trichy. Started with Srirangam, where, when I was debating whether to stand in queue to say 'hi' to God, one of the pujaris convinced me to get in, and gave me a kind of guided tour. The fact that he expected some money from me was a different aspect :-). From there, set out to Thirvanaikaval temple, which was almost empty the time I went. Spent some time the huge temple in the serenity. Reminded me of a temple in my grandma's village.

Got back to bus-stand, grabbed lunch at Saravana Bhavan and set out to Thanjavur. Thanjavur is a 90-120 minutes travel from Trichy. Found the local bus to go to Brihadeeshwara temple from the Thanjavur bus-stand ( called Periya koil ). Reached the temple at around 4:00 pm. The architecture of the temple, was just amazing. It was quite impossible to imagine that a group of people had built this almost 1000 years back !

Returned back to Trichy at night and caught up on dinner. The next morning, went to Rockfort in Trichy. Wanted to see sunrise from Rockfort, but got a bit late for that, as I reached there by around 7.30 only. The sculptures were great. It was quite interesting to find a Mamallapuram style sculptire in Rockfort temple. Later figured out from net that the particular cave temple I saw was built by Mahendravarma Pallava.

From there, set out to Pondicherry on a local bus. Did not find a direct bus to Pondicherry. So, took a bus to Chennai and got down at Villupuram and from there went to Pondicherry. The map I had printed out helped me here. Reached Pondi by around 2.00 pm, had a cup of tea in 'tea kadai' in motta veyyil. Then went to Arabindo Ashram to soak in the peace for sometime and then hit the beach. Spent a long time at the beach and the Le Cafe near beach reading the book I had taken. Shook a leg at the music fest in the beach later in the evening and then got to the bus-stand for my return journey. It was a fitting relaxing end to my trip.

1. The whole trip costed me somewhere around Rs 1800 including the travel and the stay. The only time I took an auto was when I went to bus-stand on friday night. All the other travel was through buses.

2. It was a nice feeling to live life very down-to-earth, soaking in the surrounding and enjoying the scenery around. There were a few interesting observations, which I'll add in a follow-up blog.

3. This was my first solo back-pack trip. It was reasonably interesting that, I might do something like this again.

Where is the action?

2009-01-01T23:47:00.000-08:00

Srilankan army captures Kilinocchi signalling it's strong intent to root out LTTE.
Isreal pounds Hamas with air strikes killing hundreds as retaliation against Hamas firing rockets killing a few.
After every terror strike in India................ Indian prime minister expresses shock and sympathy.

2008-09-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

7.30 pm: A mildly chilly evening after a light rain. The time of the day when the daylight is fading with red streaks in the sky and the moon is visible as a large white ball alongside a far away building. A stroll alongside a small river like water body with tracks on either side and greenery all round. Occasional trots of lone joggers on the slightly wet track. Swans in the lake and flocks of birds flying over the lake making sounds of quacks and chirps. The evening fading into night....Wow... Life is beautiful - Hyde Park, London.

Found out that Hyde Park is just 20 minutes walk from the hotel. London still holding it's charm :-)

Scarcity results in efficiency?

2008-09-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

It is when the oil prices are shooting up, that the British government is coming up with plans for improvements towards efficient use of energy. There are talks of building better insulation for houses to reduce winter power bills. (like the rain water storage system implementation at Chennai). Sometimes, scarcity of a commodity seems to be good. It increases efficiency.

Similar observation at a micro level: my laptop power cord was not working at the hotel yesterday and day before. And I managed to check my mails, do some work and catch up with my parents in the 1.5 hrs battery period. But, when I have a working power cord today, all I have done is random browsing (including the post), in the past 3 hours :-(

Bangalore to Denver

2008-05-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

Place: Chicago O'Hare airport
Time: 6:40 pm
Mood: Too tired to be angry even.
Reason: I have been out of my home for more than 24 hours now, doing nothing but sitting on cramped seats at airport and more cramped seats inside the flights and I am yet to reach my destination. My checked-in baggage is apparently missing and I'll know the fate of it when I file a complain at my final destination Denver. If I am lucky, I'd get it at Denver either tonight or tomorrow.

I wonder what is it that makes these airlines careless about baggage. Why don't they realize that it could cause great inconvenience to the passenger if the baggage goes missing, esp. given that they could have most of their essentials for living on it. The attitude of the American Airline guy asking me to file the claim at Denver was appaling. Well, I wouldn't blame him either, he just seems to be a small part of a huge inefficient system. What else could he do when a bunch of folks throng him complaining of missing baggage. Now, I feel thankful for my dad's advice to keep a pair of clothes and the cash in the hand-baggage than the check-in bag.

Okay, cribs aside... I am traveling on business to Denver for 3 weeks. Hoping to get in, finish the job and get out. I sound like a contract killer now ;-) The 'job' I refer to, is the same old software business. Knowledge transfer and infrastructure consolidation on a newly acquired business of Versata. ( Wow, I seem to be getting better at using these multi-syllable terms ). From inside the airport, Chicago seems to be a reasonably old city. The weather seemed to be more like Bangalore. My first transit was at London. Man, one cannot just beat the weather of London. I could feel the pleasantness even during the short transit between the terminals. Londoners might disagree with this, but, for a person having spent most of my life in a hot place such as Chennai, and the summers becoming unbearable at even the supposedly better place Bangalore.

PS: Update on the baggage: The lady at the AA baggage claim desk at Denver was sweet and courteous. I felt better after talking to her and she gave me a toothpaste kit as well. The bag arrived the next day.

2008-04-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

2001.. a nice cool evening, walking by the road near Besant Nagar beach, a car passes by, with a 'vrrrrrooooom' sound, with music beats that resonates in the stomachs of the people around.. My head turns back and I silently utter 'WOW' !!

2008.. a nice cool evening, walking on the road to home, a similar car passes by, with the similar sound and music.. My head snaps around and I silently utter 'What the @#$&' !!

Signs of changing fashions with time, or signs of me becoming more mature ( that's my politically correct way of putting 'me getting old' ;-) ).

Whatever it is, let's hope the change is for good !

2008-02-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

Back in India... and relieved to be home, in the beautiful Bangalore weather. Being back home has kept up the spirits in general in the past few days.
1. Getting up early in the morning ( ok.. 7.30 is way early for me ), and more importantly, having breakfast.
2. Never feeling frustrated, be it work or state of things in general ( such as the canals they have dug in front of my house making it impossible to get my bike out ).
3. Being more tolerant to the haphazard driving and inept drivers ( or should I say 'navigationally challenged' drivers ).

