SOM Batch of 2007

My only class foto till date after schooling and engg. somehow.

so i guess i wanted this one pretty badly.

Okay some more fotos at close ranges -

This one is an uglier shot in the sense that it is not shot centrally. atleast faces r visible a bit more. the prev one ws shot beautifully but at a distance. the background was decent but faces were hardly visible!










kulveer this one is for u. u r in full size;)

Big is beautiful....??

I dont know. Some say small is beautiful.

When we put in the indian context ( govt....in particular), i come back to the former. heres why....

1. take todays paper. the supreme court report on the " unconstitutionality" of the dissolution of the bihar assembly was of 450 pages. When asked why congress was yet to take action against the governer, The home minister says, he has just finished reading 275 pages. he cud not read the rest due to " other " engagements. hows that?

even the telgi scam report ( or charge sheet) weighed over 1500 pages. n so many others.

i guess how much can people write?

2. my appointment order from ONGC ( in 2003) with all details ( i mean all...............it was one long list) went upto 35 to 40 pages. and i finally never read more than 4-5 pages i guess ( n din join there either). in gen these orders come upto max of ten pages.

3. my b.tech project report including all irrelevant useless data ( the most part of the report) only made up to 35 pages. my batch mates seemed to have the knack of filling 150 pages of tripe. n it sure looked impressive than ours....

4. all these board exams operate on this gravitational effect F = Mg. more the 'M' factor the more marks u get. in univ exams, i struggled to get past the initial booklet of 22 pages . occasionally i did take upto 3 extra sheets. and my classmates end up with 65 pages ( that is nearly 12 xtra sheets ( whopping). n these ppl score more than me eventually me. :O

i dont understand this funda.

why all this big? to think n dream big is okay. but how big n in wat kind????

The Phd thesis of John Nash ( remember beautiful mind)was only 25 pages. why do ppl here r obsessed with " big" reports n stuff. ( strangely so is the population scene in india;)

if only someone has an answer..........

Change of my blog address

Owing to local demand (from tamils here), I have decided to change my blog address from

http://ara-aca.blogspot.com
to
http://lottu-losukku.blogspot.com

The new address will become operational by the coming monday, the 30th of Jan.

Thanks and regards to all.

Aravindan Krishnan

Where You wanted to be

Actually its the reverse.

I had just gotten hold of the lyrics of a 'Darren Hayes' Song , i never actually heard till date! (i m still hunting for the same)

The title of the post is the song i m talking abt. guess the lyrics really stuck me.

and if anybody has / gets this song, pls do lemme know!

and heres how the lyrics go----

Hey there stranger
Do you remember?
You were a part of my life
Early December
Think I remember?
Sentiment cuts like a knife
The seasons are changing
Life's rearranging
Full of good times
Would have beens
Its all your fault
And whereve you been
And how time goes
And though I dont even know
How to fill in the spaces
of the love youve erased in my life

Are you where you wanted to be?
Did you get there easily?
Did I make you sacrifice?
Did you make a sharp left
When you should have turned right?
Are you where you wanted to be?
Did you sell off all your gold
Did you trade it in?
Did you wait for love
Or settle for somebody to hold?

And barely symphonic
But strangely ironic
Moments contained in one glance
Oh how i adored you
But now im ignored by you
Nowhere a tint of romance
And now its vaguely familiar
i think i remember sharing every single intimacy
It doesnt seem so strange to me that we barely entertained
Even the politest of phrases
But sometimes at night
I conjure you up in my mind

Are you where you wanted to be?
Did you get there easily?
Did i make a sharp left
When you should have turned right?
Are you whereyou wanted to be?
Did you sell off all your gold
Did you trade it in?
Did you wait for love
Or settle for somebody to hold?

While I was busy
Perfecting the art
Of deflecting compliments
I took it too far
And i let a ripple run right through my heart
Of battle stations we're building
You and i just grew apart
We grew apart

While i decided
To make everyone else happy
i just put aside
My foolish pride
I guess I denied
My own desire
I was too busy pleasing
To ever be pleased
I forgot how to breathe
Or question anything
Or ask why?
Am I?

Am I where I wanted to be?
Did i get here easily?
Did I make a sacrifice?
Did I take a sharp left
When i should have turned right?
Am I where i wanted to be?
Can i sell off all of my gold?
Can I trade it in?
Will I wait for Love
Or settle for somebody to hold

I'd settle for somebody to hold now

You know that ive been up and ive been down
ive been picked up and spun around
id do it all again
if i could just have somebody to hold now
I just need somebody to hold now
Could somebody hold me now?
I just want somebody to hold me now
I'd do it all again

from his album " Tension and the Spark" (2004)

Some dilemma

I was feeling down for the past few days....

i knew the pressure was getting to me. it was one of those times i had to make those crucial decisions. i know it is not unusual . for anyone to make such decisions in some part(s) of their life. but the Q was why i shd have been in a such a wrangle.

anyway....

it was one Early saturday morning when i woke up. 11 AM.

With eyes half opened, i managed to grab a toothpaste and a brush and made my way to the wash basin. as i started my job (of brushing) suddenly sth seemed to hit me ( not physically). i meant a thought hit me. on observing my face on the mirror.

what i saw might not be sth totally surprising. but it was still was kind of . atleast for me.

what did i see?

A single little white hair in my moustache.

but, i had no such white thing in my beard. and this little one seemed to disturb me. by waking me upto reality. reminding me that," boss, ur time is running out, and it wont be too long when u step out of college, u will be left with one black hair and none more"

i retired back to my room with a heavy heart. thinking abt this deeply. and i shared this misery
to my friends. dint get any solace though.

