Funny Pics - I

Well I am not an expert photographer, but someone who captures something that's funny or odd. So here are the first set of photos. Enjoy :)

( (C) All photos copyright to the great gundu prasanna :P )

1. Hmmm, if this trend continues then they ll hang one advertisement in our neck also :P

This pic was taken in a street near my house in BHEL MIG Colony Hyderabad


2. Oh, does this clock also belong to Raja Raja Chola's era? :)



Clicked in the international departure terminal of the new Hyderabad International Airport

3. Watches also need rest, what say?



Taken in a shop near Hyderabad Central

4. Yet another reason to thank your office Admin :)



No marks for guessing it right, captured in my office only

5. The Mobile Lingo has caught up everywhere :)



Board at the entrance of a Court in Coimbatore

N.B : Pls click the image if you are not able to read the contents :)

To be contd.... :P

Quote Unquote - Students from IIT

B.Tech - "product" of IIT
M.Tech - "by-product" of IIT
PhD - "waste product" of IIT

by student(s) of non-IIT whose co-workers and manager are by products of IIT :-)

courtesy : Anniyan

Quote Unquote - Democracy

Abraham Lincoln said Democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, for the people"

Namma Indian Politician says Democrazy is a government "off the people, buy the people, 4 the people(his family members :P ) and... from the people (money)"

"Boys" for Sale in India

A new "Boys" market has been created for trading boys in India - BNN IPN Exclusive.

13th June 2015

Rajdoop Pardesai: a new "Boys" market on the lines of "Stock Market and Commodities Market" has been made functional in all major cities in India creating an unprecedented excitement, shock around the world. We have Vallavi Ghosh reporting from Kolkata and Beeraraghav from Chennai. Beeraraghav lets hear it from you first, what is really this market all about? and what is the reaction from the public about it?

Beeraraghav : Well Rajdoop, this is just the official version of selling the "bridegrooms" for "dowry" during marriage. The parents of "boys" are really a happy lot, as now they can bargain for a price "officially" rather than adopting "undercover" methods, Rajdoop.

RP : Hmmm, we could see the reactions of the parents of "boys" there. They are certainly a jubliant lot. Vallavi, what is the reaction in Kolkata?

Vallavi : Rajdoop, just see behind me and you could see parents of "boys" really celebrating this day by beating drums, exchanging sweets and singing praise of Gualayam Singh Badav, Lollu Prazad Jadav the leaders who brought about this market from "theory" to "reality". Lets just hear it from them, to a person in the crowd

Vallavi : So now you have the "official market" for getting a better price for your "boys" so how do you feel?

Parent of a Boy : This has been a dream come true for the Indian Society(??), this has been the long standing demand of parents of all "boys" , a fair price for their sons without fearing for police cases, demanding the in-laws etc. We thank Lollu Prazad ji and Gulayam ji for making this happen.

Vallavi : That is the reaction from the parents of "boys" here, over to you Rajdoop.


Well this is just an imaginary situation now, but can be a reality, if we don't wake up.

The most dishonorable, disgusting thing in the Indian society is Dowry. Dowry's meaning in dictionary is "Money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage". Now the question is, Is the money brought or sought?

Dowry is not only practiced by Indian society, it existed all over the world. But Dowry was practiced as "sought" only here, leading to innumerable "unrecorded" deaths of daughter-in-laws. Why I say "unrecorded" is because most of the times an "accord" is reached and the deal is "mutual". For the record, number of dowry related deaths for the year 2008 stood at 7618.

The other worrying thing about this trend is the wide acceptance of this dangerous dowry in our society. Demanding dowry is no longer seen as derogatory, rather seen as a status symbol. The parents of "boys" are extremely disdainful when dealing with "girls" parents. More painful is when the tough negotiator and senior torturer of the daughter-in-law is mother of the boy, a woman herself.