Let's see how long this continues ( maybe till the jet-lag wears out and the 'passionate me' returns back ;-) )

PS:
1. I achieved my second aim - 'reach back without any driving incidents'.
2. Dudette Chitrangada Singh is making a comeback - hurray !

2008-01-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

While I was wondering, not even a trip to US would move my lazy being to get to update my blog, this happened:

Quite beautiful. Of the two things I wanted to before returning (1. See snow. 2. Drive without major incidents. ), one has happened. And am hopeful of the second one too :)

Ok, now to the background. I came to Atlanta for a 8 week business visit, and would be leaving back end of January. Met a couple of college-mates. It was nice to meet after long and have dinner ( at their expense of-course ;-) ). Went to Washnigton DC for Christmas holidays with a colleague. Met my cousins and families and had great time with them. The only let-down was that Aravind ( EEE Anna for those who know ), was at Washington DC and I did not know that when I went there. Well, am starting to take pride at our consistency at screwing up.

It's been a reasonably organized life here ( though getting hectic of-late ). This being suburbs of Atlanta, life's been peaceful. The only downside is, there is absolutely no public transport. I am having to drive down a few miles, even if I need to get a nail cutter. And, my stereotypical misconceptions about the work culture here ( that Americans are more workaholic than the Brits ), took a good beating. People here seemed to have a very good work-life balance. It's been a major surprise, but on the pleasant side. ( signs of my maturity ;-) )

On the food front, have been living on frozen Indian food and rice mostly. However, trying to taste other cuisines over weekends. So far, mexican has been good. Esp. the Burrito. What more do you want, when you get rice, roti and beans in one, mixed and wrapped as well. Tried out a Greek restaurant. That's been decent as well. Still trying to make my peace with Chinese though. Overall, US has been a 'meets expectation'.

2007-10-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching the Brazilian GP. WTF !! Though, not a great follower of F1 ( other than, maybe catching up the podium positions in news ), I did want to watch this one for the title clash. And Ferrari has does it again! Sacrificing Massa's home victory for a driver's championship for Raikkonen. Though, it did not look very blatant, Massa's press conference statements did seem to hint at him giving up the first position for his team mate's championship. Maybe it's just my bias against Ferrari, on seeing their past behavior when Schumi was the champion. But, seriously, this was very unsporting of them. How would it have looked if Alonso crashed his car before the final laps to get Hamilton to get to 6th position !! ( He'd never do that in the current situation is a different issue ).

The concept of God.

2007-09-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Before you proceed to read, let me add my disclaimer that I am neither a strong believer, nor a staunch athiest. There are lots of times when I take comfort in assuming that there is a supreme power above us who runs things, and is just. At the same time there are times when I dislike going to temples and standing in long queues. Coming to the point of the post, I feel that, the very way by which God is being introduced to us should change. God is being portrayed as this supreme being who will fix all things when they go wrong, and that, any difficulty / injustice you go through is going to be set right by God. Whereas, in real world it is not. People need to be equipped to face an unfair world. And the first step towards it is to expect one ( will keep the unfairness discussion for a separate post ). And, people should know that unless YOU want to fix things and YOU work hard to fix them, there is no God who is going to help.

This whole line of thought was triggered when I was watching a random movie in Podhigai about some Panduranga bakth. The devotee's mother-in-law asks her to grind a sack of wheat overnight, and she, being more devoted to God, chants God's name and sleeps off. And the wheat gets automatically ground by a magical power. This is how God is introduced to most of us ( in most of the stories we see and hear in child-hood ). This gives the view that you need not take pains to do your work, and just praying God is going to pay off. Pretty silly, isn't it.

2007-08-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

The Gladiator, outside the colosseo !

Trevi fountain at Rome. Fountain paakkarathuku ella oorlayim koottam kooduthu.

Inside the Basillica of St. Peter ( Vatican ). Enga ponaalum kovila vida maattengaraanga.

Ivainga ellaam epdi road cross pannuvaanga ?!! - Venice.

[Correction - thanks to the anonymous comment ] Copy of sculpture of David outside the Palazzo Vechhio at Florence. Original created by friend Michelangelo, very talented man I say.

Pisa - Govt contract building nenaikeraen.. saanjiduchhu. Riskunnu naan andha pakkam pola.

It's a beautiful life

2007-05-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

Living a bachelor life... in the true sense. With parents off to Chennai for a couple of weeks, I am experiencing for the first time, what it feels like, to be living alone ( though have been away from home for long, it's always been with some friends or the other ). It's not been bad. Actually, it's been really nice, to be doing things on your own, and at your own pace.

Tried cooking, after a very long time ( almost a year and half maybe ). Had invited anu for lunch, just to make sure that I spend some time cooking over the weekend. Was relieved to find out that I can still cook some stuff that can pass-off as sambhar and poriyal. Infact, the tastes were pretty decent - did not messup with the uppu, puli, kaaram ratio. However, ended up messing the presentation part. The sambhar was not thick enough and the palak I tried ended up more like a soup.

Rented out 'Guru' in the evening and watched it during the night. Not a great movie I'd say. Kind of an above average movie with good dialogues in the middle. Abhishek was brilliant, Aishwarya was bit of a let-down ( could have put in a stronger performer in her place ). Vidya Balan and Madhavan were decent and was surprised to see Mithun perform such strong role. Movie definitely worth watching.

2007-05-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get amazed at the futility of our educational system in the current form. All it teaches is how to memorise things and put it down on paper in a neat way. And, there are super-competitive exams that are solely based on ones ability to memorise things. For eg. I was having a chat with one of my cousins who had just finished his tenth standard board exams. For some reason, our conversation turned into studies. He was dictating ( yes, literally dicatating ) the solution for the problem to prove that the trajectory of a projectile is a parabola. I was quite impressed with his explanation. And, I asked him ok, tell me what the question actually means. He said he did not quite understand my question. I asked him what is a 'projectile' and what is a 'trajectory'. He said, 'oh.. we have not studied about it'!!

Listening to...

2007-04-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

Swades songs. Very nice music and some nice lyrics as well.

Sita.. Sita, tumne Raam me aisa kya gun paaya
liked the spirit of questioning the unquestionable.

man se Raavan jo nikaale, Raam uske man mein hai.
nice ending to that song.