A day or two passed. certain flash backs started playing.
One month back:-

I usually have a clean shaven face. and I decided to give this one a try. a french beard. after all only in college can u experiment things. nobody cares how u look. and even if they, u need not care a damn for that. once u get into corporate life, u cant fool around with ur looks. u start living for others. worrying abt stupid things and all. and they attach a term. corporate dignity. or some such crap. so i decided to consciously pursue this decision. NOW.

i knew the kind of protest it wd instigate back at madras. running the risk of my father disowning me. and paati ( my fav) wd be pained. at such (stupid)antics. anyway i had decided to take the plunge.

and i did.

and one night i had gotten sleep way too early. 11pm. all of a sudden one friend appeared from nowhere. i just sat up half awake. without a warning, he took out of his mobile camera, took a foto of my sleepy face, with this french beard. well. i thought. i might as well mail this home. to paati and appa. let them see how it looks now itself. maybe when i reach home, they might get accustomed to my face with 'that'.

the mail did not recieve an encouraging response. however sudha chithi did call up and warned me against removing this french beard. and i did not refuse.

landed up at home. few days later. grand welcome ofcourse from appa, amma and paati on my arrival.

next morning.

the ' discussion' started as i was browsing this indian express.

appa and paati started off in unison.

that they were deeply 'grieved'. at this 'incident' .

what???? grieved??????

and u call this " incident" ????

after much of parrying, i got away with their compulsions. mostly all chithis approved of this french thing. and some chithappas. amma din like it too. but she does not opine much in these things.

this tamashaa continued for ten days. then thot, i just wanted an opinion on this. and got it from all quarters. so remaining three days, i shd keep appa and paati happy as well. so got back to my original clean look. yeah. it generated animated expressions in their faces.

and they said " ippo thaan daa u r true iyengar".

wait. i was the first among 'perans' in my whole family to complete upanayanam. and even " samaashanam" along side previous generation. to get into the league of " Sri Vaishnava". I dont understand these jargons. . atleast for namesake, i can mention these. and how come i become this " true iyengar" all of a sudden. after these many years of service. anyway.

son enough i was finally back to hostel.

Back to Original Time now: ( and that dilemma)

two days after things seemed to change.

actually kind of started loving that lil white thing. after all not every one gets a single white strand like this. i seemed to enjoy this. and took immense pride in it. and that " sami " thing was playing in the background.

again all 'gud' things come to end. i cud not afford to grow my beard any further. the irritating part is to provide explanations for not shaving. as though, i was doing a 'devdas'. so had to decide on shaving off the whole stuff ( as i either keep some beard or have a "mazha mazha look" ).

and it seemed to be hardest decision i was to take in life). the thought of losing my beloved 'white hair' was too much for me....ultimately, mind prevailed over heart.

i dunno if i have taken the right decision. ( all the while, i tried confirming with junta here whether that 'single' white strand wud appear again with the moustache)....

i only hope it does.

kaalamelaam kaathirupen ;)

What I have learnt from this management course........

well we ( i mean myself and this course) do have a serious problem? somewhere. somehow.

I haven't studied so less for engg even. and i cant even recall let alone relate what i am doin in here!!!! what exactly did i get to learn here?
well thats a tough Q ( just as i was asking amru, the other day, as to why we guys live at all)

What I have gotten however is self realisation ( not the 'nirvana' stuff)

I learnt quite a few things (abt myself and the system here) after gettin here. heres how they go ;)

1. I have a proverbial starting problem with scoring in the " first quiz/test " i take in a given year, sem or a term. u can say " First quiz" syndrome .okay it kind of started from school days. and the first test results in all three terms here have only accentuated my grief. a look at my 'first quiz' scorecards will show how one can score literally obscenely low marks. i know its tough to publish such stupid marks so openly. but i cant help it. As long as the end of the day is fine, who cares?
class 11 - 2/(25 or 50)....dont remember exactly ( and that too in math 'vectors' - and these biology studs thought vectors infect only bodies) ;
college first yr univ - 67 pc ( amidst all that second jee attempt hungama)
first term here - 14/25
second term here - 1.5/5 ( started OR on a shaky ground)
this third term however has been path breaking - 1.5/9 (ops - damn this overconfidence) . whats worse, was expecting to get a negative score with negative marking scheme being applied. somehow ended on a positive note....err....i mean a positive score.

The truth however is, GOD pulls me up from such abysmal levels to some degree of respectability, in the tests to follow thus saving the day for me.

2. I have become a sort of expert in this word game- cow/bulls -( some ppl call it Black/White in madras). and I have Amru and sujay to lock horns with. and classrooms are the only places we play this game. cant afford to waste time in the hostel. where we have other modes of recreation. It is a word game where one guy will think of some 4 letter word. the other guy has eight chances. he must guess 4 letter words. if the letters in the original word is in same position as in the suggested word, we mark 1/2/3/4 cows ( or whites)/ if the letters in the original word is present in a different position in the suggested word, we mark 1/2/3/4 bulls ( or blacks). and then logicise the position of the 4 letters and find the word. our notebooks are littered with uncountable 4 letter words.( its really amazing to understand how many 4 letter words have been created by man). we are curently contemplating reducing the number of guesses to 6. and it is our earnest endeavour to spread this culture through out the class. ( we have deal with the stationary shop, that this word game really necessitates purchase of rough books....cant reveal the commission though)

3. I can handle Antakshari, in hindi as well. amrutaunshu gives company as ever. he has a gud voice, i shd admit. and yeah it happens in classrooms only. when too much of discussion happens ( most of it pretty useless, i am sure), one can afford to sing a bit louder. the voice is drowned in the din. yeah now and then there are obstacles, with surprise Qs, being shooted ( and for which we have no answers) . But i know we can still do it. What amru?

4. I am much more worse at music composing than I thought. My first attempt was not much of a hit. blame it on the staid rythm tracks of this synthesiser. and add to it , the absence of drumpad ( to get that human touch) and the recording quality( straight from keyboard to comp). With Kiran getting his electric guitar in place and hoping rohit to bring his tabla soon enough and amrutaunshu to contribute to this 'stuff' with his classical knowledge , i am sure we gonna go places.

5. I have this insatiable appetite for sleep. I sleep 10 hrs in a working week. and 12-14 hrs in the weekend. atleast if not sleeping, just lying in bed, dreaming of things i know i cannot accomplish (like music composing for instance). ( and we hear B-schoolers sleep for 4 hrs a day and other rotten stuff, well atleast i dont do. neither do my batch mates afaik). actually i misunderstood it. seniors told me they sleep for 4 hrs in a day. i realised pretty late that we actually had classes for 4 hrs a day. and it is this 4 hrs they were talking abt ;)

6. people dont respect frankness. We had a comm skills presentation. had to present on our passion. I ws the last to present. that after 4 hrs. class was almost dead. and when i started mine and told them that my passion was kids and ultimate happiness was in being a good father, the class burst into laughter. ( and even after confirming that i was a bachelor as on date, I didn't recieve any application for the same!!!!). pity them how do they know the difficulty of parenting................yeah....atleast i got decent grades for my presentation.