Gone are the days when a girl was confined to household chores. The present day girl studies as good, is as brainy, as intelligent and as talented as a boy (even better than, infact). When the scenario is like this, it is extremely unjustified and cruel for "boys" parents to demand money from a girl and her family in the name of marriage.

"23 year old girl commits suicide after being tonsured by her mother-in-law demanding money". "Gas cylinder bursts, 22 year Girl dies of burns".These headlines sound familiar is it not? The fact that these things happen in 2009, (who knows will continue to happen till 2900 also) is case in point for our barbarous attitude.

"Where does the boy's brain go when he comes to know of their parents closing in on a "deal" for his marriage?". Even I am perplexed, is that boy really hapless and helpless against his parents? or he just feels it is justified? The boys need to answer this.

விறகடுப்பு எரித்தது
"gas stove" வெடித்தது
ஓ மின்சார அடுப்பே
நீயும் "shock" அடிப்பாயோ
"மருமகள்" உன்னை இயக்கினால்?

Neither tough legislations nor punishments can prevent this from happening. A "mass mindset change" should happen. The "boys" can do a lot by questioning their parents when they come to know of this and making them understand it is equivalent to begging and selling him off. Until then you will continue to see and hear about those headlines.

Let we boys take a oath at this moment that we will never encourage the concept of "Dowry" as brought or sought and that we will consider girls as equals and not inferior to us. Let us all vow together to wipe this evil monster out of our society and make India a better place to live in.

"உனக்கென்ன பா கவலை எல்லாம் பசங்க தான், என்ன மாதிரியா மூணு பொண்ணுங்க உனக்கு ?" (Why should you worry? All boys only for you. Are you like me , mother of three girls?). When this kind of utterances vanish, when boys and girls are treated equally, then is when India becomes a really "developed country". Lets make it happen!!!

Jai Hind!!!

வந்துடோம்ல, இனி கலக்கல் தான்

மக்களே,

We have started creating terror here at Hyderabad :)

Started our gully cricket here !!!

எப்படி எங்களை "cricket bat" oda பார்த்தா எங்க flat la இருக்கறவங்க கண்ல ஒரு பயம் தெரியோமோ, அதே பயம் இப்போ, இங்கே, இக்கட எங்க area la இருக்கறவங்க கண்ல தெரியுது .

இதோ எங்கள் முதல் சாதனை

Great Escape because there were none in the house when we broke it with the "hard" tennis ball!! and still they don't know who did it :)

அதனால் Hyderabad il இருக்கும் நண்பர்களே, இந்த சாகசப் பயணத்தில் நீங்களும் பங்குபெற வேண்டும் என்றால் உடனே என்னை தொடர்பு கொள்ளுங்கள் :)

பி.கு : நீங்கள் உடைக்கும் கண்ணாடிகளுக்கு நீங்களே பொறுப்பு கையில் தேவையான அளவு "amount" வைத்துக் கொள்ளவும் :)

The "Irony"

Well, today I went through an article in "Education Plus". Read it here.

Every word of it was what I wanted to express in my blog at some point of time. The author had beautifully captured where we are going wrong; the caste system , the colour consciousness among others.

Thought of applauding the author, when the article mentioned that the author is a student of Amrita School of Engineering and furthermore in Electrical and Electronics ( yeah that's what I studied) , well did I read his name, no I didn't, so scrolled all the way up the page and found this "..........................." :-) (read the name yourself and understand the IRONY)

India "DEFLATED"??? - Inflation என்றால் என்ன?

India’s inflation as on June 6^th is –1.6%. Now does that mean everything is damn cheap and the demand has reduced? Are we in a deflationary economy? Read on,

Here are the prices of the vegetables in Chennai’s wholesale market on May 27th and June 8th. These prices indicate only one thing; the inflation calculation is nothing but a serious joke.