And this one, would really strike a chord with all those who are staying away from home.
Yu tho saari sukh hai barse,
Par door thu hai apne ghar se,
aa lout chal ab diwane,
jahn koi tho thuje apna maane

'A thousand desires such as these...'

2007-01-14T05:25:00.000-08:00

is what it literally translates to. 'Hazaaron Khwaishen aisi...', named after a Mirza Galib's poem, the movie is also as poetic. Watched the movie for the third time yesterday, and I believe, it is not going to be the last time I watch this movie. The movie is made very naturally ( except at a few places, where the english spoken by the cast sounds a bit out of place ). Setup in the back-drop of early 70s, the movie revolves around 3 characters - Siddharth ( portrayed by Kay Kay ), Geeta ( Chandrangda Singh ) and Vikram ( Shiney Ahuja ). All the actors have acted pretty neatly in the movie. And, I have become a huge fan of Chitrangada Singh. Learnt later that she's the wife of Jyoti Randhwa, the golfer, and is not likely to act in any more movies - pity.

Few scenes that I liked a lot are:
The discussion between Siddharth and his father, when his dad tries to understand why he wants to leave to Bihar to join a naxalite movement.
Dad: 'so you have faith in an idealogy, that talks about annihilation and murder of people as an acceptable way of changing the system... what gives you that right?'.

One of Siddharth's friend calling Gandhi as a person who did nothing for the villages, other than become a guest of a rich buniya and sit in a luxurious building, and most of the friends dropping out from actual action when the discussion about going to Bihar comes up.

Siddharth's letter to Geeta at the end: 'You have to break out of your.. 'first-love' to be actually free'.

The dialogues form the highlight of the movie. All the places where Vikram and Geeta speak have been crafted well. The flirting and the sarcasm, is beautifully drafted.
Vikram: So, you finally need me for something.
Geeta: Yes, I need to make use of your agile mind.
and in another similar scene.
Geeta: I have come here to just thank you.
Vikram: ( chuckles ) Give me another.. How are you?

And the movie has it's lighter moments as well:
In a communist speech to villagers.
Speaker: Hitler ke party ke saath bhi, socialist ka naam juda hua tha.
Villager1 to villager2: Ye Hitler kaun-sa bhai?
Villager2: Hamari gaon se tho nahi hai.

The background scores were good as well, with Shubha Mudgal's deep voice and Mirza Ghalib's brilliant lyrics. For all those 'serious-movie' watchers, this one is a must watch ( i.e if you have not already seen it, or, even otherwise ).

Something technical

2006-12-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

In the last month, had been out over the weekends for campus recruitments. Though hectic, I find these trips particularly enjoyable, as it provides a good change from the routine. And, travelling with friends and colleagues is always fun, especially when you travel with people like Arun ( a friend and colleague of mine ). He is a great story teller and has immense passion for the basic sciences ( mainly Physics ). His narration of historical events/stories that has scientific relevance would make any one interested in the subject. Wish we had school teachers like him.

One of the things he told me during a recent trip, which was interesting:
Euclid, the mathematician who laid the foundation for Geometry, put in some basic axioms ( intutive truths that cannot be / need not be proved ) from which one can derive any geometrical postulate. His axioms were thus:
1. Any two points can be joined by a straight line.
2. Any line segment can be extended indefenitely in a straight line.
3. All right angles are congruent ( meaning similar ).
4. If two lines intersect a third line in such a way that the sum of interior angles on one side is less than two right angles ( 180 degrees ), then the two lines would intersect each other if extended enough on that side. On the converse, if the sum is equal to two right angles, they would never intersect.
( And there is another axiom of his, not relevant to this discussion ).
Now, people thought that the fourth axiom as extraneous. They believed that it can be proved from the other axioms of his. Mathematicians have spent a lifetime trying to prove the 4th axiom from the others, in vain. And there is a case, where a mathematician father writes to his son begging him to give up trying to do that, as he himself had wasted his lifetime on that, and there was more to life than just that :)

Then, mathematicians came up with a parallel geometry where they assumed the converse of that axiom and tried to find inconsistency in that geometry, so that they can prove that this axiom was extraneous. Which was, if two lines intersect a third line such that the sum of internal angles is 180 degrees, the two lines would still meet, and tried to find an inconsistency with that geometry. But, they could not. That geometry was still consistent. They are called non-euclidean geometry.

For the interested - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_geometry#The_parallel_postulate

2006-11-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

63 minutes. That's the longest I have window shopped. Quite an achievment, given that I am no fan of shopping, let alone window-shopping. Time is staring at me like this huge monstor, whom I have to slay in a slow painful process. My lazy idle brain is looking at ways to spend the next 4 hours. Killing time was never easy.

Place: Dubai Airport
Time: 2230 hrs local time
Next mission: Kill another 8 hrs in a boring flight from DXB-LHR.

London beckons. This time it is for a short business trip. ( By short, I mean, really short ). Gowndamani once said - 'Technology has improved so much aa'. But, I would say, it's not that much. What kind of technological world we are in, that requires me to travel more than 24 hours to attend meeting for just 8 hours. If only teleportation was a reality ( sigh.. sigh.. ). We need more Einsteins. We have had enough of Bill Gateses.

Dubai airport looks nice. The main attraction being the wide range of duty-free shops. Dubai is supposed to be a heaven for shoppers. One can imagine why, by just looking at the airport. Plus, it is pretty busy even at this time of the day. ( Or maybe, it is more busy at only this time of the day ). In any case, the reason why I like Dubai airport is the free connectivity :) However, the connection keeps breaking every two minutes. And that seems to drive my ICQ crazy. It's been leaking memory like hell, and the virtual memory it uses shot up to 1 GB !! Waged a mini war, and with my valiant efforts, managed to kill the process before it brought my system down.

Back to the bigger monster - Time :(

2006-10-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

Five days into Mumbai and I have started loving this city. The weather seemed to be a toned down ( less harsh ) version of Chennai weather. So, not much issues there. What I really liked was the people aspect. You see real 'hard-working' people, the kind, who'd think twice before spending on a lavish dinner. Looking at Mumbai, I start realising how lazy a city Bangalore is. It's true that Mumbai people are less courteous ( my cab driver would give atleast 5 ppl. gali on the 30 min trip from my hotel to office ), but, at the same time, they are more helpful.

