MONEY BLOWING CEREMONY!!!





Hope all you guys had a safe diwali! All the blogs that I frequently visit have put up a post about diwali - The festival of lights and weird sounds! It is only fair that I give you the same shhhiiit sorry sweet in a different plate.

I didn’t celebrate diwali this time. Not that I didn’t want to, some relative of mine bid good-bye to this world, I was not supposed to. In a way saved me a lot of trouble. No getting up early in the morning! No crackers! No answering greeting calls from relatives! No shopping in the busy streets of T.Nagar!

Diwali had always been a festival more of sounds and less of light to me. Thanks to our education system they always come up with one exam date just after diwali. Thus forcing me to stay at home. All I could do was, hear the sounds of whistling rockets, bombs, ground charkas, 100 wala, 1000 wala, paper wala, cable wala, dhoodh wala etc etc(the last three generally turn up for some diwali gifts). Yes, I could also get to hear some weird natural sounds! Like when one of our family friends after feasting on lots of sweet tried to bend down and do a Namaskar I could hear a faint drum roll somewhere in the REAR!!!

Crackers are a big delight to watch. And when I saw watch I mean it to the H. I stopped bursting them sometime in 10th. When people ask me why? I simply give them a BIG lecture on Child labour! But to be frank it was due to the high price of the metre long AGAR BATHIS. Whenever I had to light a bomb I extend this LIT-METRE-LONG agar bathi to reach the wick. As already pointed out in one of my previous blog I am MYOPIC I wouldn’t know where the wick started or ended! And there I stick it bang in the black hole and BOOM. No time to run and the bathi going to pieces. I used one bathi for every bomb I lit.

Shopping for Diwali could be one hell of a painful task. It included buying dresses to all the needy and greedy in the family, sweets for all those who enjoy playing the drums and few crackers with a million bathis to light them! We generally spend about a day to shop. An hour to get few pants and shirts and the rest of the day for a SAREE! We avoid shopping at Ranganathan Street, which saved our race from getting extinct. Of course how can we forget the crackers? As my dad’s golden words sums it up “DON’T WASTE MONEY, BUY ONLY CRACKERS!!”

The shopping wouldn’t come to an end without having a bite at Saravana Bhavan. The place would be so crowded that a simple walk in and out of the hotel will get your hand soiled with sambar and chutney because somebody else used it to eat!

Aah! Phew…at the end of it Diwali is certainly a festival of lights. Bringing with it great joy! It also marks the end of your year long savings. After all why do we earn - to see it go up and burst into BRIGHT COLOURS!!!

My assets! They are 2 in number

Got myself an IPOD!

No!! I didn’t get this free of cost because my company made a billion dollars. Neither do I belong to that company. Yes! Yes! Even my company has made a billion dollars too. What did I get for that? My company simply gives values. Nothing in physical is transferred. As we are supposed to be driven by values!!

I think I should come to the point now. This is an IPOD NANO 2 GB (Black). It looks real cool. I am in the look out for good headphones. The ear-phones of the IPOD are a real pain. I am not too comfortable wearing them.

I have bought a SET-TOP box too. All my friends told me to get one only if you are a sports person. I am certainly not. But I still got one just for the sake of it. Somehow I don’t get to watch TV and my parents still tend to watch mega serials on popular FREE TO AIR channels.

These two so called electronic stuffs are my only buy of my 2 years odd earnings!!

To B.E. or not to B.E.

As I write this I think about that one guy who screwed my life!! I am sure there is one in everyone’s life. This GUY WHO SCREWED MY LIFE (GWSML) has absolutely no connection with me whatsoever but still has made an unforgettable impact, making my past a daily remembrance in the present.
The only conversation that I ever had with this guy goes something like this

GWSML: Unga first choice yenna??? (What is you first choice?)

I: XYZ College

GWSML: Anga poi unga allotment order vangikonga…(Get your allotment order there)

B!@##$%%!!! U just asked my first preference!!! Who asked you to allot it!! Maaaannnnnn…aaaaaaaaaaaagh…

And that is it…my journey into the unknown started just there.

College was far from what I had thought. Spoilt by Karan Johar flicks I was expecting professors in mini skirts. But I was enlightened with the dress code that women were not allowed to wear anything else other than chudidhars! With the kind of girls around I later was thankful that such a dress code was in place.