To know why this –1.6% is a ridiculous number, let us see how inflation is calculated in India. Basically, there are two types of Price Indices that are used to calculate inflation in countries around the world; they are WPI and CPI

• Whole Sale Price Index (WPI): WPI is the index that is used to measure the change in the average price level of goods traded in wholesale market. Which means that the actual cost to the consumer is not captured here. This index is available in a weekly basis, with the shortest possible time lag of two weeks. That is why the inflation data for 6th June is published on 18th June. India is the only major country that is using WPI to calculate inflation.
• Consumer Price Index (CPI): CPI is a statistical time-series measure of a weighted average of prices of a specified set of goods and services purchased by consumers. It is a price index that tracks the prices of a specified basket of consumer goods and services, providing a measure of inflation. Which means that, the actual cost to the consumer is captured. But since it is a time-series measure, inflation can be calculated only on a monthly basis. Most developed countries use this CPI to calculate inflation.

India has a basket of around 435 items to calculate the WPI. The basket consists of items of 3 major groups: Primary Articles (98), Fuel & Power (19) and Manufactured goods (318). The three major groups of the commodity basket are divided into various subgroups.Primary Articles are divided into 3 sub-groups consisting of (i) Food Articles,(ii) Non-Food-Articles and (iii) Minerals. The Group of Fuel and Power is divided into 3 sub-groups; (i) Coal, (ii) Mineral Oils and (iii) Electricity. Manufactured Products are divided into 12 sub-groups; (i) Food Products, (ii) Beverages &Tobacco, (iii) Textiles, (iv) Leather & Leather Products, (v) Wood & Wood Products,(vi) Paper & Paper Products, (vii) Chemicals, (viii) Rubber & Plastic Products, (ix)Non-Metallic Minerals, (x) Basic Metals & Products, (xi) Machinery & Machine Tools,and (xii) Transport Equipment & Parts.

Ok, we have got the basics now lets go to the rubbish i.e. lets calculate the inflation

Calculation of WPI: Lets calculate the WPI of say tomato. Calculating WPI needs a base number and a base price. Let those be 100 and 10 Rs respectively. Now on May 27th the price of tomato is 20 Rs and on June 8th it is 16 Rs.

Since WPI base no is 100 the WPI Index on May 27th and June 8th is 200, 160 respectively.

Similarly WPI is calculated for remaining 434 items and then the weighted average of individual WPI figures are found out to arrive at the overall Wholesale Price Index. Commodities are given weights depending upon its influence in the economy.

Calculation of Inflation: Now we know the WPI of tomato on June 8th and May 27th

Similarly it is calculated for other commodities and a consolidated figure is obtained. Now tell me, what is the better word to describe this procedure, ridiculous, stupid or humbug?

The method is flawed because:

• It does not take into account the actual cost to consumer
• Most of the included commodities are meaningless from the point of view of a lay man
• The WPI is based on commodities included in 1993-94 and.... you know what :P

So what does –1.6% mean, as told earlier, it means nothing. This percentage is because of what is called the “base effect”.

An ordinary man like you and me, cares not about the inflation percentage, but for the money we pay out of our pocket for getting essential commodities. On that note, India is a big inflationary economy. With 60% of the population not able to make ends meet with the prevailing prices of essential commodities, you will see the economists, politicians and news channels debating on this meaningless –1.6%.

That’s our India for you!! Mera Bharat Mahan!!

IT Happened in India - my humble opinion

Well if you think IT stands for Information Technology, sorry, it is just IT :) . "IT HAPPENED IN INDIA" is a book by Kishore Biyani. Now you may ask Kishore Biyani? who? Even I had the same question...

People who know me know what books I read( tinkle, tenali raman and birbal stories :) ). So a book review (not a traditional review, but my opinion) from me is one of the most unusual of things to have happened in this earth thus far :P . Seriously speaking I felt that the book deserved to be comment(d)ed, so this post.

This book was a gift from my friend Sasi.