As hiring a cab for the whole day was going to be too costly for my needs, had to manage my own local travel arrangements. With the decent hindi I know ( which, by the way is improving these days ;-) ), managed to get a local cabbie, who'd ferry me from hotel to office and back to hotel. Though what he charged me would have been twice the usual/meter charge, did not really mind paying, as something regular was better than hunting every day ( and no one else was going to give me receipts for petty amounts ). Guess I wouldn't have been able to manage even this if it was some other city like Delhi.

The part I liked the most about Mumbai people was the gender equality that you'd find in the city. You see lot many more girls on the roads at lot later times of the day, than any other city. This would not be possible in a male chauvinistic city like Chennai or a city like Delhi ( could not find an adjective for the city - you don't need one. just look at the crime against women figures of Delhi ).

If I were to rate Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi on livability, I'd rate them in the same order, my assessment factors being weather and people.

2006-07-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

Had been to Pune over the last weekend with mom and Dad to visit my uncle's. Abt. the place.. what do I say, well, it's just beautiful. My uncle stays at Chinchwad which is in outskirts of Pune ( between Pune and Mumbai ). The place is calm, serene, people carrying on with life at their own pace. Less crowded roads, the constant drizzle, the hills around, the trees and bushes, it was just great. It was monsoon season and the timing could not have been better. You have to see it to believe it.

My uncle stays in a govt. quarters where a total of 8 families stay. The campus is huge with lots of trees ( reminded of my college ). The one thought that came to my mind was, shift in to a place like this, get a broadband connection and work from home. One could build great products working from such a great environment.

Pune is being looked at as the next destination for IT companies after Bangalore. Sad.. we're going to loose yet another beautiful city.

Contrasting weekends

2006-06-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Weekend of 10 Jun '05:
Saturday night 8.30 p.m. JP get's an idea - why don't we go on an unplanned trip to some trekking place, right now. 9.45 p.m. JP, Arvindh, Srinath and Kichha are at majestic bus-stand trying to figure out, where the heck is this place called Charmadi ghats and how does one get there. 10.30 pm. We all, board a bus to Dharmasthala.

Next day at Dharmasthala, trying to ask locals, about some falls / place to trek around with JP's half baked Kannada. ( I haven't seen him utter anything other than 'eshtu' and 'barthaagitha' ). Half a day is spent climbing a slippery hill, with dense forest and leeches having a feast out of us, trying to head to some falls, with just the sound of water as our only direction guide. The higher we climb, the more denser the forest becomes, inhabited by more leeches and other weird insects. Finally, ended up at a thin stream, which can no way be compared to anything remotely to a falls. Decide that, we'd rather take bath in a house / room, rather than risk the leeches getting onto other ( forbidden ??!! ) parts of our body.

Arvindh says, alcohol keeps leeches away. And there goes a bottle of vodka onto our feet, palms and hand. Though I should say, not everyone is happy with this idea - reasons varying from, people considering vodka as too obnoxious to be applied on the body to people considering vodka as too valuable to be wasted like this. Me, neutral - anything to keep the leeches away. The only other time I've seen booze being wasted was, when we had used bacardi to flare up a camp fire. But, heck, it was an office sponsored party ;)

So, we decide to climb down, to reach on time for the jeep which we had asked to come back to the foothill. The way downhill turns to be more testing, because of the tiredness, slippery path and my worn-out woodlands, that had nothing left in the name of grip. Somewhere near the foothill, we ask a local for some place where we can take bath. He points us to a stream that was much larger than the one we saw uphill. And, this being near the base, there weren't many leeches either. With relief, we all jump into the stream, have a satisfying long bath, and eat the packed food we had brought. The jeep arrives half an hour late ( luckily for us ), and we take the jeep directly to Dharmasthala bus-stand.

We take the first bus back to bangalore. The questions that still remain unanswered are, why was the bus conductor scaring us about the place on the previous day and what happened to the group of 10 people who apparently had gone trekking to the same place the previous day, about whom the village locals were asking us. And... why would naxals hang around such a wretched place ( as told to us by some friends ).

Finally, reached home at 3 in the mid-night. PEACE !

Weekend of 17 Jun 05:
Spent the whole of saturday, saturday night and part of sunday evening in office working furiously on a monday deliverable. Finished the work at 2 in the mid-night on sunday. PEACE !

2006-05-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

The election results have all come out, and the results for TN has been quite what I had anticipated. But, I am particularly disappointed by the results of 'Lok Paritran'
. The maximum votes they have managed is around 5%. If this was their results in the metro, I wonder what would have been the case, if they had contested in other areas. I am not convinced with the argument that, they have got low votes because this is their first time. DMDK in my view has done better. But, that makes me think, what is the rationale behind people's choice. Do they trust a cine actor more than a IITan for running the govenment efficiently? Looks like politics is all about popularism. Sad, but true :(

2006-04-01T04:46:00.000-08:00

Watching stories covered by news channels is turning an already cynical-me into a super-cynical-me. Soo much so that it's getting a injurious to health. Here are a few stories that have been clogging the media in the recent past.

1. IIM-B's top salary is in news for days together. Why?? When did news items become ad-commercials?

2. Sonia Gandhi resigns and vows to contest again from Rai-Bareilli !! Now, what is the point?? Just because a bunch of jokers pay huge taxes, does it mean that some out-of-mind irrational politician can throw it away by conducting meaningless elections?

3. A couple of people get seriously injured due to poor crowd management at a cricket stadium, and, when the authorities are questioned - here we go, the blame game starts. When would people learn to accept responsibilities?

4. And, the news channels themselves are not the cleanest of the lot. All they are best at is in 'sensationalizing'. Now, how does sound this for a news headline : 'Some model's wardrobe malfunctions in a fashion show' ( with smudged video as well ). Devudaaa.. Ayyo.. Ayyo..

2006-03-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

The 'anti-management, pro-techie' serpant in me is raising its head, who ever said serpant is a bad omen. If I had the power to create a corporate world from scratch, I'd create corporations with a completely distributed power and responsibility model, avoiding the huge over-head of the 'managerial' class which somehow has got this notion that, herding people is the toughest job to do and deserves the highest salaries.

How do you justify the following:
1. A guy working on mpp for 2 hrs in a day, talking to people for 2 hours, surfing net for the remaining 2 hours ( of the six hours he is in office ), gets paid almost twice the salary of the guy who writes code for 8 hours.
2. A guy having absolutely no knowledge of the technology or complexity feels he is completely qualified to judge the time required to complete a task.
3. A guy feels that, by making false promises and junk appreciations to sub-ordinates, he has added huge value to the system.