7. The first comers to the class always fight for the last benches. and whats worse, its not the work ex guys who do it, its these so called 'enthused' freshies.......

8. We all guys here, fully believe, in the infallibility of yahoo polls, as the custodian of free and fair demo'crazy' in making any decision that involves the interests of the whole class. we have different reasons for conducting such polls. like whether exams shd be open book or not, grps shd be random or self made. ( for eg, one such stupid decision made me mug 650 slides for a single paper,that too in a dry subject like MIS). Recently the class think tank (headed by me) is discussing on a framework for identfying the scope of this yahoo poll thingy. It is expected to extend this yahoo polling to crucial decisions like how much time we shd ask prof for breaking in between sessions, how much shd the topper score to make RG less painful for others ( by keeping the std deviation lower) , how many students at most can sleep in the same session, whether we shd come to class, fully prepared with the cases that are to be discussed by prof in the next class and many more..............

9. Taking the cue from my lil cousin sis pooja, i have also started this carrying out conversations thro rough book scrapping....in sessions that have no takeaways, only getaways actually......see what 7 yearolds can teach u....

10. We have more fun things to do in class than just sleeping the time away ( and whats more, we also perform 'value added services' like waking up ppl after class, that too free of cost)

11 . and If i gotta survive this term ( the most painful so far), I gotta stop this blog NOW.

Tata

I call this Mu'sick' -

" Kanda Naal Muthalaai kaathal peruguthadi....kaiyinil vela piditha karunai siva baalanai....."

A few disclaimers before i proceed further. I am not a music critic. I have no grt music knowledge as such. But I have the locus standi of being an ardent music fan. So i guess i have all the moral rights to spell out my take on music, the contemporary style.

Whats with the music composers these days.....? Is it a dire shortage of creativity or the prospect of unearthing obscene money in this film industry ? The film industry itself, btw,is, of late, redefining its boundaries, at a tremendous pace. Why the quality of music is never quite the same like it was a few decades back or say atleast a decade back. This is regarding both tamil as well as hindi music ( I will talk abt hindi later on).

Before we get to provide a critical analysis of contemporary music, we shd stop to think how music is being redefined, in terms of its focus, since last 50 years.
and Music as everybody knows is an eclectic mixture of vocal and instrumental components, institutionalised, into a soulful rendition of the intangible inner voice .

Early days, music was a support function in the film industry ( it still is, but still major changes have happened). That was the Tyaagaraaja Bhaagavathar era. There ws not much of instrumental component happening. focus was totally on content of song in a simple style.

Then came our M.S.Viswanathan era. The instrumental component was still relatively low profile. but this era saw the effect of english jazz, pop etc finding its way. Still the songs were focussed on lyrics and vocal while the instrumental part was a perfect foil to the vocal rendition. I wd say the best ever songs ( from my viewpoint) came from this era.

Then came the IllayaRajaa era. now this era is again divided into two distinct phases. The first phases was a painless transition of the MSV music style based on more vocal components into a partial instrumental commitment. There ws more use of the tabla, flute, strings etc. Then with more ' competitors' the focus was to absorb and appreciate the role that instrumental component had to play. The music industry was on the threshold of witnessing an enormous change now. The pros were the new developments in sound technology resulting in a better transmission of vocal and instumental outputs.

Then ofcourse came A.R.R. Instrument suddenly became the king. The songs were now more closely treading the carnatic path and ofcourse others were there too. But music was heavily instrumentalised.

now there are different players. Not much to talk abt them.
In all these eras , i have had fav songs. so it is not like i advocate a particular era.
Now the problem lies with the practice of using technology substituting it for human creativity. I do love techno music but not when they manifest as noise signals without the human element in them.

run a track. start mixing music with it. this is hardly the way music as started by man, with his brain-mind interconnection envisaged itself.
most often, the spirit of a song gets lost in the music that engulfes it. and there are thousands of sounds operating in absolute incoherence that u cant understand whats happening. I call this robotic music. the only difference between human and robots is humans can feel and think for themselves. we are tring to logicise the musical exercise even though it is supposed to be an art!

next overt plagiarism.
keep downloading foriegn music and add a bit of masalaa to it. and u are done. the song becomes a chart buster. for heaven sake, dont write " music composed by....". instead mention "music adapted by"! that wd be more honest.

Remixes. The song i mentioned at the top ( kanda naal....)is a typical example. adding a supremely fast beat to what is a slow mellifluous song achieves what purpose. Just imagine if if u were to listen to a similar fast remix of Bombay Jayashree's Sarvam Brahma Mayam....u will go crazy. I also listen to remixes. i liked alaipaayuthey remix. but teh difference is the instrument sounds were light, more connecting to a bhajan / devotional song. ofcourse carnatic music buffs would ridicule even that. they have the right to do so.

Technically a remix of a carnatic song or a old song is like fast food. i prefer the term junk food when the stuff gets more ruthless (acc to me). nobody has time to compose. take a base. add a lot of ingredients to it. make sure it is spicy ( peppy in music terminology). while fast food hurts the stomach, remixes hurt the original composer. second it is ' covert' plagiarism. what is the fun in a taking an old song and adding technology to it and presenting it as oldwine in a new bottle? it may still require talent. but pls dont call that creativity for heaven sake.

finally i hate " dapaanguthu" or tapori songs! these have become a regular feature of films nowadays. for attracting masses. video and audio are in intense competition to decide which is the worst between them in illustration of such dapaanguthu songs.

Even if i am not a purist in listening to music, i cannot stand such gross indifference to music, the way it is done.

Thats market driven approach for u. music is hot business. not an art for self actualisation!

For the purists, I have nothing to say.

for guys like me, just keep hoping for sth better. cribbing in the meanwhile.
and for the masses who like such masalaa stuff - its ur time baby.

That leaves to another fundamental debate -
which of the two is superior - Creation or the creator ?

PS :

The charanam of kanda naal muthalaai song sounds similar in tune to the charanam of " Kurai ondrum illai...." song sung by MS. isn't it?

'Algorithmic Analysis of an Intimidating Infant'

Job satisfaction is a buzz word nowadays.

For me, the "Job" gave me tremendous satisfaction. peace. bliss. mess. and what not. Infact i had waited for this "job" the past 4 months. the wait did not go in vain.

whatever. however. 'It' did prompt me to think.

whether this "job" was an Art or Science.