Kishore Biyani, is the founder of Pantaloon Retail, Big Bazaar and now the Future Group. This book talks about how he along with his team built the retail empire and his vision for the future. No, this is not an autobiography, but a business (Success) story. Lot of people who were (are) involved in building the chain have shared their experiences, making it an interesting read.

I am one of the biggest fan of modern "value" retailing in general and Big Bazaar in particular. Because, my TV, washing machine, mixer and many things here in Hyderabad are bought from Big Bazaar, at almost a steal. So I felt lot more attached with the book :)

Kishoreji (as people refer to him in the book), talks about his background, his vision, his belief in the great Indian Consumer, his (dis)belief on the conventional (mis)management theories :P and the concept of "Brand Building".

When the whole business concept was "start, earn and consolidate", he dared to take the risk of setting up new businesses in the constantly dynamic environment. This story of his, which talks about "indianness in thinking, building trust and relationship, design as the center of building organizations", is truly inspiring. I think one would become kishoreji's AC (remember this? if sonia is my fan, then i am her AC; andha AC :P)

Kishoreji got this "gyan" on opening a retail format from, guess where? Walmart? NO hmm Marks & Spencer? NO. Then? namma Saravana Stores pa... He was amazed at how people vied each other for space and returned home with big baggages. Saravana Stores was his bodhi tree, which showed him that businesses that sell variety of consumer goods like utensils, clothes, etc under one roof can succeed. (collara thooki vittukunga :) )

He talks about creating "win-win-win" situation. Where the business owner, the supplier and the consumer benefit symbiotically at the same time.

Though there were many theories which he had proposed in his book, the one which I liked the most was "time pass" theory. Everyone in the world have to do something to keep them occupied from their birth till death. It is for passing this time that we study, work, talk, blog etc. He says, to "pass his time" he is doing this business(namma enna panrom ?!!) this may sound spiritual, but he calls himself a non-believer!!!

More than all these things, the book dispels fear and instills confidence in the mind of an upcoming entrepreneur. For those people who are like "cat on the wall", wanting to, but, holding back their ideas for new business ventures, this is a must read. Cos this book says how a "baniya" became a "Biyani". Take the plunge and take the risk he says, you actually fail when you don't try!!

Definitely a book to read!! Thanks Kishoreji for sharing this wonderful story with us, hope "IT will continue to happen in India" and we have a major role in ensuring that!!

விடை கொடு எந்தன் "Naan" னே

You read it right!! Gundu Prasanna is going to follow strict and military regimen to reduce his weight!!

I can hear you guys saying this the "n+1" th time you are saying this...

But this time prasanna எடுத்த சபதத்தை முடிப்பான்!! இது தாய் தமிழ் மீது ஆணை :)

August 16th is the deadline!! Prasanna going to lose atleast 15 kgs by that time...

இத ஏன் blog ல எழுதறேன்னு நீங்க கேட்கலாம்.. எங்கையாவது பப்ளிக்கா எழுதி வெச்சா தான் நாளைக்கு உங்களக்கு பதில் சொல்றதுகாவது நான் கொஞ்சம் sincere ah இருப்பேன் அதான் :P

70 லட்சியம் 75 நிச்சயம் :P (target weight on 16th aug)

அது வரை விடை கொடு எந்தன் "Naan" னே (panner butter masala, fried rice, noodles ellam dhan bye for now !!)

இப்படிக்கு
விரைவில் "ஒல்லி" பிரசன்னா வாக
மாற இருக்கும் "குண்டு" பிரசன்னா

ANTI MATTER?? No SAPPA MATTER!!!

For everyone of us movies are part and parcel of life ( may be except for some nerds(psychos?)). There are various kinds of film goers, some are obsessive, some are passionate, some are watch-in-once-a-while and some are reviewers/appreciators. Well I am a passionate film goer. But my passion is limited to Tamil movies. Because, well that is the only language I can understand well :-). Seriously speaking, I cant relate to other language movies(atleast non-Indian), their emotions, their problems, their inventions, and finally their accent!!