Thankfully, none of the above happens in my organization. But, then, reason for the outburst: A communication mess-up at higher level has ended up in me getting delayed to setup my team for almost a week ;-(

2006-03-05T11:18:00.000-08:00

Long since I posted. Have turned into a 'real' lazy bum, glued on to the idiot box, whenever I am not at office. Got to take some serious action to get out of my laziness.

Work's fun as usual. Kinda' slow at present though. Expecting it to turn nice and hectic in a week or so. Spending lots of time interviewing for my company, though. The new project am in, seems to involve lots of Java based server side technologies. Though I've never been the kind of person, who values 'knowledge about technology' greatly, I'm looking forward for this experience, to get expertise into these J*** stuff I wanted to learn.

Had been to Chennai a couple of weeks back for hiring interns from IIT-M and Anna. This time we went on-campus to our college. It was a nice feeling to be in the campus conducting tests and interviews. Brought back memories of my final year; those beautiful times, when I was on the other side of the table. Had been to Chennai a week before that, as well, to attend the marriage of one my 'oldest' friends. ( the 'oldest' does not refer to the age of my friend ). Met many of my school-mates there. Everyone looked almost the same as what they were, in school. I felt like I was the only one, who's looking way different than what I was. Got to work on that as well ;-(

2006-01-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

Time is one of the weirdest commodities around. It's not something you can always save at some point and reuse at another point. My current case is particularly frustrating. Yesterday was one of the most hectic days in office, trying to do all the last minute stuff for my travel. And, I ended up not being able to do some of the most important stuff due to lack of time. Now, I am sitting in KL airport, unable to sleep due to some announcement or the other being made every minute, staring at the vast airport hoping for the 8.45 to arrive to catch my Beijing flight. It sucks.. it seriously, sucks. I was trying to find time to do stuff yesterday, while I am trying to find ways to kill time now. The 'Built to Last' book that I borrowed from my office library during the last minute is doing no good either for my tired and drained out eyes.

On the KL airport as such, it looks pretty nice, coz. it's huge and almost empty. ( maybe because of the odd hours ). And it has wireless connectivity and that too FREE !! :) I was hoping to see the sun rise amidst the mighty Boeings and Airbuses. But, looks like, there might not really be a proper orangish sun-rise. The day has broken out and the sun is still not out. :-(

I gather that the weather at Beijing is going to be cruel. My first venture into sub-zero conditions. And I haven't found the time yesterday to buy the thick jacket that I wanted to! Now I can relate to, when people call me crazy / lazy. But, how can I? How can everything be perfect for my travel. Lady luck has to strike, invariably, on my travel. ( unfortunately, the 'lady' in the luck for me, is never kind. ).

5.SomeOne

2005-12-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

Finally got the 'five point someone' book from Deepak and finished reading it in a single stretch. Trying to recollect, when was the last time I did a marathon reading of any novel. Must be some Sydney Sheldon, or, was it 'Love Story'? Anyway, that's irrelevent. And, this book must defenitely not be confused with any of those kinds.

The flow was great. There was no jump between two story lines ( which usually happens in some Fredrick Forsyth novels, which gets irritating at times ). The content was nice, containing the events and the chareveter's thoughts around the flow of events. And, the author has a nice way of mixing in humour. Also, since this book is based on campus life in an Indian college, almost all Indians who have been in college would be able to identify with the characters. Daunting assignments, gruelling night-outs for exams, vodka, campus interviews, hostel.... sounds familiar? That's where, I guess, the author scores. Looking forward to reading his next one.

life.execute()

2005-11-21T08:52:00.000-08:00

There's a point in life, when the once interesting job looks very dull and boring, when nothing in life seems to be entertaining, when there is nothing like a goal defined ( be it short term or long term ), when no news sounds like 'news', when Indian cricket win does not excite you anymore, when you don't look forward to meeting anyone, when food does not necessarily seem like a necessity, when you don't feel like waking up from sleep, when you never feel tired enough to go to bed, when nothing seems like a challange, when you don't feel the beauty of relationships, when you seem to forget what 'passion' meant.

Hopefully, I am not at that point in life, and if actually I am ( irrespective of how much ever I try to fool myself ), I get out of it soon.

Ohh man.. Bangalore sucks! C'mon it's not so bad.

2005-11-13T12:17:00.000-08:00

Finally, all the Bangalore bashing by media seems to have reduced. I really don't understand why there had being such a big hue and cry about Bangalore being so bad, like, it's the worst place to live on earth. The only reason I am able to think of, is that, Bangalore is infested with we IT guys who are basically cribbers by nature.

But, it was disturbing to see a decent news channel like NDTV do that. I had always thought it was an unbiased channel. A couple of days after rains in Chennai ( which was a week after rains in Bangalore ), the news line carried by NDTV was like Chennai copes up well in wake of rain, while Bangalore is still suffering. Personally, I did not find that to be the case. And, you had polls like the below in NDTV - 'SMS the worst road in the country'.

Let's look at some of the complaining that's been there:
The rain:
Yes. There has been rains, huge downpoars, flooding the city slowing down the already not so fast traffic. But, is any other city any better. For eg. I still remember Chennai during torrential downpoars. Places with knee deep dirty water slowing down the traffic. Even now, you see lots of news of cases where water is flooding houses and people not being able to lead normal life.

The deteriorating roads and infrastructure:
Yes. No denial about the fact that the roads are not sufficient to carry the traffic load. But, to understand the infrastructure problem, one needs to really look at the rate at which the city has been growing in terms of population. And unfortunately, every IT guy that moves to the city either owns a car or a bike, making the traffic situation worse. How many in us would be ready to travel in a bus. I myself have not travelled to Bangalore railway station by bus. I choose to take an auto, though there are plenty of buses available. If people are neither willing to give up on their comfort of personal car/bike and want the traffic to not slow down too, I am not able to see a logical solution out of this.
The recent tussle between Deve Gowda and Narayana Murthy has only been detrimental to the already deteriorating image of the city. But, from when did we start expecting politicians to be sensible. Politicians are what they are. Selfish, incorrigible bunch to whom, the sole purpose of any issue is electoral votes. In this regard, the people of Bangalore ( the so called natives - called so by the politicians ), have been very sensible. Such tussle and remarks by politicians would have easily triggered tensions and riots elsewhere. But, that hasn't been the case here.
One really needs to give time for the city to cope up with the exploding population and people's expectations.