Location of " Job " : Lloyds Apartments ( Akka's house)
In charge of : Shreya
The Job : Baby sitting

Shreya is my ' marumaa' or sister's daughter who is just 4 months old. After missing her " Punyaavachanam" , My wait to see her finally ended in my recently concluded trip to madras. and i had a earful of her sweet but shrill cum splitting voice.

She gave me fresh insights into the delightful world of cute little kids/ babies. ( perhaps the reason why i chose to give a presentation on my passion - cute li'l kids- in my comm skills course, a month back )

i have pretty much experience in handling these kids ranging from 2 years and over. that is they can recognise you. talk to you. and sometimes even understand u ( and overstand / outstand etc) . so the "Job" was not really that difficult.

but welcome to the world of just borns. u have a challenge , i can assure.

As far as the debate as to whether the Job was about Arts or Science, i tried experimenting with it :-

the trouble shooting , the way i used to earlier in my chem engg career ( if at all i did manage any) was sth i was close to stumbling on, in this baby sitting exercise. call it a new sphere of management. KM. not knowledge management.

Kozhanthai Management!!!!!!!!

these days management is one of the most talked abt word.

now kozhanthai management is all abt ur 'soft' skills. communication skills. non verbal communication, at that, for these new borns. ofcourse we always had an overdose of it in our e-schools and b-schools. but the demand is high, solid, immediate and inescapable when it comes to new borns. better face the music now. or u may never face any music ( ur eardrums wd have become redundant by then)

so what cd have been a side spliiting experience ends up being an earsplitting experience - and i decide to answer in the affirmative for an algorithmic analysis of a 'shreiking' shreya!!!!!!!!!!!

just as we do elsewhere - get a checklist ready - but make sure u have researched into all the root causes of any 'cry'! the interesting thing abt these lil ones is not a drop of tear appears in their eyes ( i am really serious) . for the din they make, this is hardly expected at all.

true enough - " Child is the father of Man" - considering the way she dictates terms to my akka.

in my typical engineering style, i try to document the causes and possible solutions! the language is called " hope less less" ( much like C++. btw i am hopelessly illiterate wrt computers )

wheeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllll here she goes ..............now...........

1. has she been given 'nestum'? or milk? ( depends on the time of the day)
2. if ans = nestum then when was that? if ans = milk then goto step 12
3. sleep time after nestum = 3 hours. that is, both done after bath. if sleep time <=1.5 hrs and crying = 85 decibels then feed = milk;
4. if milk = unaccepted; then try " aanai.... aanai...." rocking her back and forth in a sitting position! ( one of the singly powerful technique i have seen)
5. if " aanai aanai" = ineffective then take her to UMAACHI room and teach her UMAACHI KAAPAATHU. this is my own technique. this also works at times. small kids can communicate with GOD in their own special manner. so it is not surprising that PERUMAL pacifies her. sometimes PERUMAL decides that she gotta fun for some more time [ much to our discomfort -:)]. so the wheeeeeeeeeeeling does not stop.
6. one more issue. who said kids dont have ego? try giving milk a bit late to these lil ones....they go on strike refusing to drink. what more they spit it outside. thats their way of teasing u ( child - father of man - Ahem).
7. now if the din is not done, time to check her diapers. when was the last time u changed diapers - if time >= 4 hrs then better change it and observe.
8. let her do the expurgation if any.
9. if wheeling = continue then check for diaper rash; apply cream
10. try moving her up and down making crazy sounds. she may end up giving u glances as though u were insane and she is perfectly normal! ( i really mean this!)
11. now comes the tech savvy part! akka has a projector to watch movies full screen. and shreya relishes watching it. this is one sure shot way of calming her down! btw a normal tv soap wd do as well. 'kolangal' and 'Anandham' btw are her fav picks. now i understand the logic of using soaps to calm her. after seeing ppl on soaps cry, she does not want to contribute more water to chennai ( by crying), what with already chennai reeling under these unprecedented rains! ( i guess we shd ban all tamil soaps if chennai is to be saved from this demolishing deluge)
12. if last milk time - nowtime >= 1 hr then feed = milk : goto step 4
13. if nothing has worked so far ; blame it on 'electra complex' . the father daughter special attachment theory ( this is really true. of me and my akka and appa atleast). now all 'athimber' has to do is look into her eyes and say ' ondi maa' and she giggles as if she is floating on soap bubbles.
14. now she has calmed down almost. yes. btw she has transferred all her tension unto you :D
15. a caveat; dont habituate her to taking in ur lap or carrying her around! if u then try leaving her on a rubber sheet - her decibel levels may blast past 200. and ur music system will get insulted!!!!!!

Even as i had painstakenly tried to trouble shoot, most of the times athimber solves it in a jiffy.

need i say more whether Art or is it science that rulzzzzzz in this "Job" ?

so thats how the saga of an amateur baby sitter ends....well wonder how akka manages it.

All day. Every day. Full play. Shreya's way.

oru "O" podanum Akka ku!!!!

Pooja's Rough Book

I have had the privelege of browsing through her rough book.

and I was not disappointed for the note was filled with some interesting stuff [atleast i found it interesting :))] amidst other run of the mill and mundane scribblings (yea the academic stuff)

The setting:

teacher not in class. class leader 'minding' the class. so students converse in writing.

- the excerpts of the conversation that transpired between her and her friend ----

Other artistes - prathiba.... and roshini (guest appearance).

[their names changed to preserve identities ughh!!!! - ithu romba over illaa????]

Related acronyms :

poo for pooja
prat for prathiba

okay here goes -

poo: dear prathiba, i told u to not tell this matter to anyone. why did u tell this matter to roshini?

prat: in toilet, u only told to tell this matter to roshini

poo: no. when did i tell? and dont show any letter to roshini. yes or no?

prat: i told her the matter . what to do now?

poo: ok ! but dont tell anyone else now.

roshini: okay pooja.

poo: i dont want roshini's answer. i want your answer prathiba.

prat: ok. i wont tell others.

poo: ok. change the topic. we will speak about something else.

prat: no i am doing it with roshini.

poo: what are u doing with roshini?

prat: we are writing story.

prat: ok. we'll play.

poo: ok. u start.

prat: how are you?

poo: fine how are u?

prat: fine. how are your forin studies?

poo: its fine. but your searching for work.no. i will give you work in forin.

prat: hey. i am not searching for work. i am already a vet in america.

poo: but paati told your searching for work.

prat: no i dint tell you that i am searching for work.

poo: okay. leave that off. now u just draw a picture that u are a ghost and trying to kill me.