Two kinds of films (rather woods :P) I know are Indian [B,K,T,M]ollywood and Hollywood. There are two basic frameworks for these woods.

Indian wood: A Hero, A Villain, Heroine(mostly villain's daughter :P). Hero loves heroine, faces problems, fights thugs, breaks plots,challenges villains, sings duet (with 1000 dancers in foreign location or an extravagant set) and finally emerges victorious.

Hollywood: Either the US, or the world is facing a serious threat from aliens/nuclear weapons/terrorists/jumbo size creatures/fancy chemicals/etc, a team of scientists led by the protagonist and later joined by a lady scientist(the love interest) are breaking their head to solve the problem and finally emerges victorious.

7 out of 10 films made in these woods extend their respective framework. OK, now you may ask why all this now??? well, after a long time I saw one English movie, "ANGELS AND DEMONS" and just wanted record my opinion about the movie here.

ANGELS AND DEMONS : I knew that it was a book written by Dan Brown and thats that. I generally don't read novels and I haven't bothered to hear this one's story too. Balaji, Veerakumar, Ramarajan and myself decided watch this movie at the Imax.

When we entered, the film had already begun and a team of scientists were seriously discussing something in an unknown language. The team was researching on creating something called as "Anti-Matter". They finally succeeded in creating it and had it stored in a charged canister. As expected the "Anti-Matter" was stolen. There is another plot, the election for the next pope;
the "4 cardinals" or the "pope-in-waiting" candidates are kidnapped and an anagram "ILLUMINATI" is left behind as the message by the kidnapper.

Here enters our protagonist, Tom Hanks, who is a professor and researcher on symbols. The Vatican police request his help for deciphering the anagram. The plots are now linked and the antagonist, has promised to kill a cardinal one at at time from 8 PM and blow Vatican and Rome at midnight using the antimatter. Our leading lady, the scientist, joins our hero here.

He is the hero, right? So he succeeds in his mission and all ends well. The film's trump card (joker rather?) is the suspense on who is the actual reason behind all this mess. To keep us guessing (??) we have a haughty, loud mouthing Swiss guard's boss, an over(re)acting bishop, queer looking guards, dull lit buildings with lot of secret doors, pathways etc.

One good thing about the movie is history, I like history and a lot of historical facts have been explained and elaborated. Other than that, well, the film falls apart. Mainly because I was able to guess what will happen next and who is the villain. Though it was just a guess initially, I was able to confirm it half an hour before the culprit is unearthed, this particular dialogue gave it all away "Do you have the news to make me immortal??" .

The climax was intended to be spectacular but ended up being funny. The leading lady keeps emphasizing every other scene, about the power of the "Anti-Matter", but our bishop takes the canister, which is about to lose charge and explode, in a helicopter as high as possible, makes it to explode there, the huge crowd recovers after being "blown away" by the energy generated, while our bishop lands in a parachute.

When the entire land wants the bishop to be crowned as pope, our duo finds out from recorded cctv's footage that bishop is the actual culprit (yawn!!) and he immolates himself fearing arrest.

A lot of questions are left unanswered, If the antimatter is so powerful, how can it cause only a small effect when it is exploding at an height of say jus 25000 feet? Why is the antagonist so dumb to leave the cctv footage accessible, when he plans the murders so meticulously, with lot of attention to detail?

Balaji said the book will be too good and everything will be explained and connected in a brilliant manner. This is the risk of filming a novel. Not all the emotions of the writer can be translated onto the screen. The camera, editing and background score were good. This particular camera angle on zooming in on a shoe from the bottom and panning up still further up showing who was standing there ( :-) ),was just innovative. On the whole, a pat on the back for capturing historical facts and connecting them, but the screenplay could have been a little better especially in the climax.