Having gotten into electronics my dream was to make a radio on my own. Two years after completing college I am still trying to make one. I seem to have everything that is required to make a radio other than knowledge. I hope to complete it very soon.

My life was chaffed by the ignorance of the so-called professors of my college. Ruined by parts in the various years of my college life.

First Year:
The only person whom the whole class feared NIRMALA!! She tried teaching English. She was some gold medalist in Phonetics. I still remember the class when she asked one of my class mates “Where is your soos” (Supposedly Shoes). And the other time when she dictated “church for” (which probably was the phonetically correct way of pronouncing “search for”). She was particularly angry with me for not doing some paper presentation in English. She made sure she sent me out of her class lest she knew I was quite happy about it.

For some reason all the course books were prized too high. We had to stick to cheap XEROX of the books. The best part about these Xeroxes was that all the print will magically VANISH after the exam and thus can be used for taking notes in the next semester!!

Second Year:
We were spread among various classes based on our groups. This was the start of the electronics based subjects. So we particular didn’t have to carry knowledge of various subjects from the previous year other than English, which we were Suarrly more confident about. Thanks to Nirmala!!

The whole set of lecturers walked in with photocopies of materials and read from it. I always wondered why they couldn’t give one photocopy each and save all of us the trouble. We might as well read on our own. Nothing more can be expected from this CURRENT-YEAR-PASSOUTS-WHO-BECAME-LECTURES.

Heard of fines for failing in exam!! Oh yeah! My college had that too. The idea was that we will study for the exam to avoid fines, but we instead resorted to stealing the question paper. Many a times we would fail with the question paper in hand two days in advance either due to lack of materials or for the lack of patience to find answer in the material.

Third Year:
By now we all were sure that we could be good dacoits, smugglers, conmen but engineers!! The inter department cultural show was around. Guess what? AUDIENCE NOT ALLOWED!!! Just the participants and the judges; SOUNDS CRAZY!!! If it didn’t then drop me your mail-id I am sure we were classmates!!

The Q-paper stealing continued. Being wary about our deeds the Profs made the papers password protected. Thanks to WORD PASSWORD CRACKERS we unlocked all. By now Xerox shops around the city had grown and had started selling XEROXED-SPIRAL-BOUND-BOOKS.

Fourth Year:
Most of us had managed to place ourselves in various S/W companies. They took us probably because they were impressed by our COPYING skills. Now that we were placed, we were remotely bothered about studies. All we had in mind was to complete the course with no backlogs.
We also had to complete a project. We(me and my project mates) decided to buy one some place. Since I couldn’t find one (in our budget) in Chennai, we decided to go to Hyderabad. We got a project in my friend’s uncle’s factory. We got the project free of cost with absolutely no effort at all.


Now two years after my successful completion of my degree. I wonder if it was worth the lacks of money spent. With professors who were no better than the students and a mark-centric teaching system I am a B.E. on paper.

Paradoxical - Part I





I was on my bike on the way to meet one of my long lost friend. We had done our schooling together. Thanks to Orkut we got in touch again.

Earlier that day we had spoken over phone and fixed a time and place to catch up on everything that we had missed about each other. Now here I was crossing the Saidapet Bridge. The road just curved in front of me and something written on the road caught my attention.

I strained my eyes to make sense of the yellow lines. Just as i got a better glimpse of it I read to myself "ACCIDENT PRONE ZONE".

CRASSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its been long since i updated my BLOG!! I promise to do it soon. Just caught up with some work....


What??

What did u guys say??




YOU HELL CARE!!!!

KRRISHHH.......MY ASS!!!!!!!!

Just as the 414 ton GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite launch vehicle) F02 crashed into the Bay of Bengal at about 5:38 in the morning, a need for a YOUNG and YENERGETIC super hero was realized, who could place the satellite in outer space without a launch vehicle.

Yes this is the time of INDIAN SUPER HEROES. We have had enough of SUPERMAN, SPIDERMAN and BATMAN who are busy in other parts of the world leaving India’s future in the hands of Vijayakannth. It is rumoured that terrorist die even at the sight of him. But he is not a super hero! Certainly not young! Few of you may even argue why one more; we already have shaktiman!! Naah..he is busy doing Parle G ads and advising children not to jump of cliffs.