There are still a lot of positives about Bangalore that people conveniently seem to forget:
1. The ability to get along without knowing the local language. Try staying in Delhi for 3 years without knowing Hindi. For that matter, in any city without knowing the local language.
2. The nice parks and greenery. You would always be able to find a park within 2 kms from your residence. And believe me, most of these parks are really well maintained.
3. The shopping malls and the cosmo looks.
4. There is hardly any problem of water - now compare this with Chennai where, in many places during summers, the only source of water is those water tanks.
5. You do not have frequent power cuts even in summers. ( Or maybe, it's just that I do not know because, I stay in office with generator for most of the time ) - now compare this with summers in Delhi where the power cut and the heat makes you feel 'Ohh Lord - Why me ?!'.
6. Above all, the great weather. You just cannot beat it. ( For a person who has been in Chennai for most of my life and a brief stint at Delhi, Bangalore is still heavens in terms of weather ).

So, next, before ranting on about how bad Bangalore is, please think for a moment if we are doing anything / willing to do anything to make the situation any better. And, also look at the positives that are still there.

Am I a nerd

2005-10-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Found this during some blog-hopping.

How much is too much

2005-10-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

I was having an interesting debate with my roommate a couple of days back. I was telling him, if I was allowed to have my way during school times, probably I'd have ended up doing a M.Sc / PhD in Physics. Probably I'd retire early ( around age of 36 ) from my current line of profession and get into atleast teaching Physics for school kids.

He asked me, 'So, why age of 36? '.

'Coz. that's when I'd have earned enough and would not be needing to continue on well paid job to support myself'.

He said, 'Well, You'd end up thinking the same way even at 36. What you'd be earning then would not be 'too much' for you. If you thought you'd be contented with the current life, you'd have quit now and taken up teaching'.

That was a good point to think about. So, what is holding me from pursuing my so called 'dream job' which is teaching Physics. The fact that it's a 'dream job' just in one aspect, i.e Physics. On other aspects regarding pay, challenges, etc. it tends to be not such a nice dream. But, would this viewpoint change at all even at 36. Something that I need to keep an eye on.

2005-08-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

God, impart some sense into me to be more independent and less childish.

Wish me luck !

2005-08-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

Well, what's the occassion to wish me luck? I am travelling. I and travel have never got along too well. This time it's Mumbai. Planning to take LHR-BOM and BOM-BLR tomorrow. Well, of all the places in India I get to take my connection at Mumbai. After reading a lot about the rains there, I tried changing my route to via DEL. But, BA could only give me a stand-by ticket to DEL. I chose to try my luck with rain than trying my luck against stand-by ticket. ( The experience of being bumped on two consecutive nights and having to travel all the way from DEL-BLR, BLR-DEL, DEL-LHR on the third day last year, due to a stand-by ticket, still gives me nightmares about stand-by tickets ).

Anyway, baseline is, wish me luck. And pray the rain god to have pity on me.

2005-07-16T03:09:00.000-07:00

I guess I'd never get over my hate towards the inefficiency of huge organizations and tall organizational structures. Lot of things would be more efficient if we just cut down the levels and increase the effectiveness of the communication system. Well, why am I cribbing so much. That's because, due to this inefficiency, I had to travel all way back to India and then back to London within a short period ( it would have been a lot easier for me to have stayed here and completed my job once for all before returning ). And, now, my stay has been extended by two more weeks. Had I known this earlier, I could have atleast been well prepared. ( Actually, I should feel happy that this time I did not have to go to Bangalore and then come back ;) ).

Well, life here is not bad at all. I am having a good time here. Going to my brother in law's place everry evening and cook and eat dinner. Surfing net for some nice looking counties and dragging my cousin over the weekend for a drive to these places. I am enjoying life here !

The brits culture seem to be so different from the Americans'. They don't seem to be aggressive ( I don't know if it's really the case, or it's just the stereotype that's stuck into my mind ). And, there seems to be a greater degree of politics running than Americans. I now understand why India is like this.

One of the observations I made was that, they don't like to be held responsible for their work. If the work finishes, it is done, and if not, they don't care. They like using 'we' more than 'I' or 'you'. Kind of reduces the burden of responsibility by making it collective. If an American faces an external hurdle in the work assigned to him, he'd do his best and make it a point to get past the hurdle and finish the work. In case of a brit, he'd not try as hard to get past the hurle, and would not finish his work. I see the same kind of mentality with Indians too. Worse, an Indian would just not do his work at all, and would be very happy if an external hurdle comes by his way, so that he can blame that as the reason.

Well, all these come with the standard disclaimer: 'These are just my personal opinions and does not reflect anything else, and my sample set is very small, and my opinion is prone to changes as well'. All said, I still like the brits the most for their culturedness.

2005-07-09T03:15:00.000-07:00

I am safe here, at London. I came to office earlier for a release and was held up in that, and did not even manage to track the happenings. And, as dumb as I am, did not remember to convey my well being to friends and family. On a later thought, I realised how important it was, and how stupid I had been, to have forgetten it. I guess, I would have stayed late in office irrespective of the situation outside, to finish up the release if it had got delayed further. I definitely have my priorities set wrong.

On the incident as such, I was amazed at the efficiency of the emergency services and sensibility of the prople here. There could have been more casualities due to panic and stampede. I cannot imagine myself being stuck in an underground tube with smoke surrounding me. I'd defenitely have panicked. But, the effect is defenitely seen here. The crowd on the tubes have decreased. A friday night tube looks almost empty ! Guess, it will take a couple of days / weeks for people to come back to their normal state.

Freewill

2005-05-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

Was thinking about the concept of freewill. The whole concept seemed meaningless. No one does anything just because he likes it. 'Liking' could be one of the considerations when one decides on a choice, but is definitely not the only one. Especially, in a country like mine, I don't think one can find many people whose decisions are solely influenced by their 'liking'. People do a lots of things for others. People do not do a lot of things because they wont 'look good'. People take great efforst to do things just because it is the 'norm'.

simple example - how many Indians go on a world trip. Or, atleast go one a one month trip ( say during switching jobs or whatever.. ). Does it mean that we are not fond of travelling? It's just that staying jobless for one month ( esp. when you are capable of getting a job ), is unusual. And no one would approve of losing one month's salary. Or, simpley put, it's just not the norm.