Bottomline : Anti matter, Sappa matter :P

One Year with the Great Enterprise

Every journey begins with a single step. Yes, I have put my best foot forward to have completed that single step in the journey of my "CAREER". This day June 2, 2009, marks the completion of my 1st year with GE. A sense of overwhelming pride, satisfaction and happiness transpires through me as I look back at the year gone by.

How it happened

4th July 2007 : GE was initially not opened for EEE, at the last moment we got information that it is being opened for EEE and that only 10 people from a class were allowed to write the test. I had to do a lot of persuasion to be one among the 10.

5th July 2007 : The pre-placement talk happened and most of us were disappointed with the package they offered. But I took a chance, cos brand value mattered more to me, as my ultimate aim was to pursue MBA and GE is not a bad company, after all, it was the company started by the man who gave light to the world, Thomas Alva Edison (there are some contentions about this, but anyway).

The written test was quite easy, and I completed mine 30 mins before the scheduled close and left the hall. The interview, contrary to my expectations and to the sample papers in net, was based fully upon core electrical and electronics. How I passed the first round, I still don't know!! The next round was with Ravi, (my current manger), it was more of a discussion than an interview. The HR round was a mere formality and guys, the process was over for me at 12.40 am on July 6th. Tense hours passed by, as the result was announced at around 2.30 am, finally I was selected in GE!!!

The Internship

10th Dec 2007 to 4th April 2007 : I did my internship here, again disappointed at the fact that, where I was to work was a software product company, shattering my beliefs that it would be more factory or plant oriented job!! But even during that time, one thing which I really loved was their work culture, it was so open, relaxed and professional. That along with the brand value did it for me.

Finally with GE!!

2nd June 2008 : With lots of dreams, expectations and a first hand knowledge about the company and the place I was going to work, landed at the office. The induction program followed for 15 long days, some days interesting and some days outright boring. Joined the Smallworld, GIS team, under Ravi as a software developer. Confusion prevailed initially on which product I would work on. So generic trainings about Smallworld followed. And finally on august end it was decided I would be working on Design Manager, an engineering work flow management product.

November 2008 : It was from September 22nd that I became productive and fixed 8 defects in the month of October ( a new record of sorts!!) and was nominated for the developer of the month award, just a month after I started contributing!!! But unfortunately missed it by a whisker ( as told by my manager :))

December 2008 - March 2009 : From this time onwards I was moved to NPI(new product introduction), to develop new features in the application. This was indeed a great opportunity for a guy who has just started on. Those 4 months were hectic and challenging indeed, but I relished it and enjoyed that time to the fullest!!("The Week That Was", actually happened after this time) In the process was nominated for developer of the month for December and January. And finally won it for January 09, for contributions in NPI!!! That really gave me a lot of satisfaction and an urge to do more!! What more, our product won the prestigious "Best Software Project Award" in our annual Engineering Recognition Day (ERD)!!!

April 2009 - present : I was moved from Design Manager to Core Spatial Technology, the mother of all smallworld products, because of my flair for NPI, sharp thinking and fast execution (again as told by my manager!!).

All work and no play makes "pras" a dull boy, is it not? So kept myself cheerful by taking short afternoon naps(!!), playing Table Tennis, Carrom and now recently (last sat) cricket!! Actually I won the Table Tennis singles and our cricket team was runner-up in the intra- HTC sports meet, when I was doing my internship

A year has gone by, a fairly good one at that and I have made the right decision of joining GE, cos what more a Growing Engineer, like me, need, than a Great Enterprise like this. At this point I thank all my family members, friends, fellow colleagues, managers, HR and all the staff at HTC and Smallworld, who made my first year a pretty eventful and enjoyable one!!

At the start of the second year I see the huge mountains I need to climb, the vast oceans I need to swim and the tough obstacles I need to cross, to reach the "destination". The only vehicle, which I believe, will take me(you too!!) there is "continuous learning".