[ a terrifying pic of a ghost - or a lookalike follows - drawn by prat =))

poo: it is like a doll and a smoke.

prat: gosts will be like this only.

poo: we will play tic tac toe

[ shows a tic tac toe 3 by 3 matrix]

prat: no. it is boring.

poo: it is not boring for me.

prat: hay please write the topic is friends or parler

poo: how to play?

prat: tick any one. we play that topic.

poo: what should i tick?

prat: tick your favorite

poo: you dint give options at all. how can i tick?

prat: i gave options

[in the sentence prat:hay please write the topic is friends or parler
- tick marked on parler - now]

prat: welcome to our parler.

poo: i want to do facesial.

prat: please take your seat. we'll do our project.

[ a pic of a girl with boff hair - i cant see any 'facesial' done on the girl!!!!]

bell rings....trrrrrringgggggggg....class over.

now full time vetti for another 10 mins :))

PS:

Acknowledgements to pooja who had sat beside dictating to me for over half an hour in writing this post.all blog directions - font, colour, style of writing were also advised by pooja.

btw, pooja is my li'l cousin sis , studyin 3rd std now.

flashback:

i was an innocent, ignorant and a dumb child when i was in 3rd std. kids these days are way too smart i guess!!!!

Is Chennai a Nightmare for Non Tamilians ????

I cant say how many times exactly. or how frequently either!

what????

i mean we have these discussions like who wants to work in what kind of places in "Mera Bharat Mahan" .

i start the usual ramayan like " I love chennai. Chennai is Heaven" and more. what was till now going like a normal time pass discussion suddenly turns dead serious.

Is it with the name itself, I tend to think. For Chennai in hindi can be read as " Chen Nahi".

looks like i am doing a PJ or sth. But i am serious abt this issue atleast ( if not for any issue so far in my life). I wd never hate to hate anybody who attacks chennai.

okay lets get serious here.

the accusation against chennai starts now. in full flow. worst city to live for a non tamilian says one. yet another says he had frightful experiences in chennai. like, one was nearly robbed of his belongings by an auto guy here. two years back, yet another told me that he was robbed in a local train. a strange but irrelevant coincidence here. both were biharis. worse still, a kannadiga says his bangalorean friends had become tired of being prey to money fleecers and cheats. that, the moment a chennaite finds that a guy is from outside, he is gonna take him for a ride. I defend saying these things do happen everywhere. not so only with chennai. I have been to delhi and bbay. and found all these auto and taxi guys trying to fleece me. ofcourse i get experienced after that.

ofcourse we all know abt our own " extra ordinary aurorickshaws "! they never charge ordinary fare. (meter ku mela pottu kudunga ). meter a thaan mela podanum !!!! but the agony rarely ends here.

it is quite imaginable if some uneducated rogue tries to take adv of a helpless outsider. hope quite a few wd have read abt that unsavoury incident where am IIM L graduate was beaten up and manhandled at Bangalore Rly stn and robbed of his belongings. i am talking abt B'Lore RLY police. so what is it with chennai that they dont see elsewhere??

Hmmmm.

Now take for instance the case of chennai software companies . a young female friend, a mumbaite who got married recently and settled with her husband in chennai finds life painful at TCS there. She is shocked everybody talks only in tamil at office. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she was nearly in tears at the way her office ppl treat her. and she begs for a transfer to bombay.

One friend who worked in Infy, Chennai says all the project discussions take place in tamil. When the project leader was requested to conduct the meetings in english, he refused saying that he will lose grip over his team if he does not talk in tamil.

water problem, mourns other. as one puts it, in the infy campus, when young lovers discuss abt water problem during their lunch sessions, amidst thousand other topics, guess how trying it has been. atleast i think, the problem is sorted now. but, we now have a problem of plenty, though :)

One more friend starts arguing that the chennai population has never been to the likes of other major metros. the reason being, outsiders will never want to settle here at all!!!! boy, does he have a point?

If there has been some sortof uneasiness towards non tamils, this, by one of the thousand illiterate guys, it cd be understood. even bbay has its own spat with bihar. the one that happened recently at JJ hospital. Nitish dials Maharashtra CM to take care of biharis in bbay. Maharashtra has the issue with karnataka over Belgaum. With Shiv Sena threatening dire consequences if Karnataka is going to treat marathis badly in Belgaum. there is a already a movement going on for having a marathi recognition for that area. Why, Kannadigas manhandled Tamlis in bangalore, a decade back! all these things say that chennai may not be the only one at fault.

but wait.



the two instances with reputed software companies is not sth we can imagine. even if we say that they cd have been stray incidents, it still reflects how bad this attitude has been towards ppl who are mingling with chennaites as one among us.

I have worked in bbay and a few more places in gujarat. and can never cite such an instance that the guys working with me cd talk only gujarathi or marathi. they do sometimes, but ofcourse not in meetings or with issues of such importance to work as is a project discussion if i am not mistaken.

Personally, my own best friends have been a lot of non tamils both at college and at my work place. to this day back in college.

I dont know how many more chennaites will agree to this post. they wd have had their own experiences from their non tamil friends. or even others who work in comapnies with non tamil colleagues. they can sure come up with totally different responses.

But what I really wish to know is this.

whether Chennai is all that dreadful to scorn at outsiders. I wish I have operated so far purely on teh basis of Bounded Rationality theory.

I wish a fellow chennaite gives me an opposing point of view. that things are not really this bad. that more outsiders had really gud fun working / studying here. that chennai will remain in their list of best places to work and settle.

I wish to be contradicted without compromise. I wish chennai be spelt as Chen-hai !!!!

(and I wish I get the opportunity to return and settle in chennai:))

My Idol - Darren Hayes

Yet another boring day in life. the mind does not respond to the fact that i have to finish this executive summary asap. I try different things. I lock myself in a room, see the same plan again and again to get the executive summary perfect. The coziness of the chennai climate and my eternal laziness form the perfect combo, as i remain blank, unable to add value to the report.
Darren hayes is slowly penetrating into my body, mind and soul. I lie down, totally clueless.


guess just the right kind of atmos to get another blog on the wall. and Darren takes it all.

Darren Hayes came into my life just as i was finishing my engg. it ws not to be just another pop artist in my life. I listen to a bit of carnatic (thanks to appa and paati), a bit of movie songs (mostly A.R. Rahman) and then some english light pop songs ( no rock songs).