We were actually looking at somebody good looking with a good physique. We got just the guy in the deep valleys of Kullu Manali. We have India’s young Super Hero in the making. This guy is named KRRISH (No No not Krishnamachaari Srikanth!!).

Krishna aka Krrish is one hell of a super hero. Few of his special powers are listed below

1. He can run
2. He can Jump
3. He can climb
4. He can catch fish

Err…that’s abt it…

Krrish’s dad(Rohit) was a bit unstable forcing his mom to spend more time in the STABLES! Thus explaining his connections with the Equidae (the class that includes horses, donkeys, zebras etc) family. It is illustrated below. I BET U CANT TELL THE DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!

(Pics Courtesy: Naren; Special thanks to dpac)

As per his Grandma’s wishes, he tries to conceal his super powers by doing the following.

1. Throwing a cricket bat in the air during a game with the local kids. The Bat just flies off into outer space.
2. Having a 400 m race with a horse called TOOFAN (STORM in hindi) everyday.
3. Having tree climbing competitions with the monkeys and losing it time and again.
4. Scaring few tourists. One of them being our own Priyanka Chopra, Who won the Miss World title by declaring her living idol to be Mother Teresa!!!!
5. Playing volleyball and smashing the ball to distant locations. (Well..he is good at sports but he just hasn’t got the RULES RIGHT!!)

Somewhere in Germany during a football match between France and Italy a bat from outer space hits Materazzi and Zidane is given the RED CARD!!!

Meanwhile, our super hero decides to act in a movie (also called Krrish) whose screenplay is screwed by 5 people. The movie is a super duper hit. Singapore Tourism uses the movie for their promos, though the movie shows Singapore as a crime infested city.

Obviously, attracted by Singapore BEAUTIES during the movie shoot, Krish decides to stay in Singapore and abolish the crime there. The Masked Man as he is known in Singapore, when doing some monkey tricks at a circus sets the tents on fire and then saves the people from the same fire!

I think I will stop right here and write the rest in another blog which will be called “WHY THE HELL WILL I READ ONE MORE OF THIS”.

SEVEN UP

April 13th Wednesday

I was in office. A new mail icon flashed on my desktop. I double clicked it to open the mail. “RAJKUMAR IS DEAD” read the subject line. The mail just had a picture of him and nothing else. My mailbox is spammed by such mails quite often. I had recently received mails with “Aishwarya Dead” and “Salman Dead” as subject lines. Since Rajkumar was old, the mail triggered my curiosity. I logged on to the net and searched “Rajkumar Dead” on google. I hit a link (thehindubusinesslinecom) and opened it.

There it was in bold “RAJKUMAR DEAD”. He was admitted to hospital for bronchial problems a few days back. Apparently died of an heart attack today afternoon. He was 77.

I haven’t watched a lot of his kannada movies. But yes I do know he was born on April 24 – 1929 as Singanalluru Puttaswamayya Mutturaju. He later changed his name to Rajkumar when he was launched into films. He was a very good singer and has sung many devotional songs apart from the many film songs. He had also won the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1995. I did feel a bit sad about him passing away but I got back to my work.

It was about evening when my mom gave me a call and said that violence erupted because of Rajkumar’s Death. A two-day bandh was called. The mob was at its violent best. It burnt few BMTC buses, few autos and even pelted shops with stones.

This was one hell of a ridiculous act. Something that even Rajkumar, if alive, might not approve of (Thou it is a bit stupid because why would people do such a thing when he was alive!!). Why should there be a fuss about this? He died of heart attack. In simple terms a natural death. Obviously appalled by how the crowd reacts to emotional stimuli I went back home.

The next day morning I switched on NDTV to check on the updates. News flashed: Seven people killed in mob violence. The worst part of this mob crisis is that the seven didn’t die in a stampede but where stabbed!!! Was there any reason for the killing? Will the police ever investigate this? Is it ok to kill 7 people because some guy died of a heart attack?

They say those who did all this were his fanatics. If Rajkumar is your idol then why not follow some good things about him. Did you know Rajkumar was a NON SMOKER and a TEETOTALLER? Do any of his fans follow this? I doubt so…
It is ok to be a fan of some actor (like Rajkumar or anybody for that matter). But it is never worth giving your life or taking anybody else’s for them.