Because

The Sincere Sigamani and the real Suppandi!!

We all love simpleton suppandi, don't we? the one who either misunderstands or "literally" understands his master's commands and is always chucked out of his job at the end of the story. We laughed at "ambi" vikram of anniyan for drawing margin in his love letter, didn't we?

Well how would it be when these two guys combine together in the same scene? the very thought brings smile to our lips. Well, I had the privilege to see them in action right in front of my eyes!!

I woke up late today and hence did not cook anything for lunch, which meant that Meenakshi and myself needed to go out for lunch. At 1pm we went for lunch and it was our usual place the Gur Nihal Foods, a punjabi dhaba. The dhaba was full and we were asked to sit inside, which is actually the owner's living room. We placed our order and were talking about some office stuff. As the number of waiters were less,and the crowd started increasing, the owner asked people coming inside to write their order in a paper and give it to him.

Two guys came 5 mins just after we placed our order. Our order was served and we started devouring on it. These guys were talking, waiting and looking for the waiter to bring their food. 20 minutes passed by and we almost finished our lunch, still no signs of the waiter bringing their food.

One guy raised to see what happened, just then the waiter arrived with two plates containing 5 parathas each. Those two guys were equally baffled as we were.. 10 parathas for two guys it seemed very odd!!

The two guys exchanged question marks, while the waiter confirmed that it was their order only. The following conversation happened:
(am trying to reproduce whatever they said so some tenses in Hindi might be wrong, pls bear :-), muje maph kijiye :-) )

Guys : Arey, ye kya hai? (Hey what is this?)
waiter : aap ka order ji, ek aloo paratha, dho lacha paratha,
theen gobi paratha, chaar onion paratha aur veg manchurian
Guys : meine order kiya kya? impossible
waiter : aap paper me likhena? ( you wrote it in the paper na?)
Guys : vo paper chaiyiye, lets see ( bring the paper lets see)

Here is what was written in that paper

Our sincere sigamani "ambi" has given serial numbers to his order, while our suppandi has taken the serial numbers as the quantity!! :-)

After seeing this we had a good laugh for rest of the time we were there and discussed it and laughed all the way back to our office.

All for a passport!!

Oh my good god, if there is one mistake that I rue (you would too) is not applying for a passport when I was in college. Well I had thought that never would I be required to travel out of India, for educational, business or personal trips (definitely not!!) in the near future and that was why I thought I did not need a passport at this juncture of my life.

But one fine day my lead called me and said we might (the stress was on might) be going to Cambridge for some knowledge transfer sessions during mid or end June for a period of about three to four weeks (what!!!) excuse me I said, I don’t have a passport!!!

The conversation shifted to manager’s room; again I had to say, “I don’t have a passport yet”. I said I could apply it in tatkal, if you want and he said do it right away. There you go May 18 was the planned date, I had already applied leave on that day for attending my friend spmk’s sister’s wedding. Now I have to attend only the reception and apply for passport on 18th.

Immediately I browsed thro the website of Chennai’s passport office and collected some information. Then booked an appointment, which to my horror said the date I should come was June 4th, damn!! Ok anyway there is a chance that I could go at around 8 am (8 am was my initial thought read on to know what would have happened had I gone at 8!! 9.30 am is when the office opens) and try to prepone my appointment stating my urgency.

As it happens, took Xerox of all the required documents and decided to stay in Raghuram’s house. My cousin brother had come to take my grandmother to his house, so asked him to drop me on the way. This is where the drama started, while the car has just moved 10 feet, I remembered that I forgot my cell phone in the Xerox shop(yet again!!). The car turned and stopped opposite side of the shop, I with all the documents in hand rushed to pick my phone.

In the car towards mambalam, was checking my file to see if all the documents where in place. To my horror, the ration card was missing!!! I must have kept in the shop, or it might have fallen down near the shop somewhere, I thought. Called my mother to inform this and you could have imagined her reaction. Tense moments passed by as I reached raghu’s house and searched every page of the stick file just to see if it’s “sticking” somewhere, alas not there.