Music is sth i usually listen to free my mind, just as anybody else does. But Darren Hayes was meant to load my mind. like ppl take to drinking occasionally.

A bit of history. Darren Hayes is an Australian Pop Singer, a former singer of the famous band " Savage Garden" along with Daniel Jones ( the lead guitarist). They had some problems about three years back or so. Daniel wanted to get into admin stuff of the band Darren wanted to lay more stress on music. Finally they had to kiss Good Bye .

so why Darren was special to me? I have been listening to a lot of these chocolate pop bands. I keep listening to these kind of lyrics - If i let u go, I wanna be with u , I love u and more of such crap. to write abt love is what even Darren does. but theres a passion, a fire, a thought and a real feeling. the fever of his mood used to spread to me many a times. and love is not the only thing. he touches every whisper of life.

The music is , more towards techno. but techno music is not that easy if u want to explain the feeling of a mood and a song in the way that it shd be. ofcourse guitar is the key component here too. I am not trying to compare with Pink Floyd or Dire Straits. they have had their own brand of music. they were geniuses. agreed. but here was a guy, who had a really amazing voice and a way of letting these inside emotions explode. The malleability of voice is beyond imagination ( whats the music terminology, yodelling?). if u wd want to check out, thers no substitute for self listening.

I have maybe listened to just around 30 odd songs of his. the latest album being, " Tension and the Spark". I have downloaded all lyrics and usually read it as he sings. and for me, every song , in that manner, was not abt humming a tune, it was an experience in itself.

My favourite songs ( my fav will be more lyrics based than the music itself) include
Tension and the spark - I like the way, void, Light, Unlovable,
Affirmation - affirmation, crash and burn, You can still be free, Gunning down romance, Animal Song.
Spin - Like it or not, Good enough, What u like
Savage Garden - part one - Universe, To the moon and Back, promises , carry on dancing etc

Just to give u a feel . In his song, "Light" - He points to the stages of light inside every life as : Light first flickers, then blisters and finally glitters. the lyrics are subjective and one can draw their own inferences depending upon their interpretation.

The deathly pale effect of his music adds to the lyrics in leaving u in a state of enigma.

In his song " Affirmation" he lists out his beliefs sth which every one will mostly agree, that are a very touching part of our own lives. He sings " I believe in Karma, what u give is what u get return; I believe that we place our happiness in other people's hands "

In " Gunning down Romance, one can see the way he portrays love . not just another goody goody kind of thoughts. more satire. more pain.

He starts as " Love and other moments are just chemical reactions in ur brain; feelings of aggression are the absence of the love drug in ur vein; "

"Unlovable" lyrics can be aptly said as the height of frustration; his agony knows no bounds.

In " I Like the Way" , for eg, he starts with " Somewhere inside my evolution, Karmically I seek retribution; Looking for love in physical beauty, Desire is the drug of the Bourgeise "

and he further writes
" The decadence of giving into desire, creates such entropy within;
Looking for love in spiritual faces, blind to the art of fabrication "

and finally ends as " Temptation tempts the temptee" !!!!


lots more to say on each of his songs. i have a summary to finish. time i quit this board and get into that. Listen and feel Darren, and u will not be left barren, for sure!!!!

the simplest way to reach his lyrics is the golden world in web technology - GOOGLE

Harini's name is Nithya

End of Blog

Last Minute - Last one - Why it happens to me everytime???? - Part 2

okay u heard me clear and loud in my prev blog !!!!

That was a typical college life happening. youthful and colourful. They say life gets serious in work life. and it usually does.

IT DID !!!!

move one step, outside the college and land up in the wonderful world of a chemical engineer. yes, six months into a chemical engineering job can ensure adequate doses of delusions. that of tripping extruders (plant lingo) and hammering pipelines with steel rods ( yes, one of the major skills a chemical engineer in a polymer plant shd possess) all thro the night ( shift).

add to it an endless rotating shift life (morning, afti, night shifts cyclically) - 24 hrs running plant - work for 16 hrs (double shifts) occasionally - sleeping for 16 hrs straight- breakfast at 5 PM - being drowsy most of the times - parents mistake u to be an inveterate drunkard ( from the way u attend to their calls) and the like.

To cut a long story short, my chemical engineering life was chemically choking, mechanically mocking, electrically shocking, instrumentally locking and biologically blocking!!!!

and it makes sure u get all the driving force to determine the easiest exit path! only if exits were so easy. not so easy if u want to put a big kumbudu to chemical industry and remove the tag of a chemical engineer........yeah i was kind of Tagged!!!!!!!

In this country they say, if u are not gud at anything, try management. all u have to do is to do some showbusiness, pick some weird jargons, speak in a semi american accent (lucky for a call centre exp guy) and u've almost made it big in life. so tried my hand at the obvious. koncham seriousness reqd to clear admission process.

The 'last minute...." syndrome ( btw i had started to develop an affection for it lately) was to catch up with me (just like death catches up with survivors in the final destination).

FMS exam: Timing - 2 PM : venue bombay. common sense tells in bombay u have to keep a 1 hr margin for any journey u undertake. that is if travel goes smoothly. and without any surprises. had to travel from vashi to VT. a typical 1 hr journey (if u go by train). that is only the active travel time ( taking into account the walking down, up catching auto etc.)

nice breakfast at chithi's place. aracha kozhambu and saathumudhu ( thair is ofcourse always there). but that was never going to be enough.

and they say u have to chill just before exam to crack a gud paper. but i have a knack of overdoing things ( in my spl own way).

now how to chill????

"Enakku 20 Unakku 18" film ( meaning I am 20, You are 18) . nice dvd print. that was to be the final touch to the exam prep. Romba thevai!

started the movie at around 9.45 am. by the time the movie finishes, its already12.15 PM. okay cool it, i am the master of trainodynamics in bbay, i assure myself and leave for the exam finally.