Mass Recruitment

2004, 18th Oct

Mysore

This was my first day at Infosys. I had worked in Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co. for about 4 months. No, I wasn't a lateral here at Infosys. Now that was because I was in sales and had no prior experience in software. Somehow the first day at Godrej and first day here, when juxtaposed, was a real contrast.

Godrej..

2004, 18^th June

Bangalore

I seemed to be the only guy joining Godrej on this day. I was standing in front of a door that held a “GODREJ & BOYCE MFG. CO.” embossed plate. I opened the door and walked through to be greeted by the receptionist. I told her my name and she immediately stood up and showed me the way to the branch manager’s cabin. It was just around the corner. I knocked once and opened the door. There was a thin man, with a gold rimmed spectacle, who seemed to be relieved to meet me. He shook my hands and posed me with a series of questions whose answers summed up my life. He introduced me to just about everybody in the office. He then showed me my cabin with a “WELCOME TO GODREJ” card on my desk.

Infosys…

I was standing in the E&R building of Infosys surrounded by 500 odd people (New recruits). Yeah, 500 odd people, that’s the number of people joining Infosys on that particular day. There was a lot of confusion on how to split the group for the induction program. I couldn’t make out who was already working for Infosys and the new recruits. We were given our ID cards and employee numbers. Induction was done by lots of biggies touching on various Dos and Don’ts. Just after lunch we were asked to proceed to the Labs that we were allotted to. We were also given coffee mugs. Just like the once Jail Kaidhi’s* get. Classes started and half way through a coffee mug broke shattering the silence. The lecturing staff immediately prompted us to clap our hands. Memories of my college came. All of my college days we were taught to behave like professionals. And here I was in one of the best companies with great encouragement for miserable behaviour.

I sometimes wonder if mass recruitment is the spoiler. Companies are made to look like an extension of college with the kind of recruitment going on. Thus suppressing the need to be professional.

PS: * Somebody serving a sentence in jail.

Theory Of Relativ(E)ity

29th May
Chennai

My tube of shaving cream was almost about to get over. It was sunday morning. The phone started to ring over the noise of the TV. NDTV was broadcasting an exclusive interview with Dravid. I saw my mom rushingfor the phone. From her conversation i could make out it was my uncle from the US. My mom went on updating him with the latest happenings in India. Realising that something was burning in kitchen, she pressed the receiver in my hand and dashed. He planned to visit India in mid June.

Following the age old tradition my Uncle asked me what I wanted from the US. What the heck! will he get me a Benz if i ask for one.

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Things people get from US for their relatives in INDIA.

1) Family Packs of Gillette Shaving Cream/Gel/Foam
2) Razors with blades
3) Tooth Paste
4) Soaps
a)Camay
b)Oil of Olay(U need some 4 buckets of water to wash off once u use this soap)
c)Lux
5) Moisturising cream(Nivea)
6) Choclates(Twix, Mars, some Dubakoor* chocs by Hershey's
7) Cashew, Badam and raisins(Left with the person to whose house the US chap is visiting. All other relatives make a mandatory visit to this person just to collect their share.)

The above list is a generic one. Other commodities like Pea Nut Butter can be imported on demand.

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Mid June....

So all set for my uncles visit i had to book for a cab and bring him from the Airport. The drive back home was seasoned with my aunt's(Born and brought up in Madurai maavatam) crib about traffic in India mainly and other issues in general. We reached home and i was asked to make train bookings for them; they had to visit my grandpa. First Class A/C, she stresses. Chennai is soo hot she exclaimed(Ever, visited Madurai people have baked arse for breakfast).

Days went past and finally my Uncle and Aunt went back to US after their vacation.


After few months...

We moved out of Chennai.


The following year...

My Uncle planned to visit again. This time the phone call went to my other aunt who now stays in Chennai.

And we visited them for our share of Badam, Cashew, pista,choclates.....

Just to start off...

Many people have got pissed with my behaviour. Mainly because i dont bother to greet them. In few occassions, i have even lost contact with few amazing babes. I meet people, talk with them, hang around with them; then they call it a day citing the same reason. YOU DONT GREET ME. It took some time for me to understand.

I suffer from short sightedness(MYOPIA). If you wave at me from a distance i cant see you!! so there is no question of greeting you. obviously i dont want to look dumb waving at somebody who is not waving at me.

Golden Rule No 1: All greetings to be done when in vicinity!