Well.. I should not be complaining / commenting so much, as I myself have done a lots of things because that was the norm then. Otherwise, I would have been an MSc / PhD in Physics and not a BE in Computer Science. And, I would have stuck to my first campus job , than pick up this one. ( Though, I don't regret for both is a different issue ).

2005-05-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

Finally, a getaway from the hot bangalore weather. This 3 week at London is going to be a good relief in terms of the nice weather, how so ever screwed up be my position at work. But, who said my work life at Bangalore was not screwed up. Though the weather here is a little hotter than what I expected, it's still a better place than bangalore.

Flew Srilankan airlines through Colombo ( a short 1 hour waiting period, thankfully ). Colombo seems to be a nice place, atleast from what I saw near the airport. Should go to some places in Lanka on a nice tour some time. The 10 hour journey from Colombo to London was more painful than what I expected.

I see a lots of Indians around. Of every 4 people I see, atleast one person seems to be an Indian. Some parts of the city are unbelievably indianized. So much to the extent that there is Saravana Bhavan at East Ham. Guess, it won't be long before one of those Saravana Bhavan look-alike props up some where here.

In terms of work, I am starting to realize, how much disconnected higher ups are, with the grass roots level. An efficient communication mechanism, and a concerned management would make the system lot efficient than they currently are. The taller the hierarcy, the more inefficient the system tends to become. Sounds like the typical words from a die-hard, anti-mgmt techie? Well.. that's what I am !

2005-03-08T11:53:00.000-08:00

Finished reading "The Fountain Head" at around 6.30 yesterday morning. One of the greatest stuff I have read. I guess I'll read it once more. This is the second novel after "The God Father" that has been so compelling that I have wanted to read it once more. ( the reasons, however are very different ). The thing that I liked about Fountain Head was the different characters and their different viewpoints. The book did not try to preach any particular philosophy ( though in the end, it seemed to be more supportive of Howard Roark's philosophies, or maybe it was doing that from the beginning, and I just refused to see it ). I am happy to have read this book, esp. at this point of time.

Coming to other things in life, watched two movies this week. "Shabd" and "Meet the Fockers". "Shabd" was a waste of time and "Meet the Fockers" turned out to be a cheap comedy. ( I'd rank it next to "40 days and 40 nights" among the movies I have seen, in terms of the cheapness of its comedy ).

Took part in Abacus Online Programming Contest last weekend. I'd have liked it more if the problems were tougher and the time was more. 5 hrs was too less and it was more of a coding contest than a problem solving contest. Anyways, it was a good relief to spend some time enjoying the thinking and coding.

Relationships

2005-02-28T14:47:00.000-08:00

I keep thinking about relationships many a times. In the current age, do we still have any meaning attached to this word at all? Well, talking about me, I spend most of my day at office or locked inside my house watching tv or reading novel. I do have a great time with friends and room mates. But, what is a real relationship? Isn't it something where there is some one whom you take care of and there is someone who takes care of you. Modern life has become too materialistic for these silly feelings.

Back in the older generations, there was the structure of the family and we had family members to take care. But, now, the whole system of family has broken down. A dad does not relate to his son and his life and it's the same other way too. That leaves people alone to fight their own battle when they go through a bad time. Hope something miraculous happens and we re-discover the essense of relationships.

2005-02-17T16:04:00.000-08:00

Time's 5.46 am. After a long time, I am enjoying working late in the night. Actually, it's been quite long since I worked late in the night at all. Doing it after a long time. Somehow, working in the nights gives a feeling of worthiness and efficiency!! :)

2005-02-06T04:26:00.000-08:00

Sitting at my desk and staring at the code that I wrote a few days back. Got to modify it and work on it. But, I am not feeling like it. Maybe because it is a sunday, I dont feel like working. Or, maybe, I'd be the same even tomorrow. Sometimes I wonder why do these weekends have to occur every week. It gets soo boring leaving me getting bored at anything and everything. ( Well, there have been lot more times when I have wondered, why do weekdays have to occur at all ;) ).

Was going through my mailboxes to check out the mails that might have missed over the week. And found a mail from my college-mate suggesting a blog book on college life. That took me thinking back into my college life, specifically, the first day in college. Actually, this was a day before the first day, when I joined hostel. I see a lots of students around me, most of them in groups with people from the same school / city etc. But, I did not have any one of that sort. No one from my school got into the college, and people from my city were not supposed to be given a hostel, as I was from Chennai and the policy was no hostel for localites. ( Well, technically speaking, I belonged to Delhi, since my parents moved over there after my school days ).

I was standing alone ( feeling damn lonely ), looking at people in groups discussing about lot of things.... the possible ragging they might need to face.... the possible places where they could get the required books for the courses.... the grades that they would need to maintain to be successful.... the ranks that they had obtained to get into these courses.... the bad mess food....which of NCC/NSS/NSO was best to keep them the least involved in those activities and utilise the time more usefully.... and so on. Almost all discussions were related to academics.

I saw people, the confident ones, the not so confident ones ( I was one of these ), and a very few 'I don't care' ones. Of all the people I saw, this one's worth mentioning. Let's call him Mr. V. Now, Mr. V, is a little different. When all the people are discussing about grades and all, this guy is sitting on the parapet wall, with a group of guys around him. And guess what's in his hands. A Barrons GRE book !!!! This was the first day ( actually, a day before the first ), of college, and we have Mr. V who's preparing for something that is 4 years down the line !!

It was a long journey before I finished my 4 years in college. A mostly uneventful and lonely one for the first two years, a moderate third year and an interesting and fun filled final year. I would term myself moderately successful academically. I now wish I was very successful and was in the top of the bunch. That would have changed my interests from job to something academic ( maybe a PhD ), and I might now have been in some university pursuing my PhD.

Well, Que Sera Sera.

2005-02-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Had been to Chennai this weekend to attend a wedding ceremony. Met lots of friends. A few unexpected meetings too. It was good to get together with old friends. ( Now, I am starting to sound like an old man... )
Nothing much to write. Just felt like updating the blog.

2005-01-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

Kitne Ajeeb Rishtey hein yahaan pe...
Kitne Ajeeb Rishtey hein yahaan pe...
Dho pal milthe hein.. Saath Saath chalthe hein..
Jab mod aaye tho.. bachke nikalthe hein..