12.30 pm i am at teh vaashi station.

now what? the coolest thing that can happen when u r on ur way to a competitive exam!
The local trains - the lifeline of bombay - specifically the harbour line ones - the ones exactly between my examination centres ( exactly, again by DESIGN) have been cancelled! oh boy, all my travel calculations were created on a basis that has just disappeared into thin air. that is the proverbial weakness of engineers. they are analytical not creative, to imagine of situations like these!!!!!!!!! if anybody has a different view, atleast these are true of me!

now the beauty is , all buses outside stn are jampacked, thanks to cancellation of local trains.

and due to my extraordinary luck then, i had no single bus to get to my centre. worse still, i barely knew what buses and how to get to my exam centre.

i can hear u all. height of irresponsibility and frivolity even in a career defining stage.

all i cd do is wait and then manage to just get one hand and one toe ( not even a foot) into a bus, which i had no idea where it was going or where i had to get down. after all, for a start i atleast needed to avoid seeing the damn vashi stn atleast. i never got so sick of that station in my life.

had to change buses midway. and reached somewhere close to VT. and then a taxi to get to the centre. once in the centre, had to search for classrooms endlessly ( screw the college. it was more like a jigsaw piece of architecture).

2.05 PM, papers were already being distributed. and here i was, so late, as if I just had a major meeting with some damn diplomat.

well I am truly tired of mentioning the same result as in prev blog- somehow i cd feel jaspal bhatti, with his thick beard, roaring hideously right over my head.

sodhappal of a collosal kind uhhhh?????????

ofcourse in that year I managed to clear one exam but again due to lack of interview prep was chucked out in the final stage. i dont want to get into all those irrelevant things.

now for the mother of all episodes -

one more year passed by (yes painfully) and the ritual of application for MBA seemed to start. CAT was over. time for JMET ( for the uninitiated, that is the exam for mgmt in IITs)......

look at the sequence of events:))

1. Applied to jmet. but the hall ticket did not seem to come. finally exactly one day before i was to leave for bombay from gujarat, the hall ticket came knocking to my apartment. it was apparently doing teh rounds at bharuch town and in all the departments of my chemical plant complex, according to reliable sources!!!!

2. GOD'S GRACE, exam was thro. now time for interview. again the IITB interview call letter did not come (luckily three other letters did) . this one had gone all the way to chennai. how cd they send it there i thought. that too late enough. for an interview slated for feb 28th, i recieved the letter on 27th, at my relatives place where my parents had couriered.

3. interview over. after that realised that yet another year of hardwork was going to the dumps. results were out. waitlisted. that too reasonably far. The benovelent and benign seniors ( @ IITB) took enough care to assure me that it was impossible for me to clear such a high waitlist.

4. again GOD gave an opportunity by clearing the waitlist two months after the result had been originally announced. i get only the mail. my luck with call/offer letter had become so ridiculous that again no sign of the letter. still okay. i make a draft for the fee payment and decide to courier it. i manage to find a courier shop, not so popular. atleast it cannot be notorious i thought. had i walked 100 ft ahead, i cd have managed professional couriers. but then i am a resigned fatalist. my fate ensured that i dispatch my fee thro that courier shop.

5. that was on 24th july. 31st was the last date for fee reciept at IIT-B. after giving the courier, i try calling IIT every day checking out whether my draft was recieved or not. a day passed, one more, and one more....no signs of draft being recieved at IIT. it was 30th.now. sth was terribly wrong somewhere.

to get an admission after two years was itself painful. and now after that u are abt to get chucked because of some damn ( damn is one of my fav words in english) courier guy who cd never ever understand taht i he was screwing my life so badly without possibly knowing it....

6. i go back to that courier shop to check. he says all couriers were dispatched to some distribution centre. i go there with pink courier challan and accost that shop owner as to what fate they had handed out to my draft and to me. we pore over all records to find out the history and geography of my courier. he takes a close look at my challan and says it was a wrong challan they courier guy had used ( apparently a white one shd have been used for out stn couriers)....here i was holding a pink slip ( yeah i had resigned a nice paying job, for tis degree, and now holding a pink slip, exactly)

then we again drive back to the original shop. now i start to raid the shop as if i were from IT dept ransacking a bloody bureaucrat's apartment ( on the basis of a complaint powered by Right To Information Act).........only to find my courier absoultely safe....

where do u think?????

in a crude corner well hidden by a gigantic xerox machine. the last place u can ever find a letter of immense importance.......

i was too tired to start a brawl and too happy to complain....i cd not ever imagine to find my draft in this manner. anyhow hopped to professional couriers to send that draft.

the tricky part was the same day i was leaving for coimbatore from chennai for my cousin's marriage. if i ws not going to find the draft, i was not even in a position to think whether i wd have made it to the marriage, what with all my cousins and relatives rocking the whole house up and down.

checked with IITB next day ( the last date for submission) to find that the draft was safe ( for a change in the hands of the admin dept).......phew!!!!!!!!!

now what on earth can u call that kind of experience??????

btw this is B-136, Hostel 13, IIT Bombay reporting this tearful ordeal to u .

How was that??????

( i wish nalini chithi wd read this post, will ya plzzzzzzzz??????)

Last Minute - Last one - Why it happens to me everytime???? # 1

There are two things to life.

1. Life changes continuously....
2. Yet there are certain constants in life....

I am not talking of a theory that says something always changes in life so that something else remains constant.

what has remained nearly constant in my life?

okay let me explain further : -

It started right from the time before joining college. After a miserable 4339 rank in TNPCEE, and padu flop in Board Exams, getting free seat in a decent ( how do we measure decent?) college is a real fight.

looking at the admission screen in anna university can create hormone surges, particularly when u see the so called open seats are gobbled up while the 'reserved' seats literally crawl. so much for meritrocracy.

so finally one last free seat for chemical engineering in VIT was in the waiting.... and i cd see a good 25 ppl ahead of me in the line. that is desperation defined. all set for climactic finish.

however GOD DECIDED that i was the one even if the last one. and so did the saga of chemical engineering in VIT start.

but this was just the start!!!!

why???? take a look:)

one year in VIT - enough of mugging - Frustration again, write JEE once more.

As if by design it happens to me, the University physics exam and IITJEE physics exam clash.

morning 10 AM - univ exam at vellore - Afti 2 PM - JEE physics at chennai!!!!

change plans- JEE centre shifted to TIRUPATHI. finish Univ exam at 11:15 AM - examiner looks askance at me- get into the car booked for the journey.

reach TIRUPATHI 30 mins before start of exam. only to find our names ( 2 more with me, sandy and praveen) missing from the list of examinees ( btw, does such a word exist?)

after running around here and there, we find our names at the last minute.

result of exam - flop again :) ....bright spot? atleast passed the university physics exam. no arrear. suprisingly i got a score of 77 in the paper for 75 minutes of scribbling.