How true !! This is a song from a movie called 'Page 3' sung by Lata Mangeshkar. This one's nice.

2004-11-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

GOA - The land of beaches... You get to see all types of beaches - white water beach, rocky beach, black sand beach, ... you name it, you get it. So, 5 days in Goa during Diwali. What does a bachelor guy who's gone with another bachelor guy do? Roam around the beaches, ride rented bike, laze around, drink and sleep (??!!!). Well, I did exactly the same ( though I wouldn't want to explain in detail the fourth and fifth item. ) Well.. talking about what best to do in Goa, one thing I can suggest is to chuck any organised trip inside Goa. Best is to rent a cool bike, buy a map, acquaint with a localite to learn the places to visit and bike to those places. One thing that was irritating was the manner in which the localites milk the tourists. Everything is charged at exhorbitant rates. Any 8 Re softdrink is sold at 15 or even 20 Rs everywhere!! One nice thing I found was, there were lots of these beach shacks ( small bar cum restaurants built of wood ) along the beaches, where one can just laze around with a single drink for almost 2 hours. Another good thing about Goa is, it has minimal roads and one cannot easily loose his way in Goa. Map was sufficient to reach a place in Goa. In all, it was a good time well spent.

2004-10-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

Finally, things settled down to manageable levels. Finally finished most of my work at 4.30 in the morning and went home to sleep. Whiled away lot of time in meetings today in office. Ended up doing no/minimal work. I need to understand this phenomenon of not doing any work the day after the deadline. Maybe because I develop a personal enimity towards work while slogging like a dog for the deadline. And by not doing work the next day, am I feeling like , I am exhibiting my supremacy over work. Funny are the tendencies of homo sapiens !

One good thing I did ( or atleast I thought I did ) was to book tickets to Goa for Diwali vacations. Btw, both indianrail.gov.in and irctc.co.in suck. Now indianrail site shows me that a train runs on all days, while it does not actually. And, irctc.... man, it tones the patience level of a person greatly. Had to play around with the site for nearly 30-40 mins to find I did not have the train running on that particular day. Lots of small usability issues with the site which makes using the site really irritating.For eg. the form values are not retained when the page returns with an error. You fill up all the values again and submit just to find out another error ! Too poor for a site that earns so much ( heard somewhere that irctc was the fastest growing B2C site in South-East Asia ). Finally ended up booking a ticket in Air Deccan. ( that was really neat... hmm.. still wondering why government related things have to be so inneficient ). Well.. coming to the best part.. after all this, I learn that I won't be able to manage an accomodation in Goa during that time ! Grrrrrr.......

So, what am I doing in the office at 1.40 in the night. My deadline and the work for that was supposed to be over. Hmm.. that's another phenominon that I am interested in understanding. Why do people never get sleep after the deadline.. Same used to happen on the night after the last examination.

2004-10-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

"It was a hectic week" is an understatement. Put lotsa fight to hit the deadline and made it finally..actually..kinda made it. ( Want to find out if there is any programmer who misses his deadline .. or for that matter.. any programmer who does not work much harder when deadline is just around the corner ). Had been spending the week with my comps, AR Rahman songs , my favourite bean bag and not so favourite code. It was such a relief to sleep in my home bed after one long week. Sleep is bliss !
Well.. one thing that I definitely learnt out of this exercise is software engineering is not bull-shit. Design ( and do a thorough job in this phase ), before starting to code. It would reduce coding time very drastically. Esp. when working on a huge code base on a core issue, there is no escape from spending whole lot of time investigating and designing, lest you want to end up spending a horrible time around your deadline.
Amidst the hectic period was a nice weekend well spent at Bandipur. It's a wildlife sanctuary and went there hoping to see lots of wild animals, esp. elephants. Well, all I got to see were 3 tamed elephants. Nevertheless, the two day stay theret was fun and nice distraction from the dull city life( or should I say cubicle life ).

2004-09-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

Yet another weekend passes by... but then, this time I was at home unlike the previous ones. So, lots of sleep, lots of time spent in office ( with little work getting done ), lots of boredom, and surprisingly not that much of t.v.

Hoping that things would change, and atleast my weekends get more interesting.

Dhanushkodi - a town that 'was'.

2004-09-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

Had been to this place called Dhanushkodi with a couple of friends ( Aravind and Jayakumar for those who know them ). This place is one of the most serene, beautiful and clean place I have ever seen. It's a strip of land ( maybe 1.5 kms wide ) with sea on both sides. It's actually interesting to see waves on one side and almost still water on the other side. The water is pure and clear and you can actually see the sand beneath it.

The place is a couple of kilomaters away from Rameshwaram and to reach the extreme tip, we had to take a goods van, and we travelled sitting on the top of the van ! Wow.. beautiful view!

Dhanushkodi was worth taking all the pains to travel almost 14 hours in bus to reach the place. I just don't have any words to describe the feeling I had on seeing that place. ( Well.. I also don't have any words to praise my dear friend Aravind, who forgot to get his camera from home.... grrrr.... Anyways, I managed to flick a couple of pics from net for those who are interested. )

http://www.vaisnava.cz/fotky/ramesvaram//Rameswaram14-v.jpg
http://www.vaisnava.cz/fotky/ramesvaram//Kodandaram-Temple-Rama2-v.jpg
http://www.vaisnava.cz/fotky/ramesvaram//Rameswaram13-v.jpg

And yes.. some background on the place. This place is the town where Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was born .It was washed away in a cyclone in 1964. A train was completely washed away in the flood with all the people in it ! All that remains there now is the ruins of a once vibrant town, a couple of fishermen cottage and a navy checkpost to monitor immigration from Srilanka. I guess, it's a restricted area. Otherwise, I don't find any reason for Taj or any hotel to not build a resort out there. Isolated beauty ! ( probably it's the isolation that makes it beautiful ).

All I am is a coding monkey

2004-09-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Have been thinking of this a lot. What do I do every day. Code , code and more code. But, do I really want to do something else? Do I want to manage a project? Do I want to take responsibility for a project and deliver it to the customer. Well.. not really.. Management has not been my cup of tea anyday. Some more deeper thought reveals ( atleast seems to reveal ) that 'analysis' is the thing that I like about my techie side of the work. Probably, I'd be happier ( or atleast as happy ) if I were a business analyst trying to create $$ for companies. Lets see.. Where life takes me. ( Never had the habit of taking my life .. always let it take me ).