What next? 3 more years to kuppa kottify in VIT. what else? But the next adventure is already in waiting....

CAT Maze- RAT Race : --

exam at 10 AM. my (bloody) buddy sandy ( that rhymes) gets up at 8. 15 and successfully completes a single cup of filter coffee in 45 mins ( sandy did that taste so good?) . we start at 9 AM. the centre takes around 20 mins by bike in a free road, and 35 mins if u manage to get caught in every signal ( and the way is only full of signals).

no sooner did i start the vehicle ( bajaj pride it was ), the bike was skidding. flat tyre. great start. nalla sagunam. apparam enna, we walk till the nearest bike station. clock says 9.10. As the mechanic repairs the puncture, 9.27 now. okay we have less time, so adrenalin pumped up and so did the accelerator. the bike had two rear view mirrors, protruding so beautifully. as if murphy always rules, the next lafda ( hindi for bejaaru) turns up.

zooming at a high speed, the light weight vehicle that it was, control was difficult. add a sandy road to it ( uh one more sandy, all the lafdas of the day have been dedicated to sandy).

cartload of tomatoes towards us. i try to move out of the way. the rear view mirror does not think so. it gets caught into the cart ( one more painful rhyme)

i manage to keep the bike on road. meanwhile my partner is tasting sand 50 ft behind . tomatoes strewn all over the road. 10 ppl around us . 9.35 time. interesting situation.

after sporting innocent faces amidst begging them that we have an exam, we manage to get out of the mess.

after having to put up with the signals as well, we reach exam hall at the lastminute.

now profusely sweating during the exam.

result of exam - fundoo flop.

had a written test for a s/w company immediately after CAT.

CAT usually requires u to shade answer bubbles marked 1,2,3,4. the written test was to be answered as A,B,C,D. ended up writing 1,2,3,4 in my test answer sheet.

result? even after getting all Qs right, the stupid company said, i cannot mark anything different from A,B,C,D and chucked me out. meanwhile, in all the hungama that ensued in the accident, the silencer of the bike had given away and started giving eeriee noises like that of a bullet bike/Rajdoot.

thanda selavu athukku mela. for repairing the silencer.

phew........have a kitkat.

more in the next blog

tata

The life of a mysterious and mediocre thengalai iyengar - #1

The mysterious life of a chemical engineer....every bit hard that was to bear!!!! guys two years ( tears to be precise) of an unexpected alliance with reliance , if not been more fruitful, has built a lot of resilience in silence....

but wait....

these two years also taught me to enjoy misery which is also a memory to carry forth in life....to put in lucid taste, the leftover waste, i am gonna dump in here, pls get ready i shoot here my life experience ....kind of a lifetime experience....a life which cd have been wonderful in many ways but then screwd in totality all solely beacuse of a persona non grata - that is me.....

i wish to divide my miseries in stages for two chief reasons: one, u will have something to read and pass time on a daily basis.... two, for the global fact that ppl prefer to multiply joys and divide sorrows ( tch this itches thoroughly) before i get to lament on my fate ( which now atleast is not half as bad as it cd have actually been) i shall start the sojourn from the time of passing from my college....

i shall dvelve in detail the machogiri displayed in the route to misery. pls start looking for further posts if u find it worthwhile to waste time on listening to my ramblings for a while pls also fill in ur expert comments....whenever and wherever relevant and appropriate

yours frustatingly,
ara

Mediocre life - VIT Life begins - # 2

Life provides ample reasons and opportunities for untold surprises....so what is the Q? everybody faces the vissitudes of life....no one is a virgin, everyone is screwed. but whether a lone individual can be eternally commited to lafdas is a thought worth introspecting....

here goes a blow by blow account of how worse things were already, continued to be so and that at a rate each overshadowing the previous.

it all began with a rather uneventful college life. a chosen one....to screw oneself. a college i was destined by join for there was this last chemical engineering seat begging to be taken by a champu who had no inkling of what a chemical engg degree was to provide him in life....(till date this funduchemguy aka FCG has never discovered the difference between a B.E and a B.Tech Degree, while also least interested in knowing the same), after miserably flunking the JEE. For a fact of life, totally bungled up the HSC and TN entrance exams in the name of JEE. and i stood there gazing at the admission screen desperately hoping to get that last seat in VIT. Finally by the end of the day, thanked my stars that i almost sneaked into this insti, the one i were to hate later every bit.

The insti , situated a good 2 hrs travel by a superfast train was reason enough to disappear from college every given chance ( perhaps not just given but taken chances too) and i found my saviour in brindavan and kovai express which were to transport me to and fro....so much so that i had to include them in my vote of thanks in my farewell note on my college convocation.

Railway stations were to become my second home ,a three month train pass - passport to my immediate future, railway stall pongal and cocunut chutney my staple diet, college studies - a forgotten commitment and finally my future - a foregone conclusion.

VIT Life full flow - # 3

life had started and was in full flow....routine was set and the new order of my life was seeming to commence....

the first year at college.... the first year was different and difficult in many ways. there was this utterly new hostel (or hostile as u may deem fit) life that was literally strangling me. then those stupid classes - doing the same variety of problems one by one as though we were only coached for a degree. now coaching is a bit euphemistic ....poaching wd have been apt. and the worst of the lot - the engineering drawing . i shall not hurry thro all these....there is a beauty in each one of them....and it is not fair to give a cursory attention to them.

hostel life....i never had a better companion than brindavan exp , during college. life wd have been extremely cruel if not for this angel, the angel on wheels of the deccan pride. basically calling myself a hosteller wd be to heap insults to my fellow hostel mates. particularly when u dont stay there at weekends and the most part of the weekdays are spent at college lecture halls. but yes....whatever little i have seen of hostel , i remember....a bizarre incident....

a hostel warden - a semi dude, bespectacled, frowny, corpulent, poorly humourous insaan. a nice little evening we had with our share of cricket and we entered teh hostel....

all we cd see was approximately 29 heads, nearly 13 of them stinking with neem oil, 6 of them as dry as baked brick resembling the kinds of our first year civil engg text books. rest i dont remember....imagine 29 heads bucled into one giant heap looking at a 20cm *20cm notice board....that calls for some thinking.... it was never crowded, i mean the small potico and the lone notice board - till then it was one unnoticed board....but then that was one fateful day of reckoning for this .