My mother started heaping praises on me and Raghu arrived home from bessy beach. Put all the papers safely and traveled all the way back to the shop in K K Nagar. Not there!! Suddenly a flash occurred and I looked just opposite to the shop where my brother had stopped the car when I stepped down to take my mobile, there it was lying alongside junk!! Relieved, back to raghu’s home.

Olli prasanna joined us as we watched the IPL match. He had some recent experience in applying a passport for his cousin, so gave my application form for his perusal. Ah! He remarked, the first line of the application read the fee as 1000 Rs whereas it is 2500 for tatkal. He said it should be 2500 else it won’t be accepted and no striking is allowed in the form he proclaimed. Gone, another journey at 12 AM searching for a net centre. Raghu said his friend had a printer at home, so prasanna was to buy dinner at “midnight masala” (a restaurant in arcot road, kodambakkam, open till 2 am) while we checked out at Raghu’s friend. 12.15 AM, repeatedly browsed the website, there was no option to mention whether the applicant is applying thro tatkal stream in the website. So just took print out of an empty application and returned home.

Finished dinner, and were just talking, at that time, it was 2 am, prasanna said once he went at 5.30am to find he was 10th in the passport application queue and for tatkal they accept only DD and not cash (in their website they have mentioned it as cash or DD). That rang an alarm bell in me. Oh man, no DD and its already 2 am and I have to stand in queue at 5.00 am Atleast.

Well what do you have friends for?? Disturbed their sleep also by 4.15AM in the morning and reminded them to bring my DD before I need to pay in the counter. Reached passport office by 5.15AM and I was 15th in the queue!!!. Then at around 6 am a middle-aged passport agent (broker) casually looked at my application. I had mentioned all the three addresses where I lived in the past one year. He said I would never ever get a passport in my lifetime if I were to submit this application. The people nearby also seconded his opinion. Being truthful is not very good always!!

Then he arranged someone to register my details again, well not for free, 350 bucks including the affidavit. I couldn’t help it. Sat in the queue, slept in the queue and had breakfast in “kaiyendhi bhavan” at 8, that’s it that was when I took my last drop of water till 1 pm. By this time the serpentine queue had reached almost the building gate. And the queue for tatkal stream was twice as long as the normal one.

At around 10, the queue started moving and still I haven’t gotten my DD!! And finally they arrived and I had to go to another queue in the 2nd floor to verify my originals and pay the fees at another counter. Yet another blip, as I had re-registered in the morning, the details could be obtained in the database only the next day!! Here I am in the queue from 5.15 AM and discovered that I cannot submit my DD at 12.45 PM. I had to start to hyderabad the same day as I had some unavoidable work at office. I cannot ask Raghu or Pras cos I had already disturbed them enough.

Exhausted, I took the scooty (this was also lent by Raghu) and went to mylapore to meet sasi. She was shocked to see me in that state, completely exhausted not even having strength to drive the scooty. Had lunch at Pizza Hut nearby. She volunteered to hand over my DD. The woman at the counter promised me that I need not stand in queue the following day and all I had to do was to come straight up and hand over the DD to her at the same counter.

Sasi all the more pestered that she ll do the job after hearing this. And finally she along with her colleague Guru did it. But alas, the security didn’t allow them to bypass the queue. So she had to endure the gruesome security guards and grueling queue to hand over my DD. She did it!!

By Saturday my passport was delivered home, but I was not there to collect it. Again I had to start from hyd on Sunday night, received the passport by Monday morning and started back to hyd the same evening.

All the efforts didn’t go waste as the trip to Cambridge is now confirmed and I ll be traveling in the last week of June!! I am ever indebted to Raghu,olli prasanna, sasi and guru for this!!

Singh is KING!!!!

The Indian voter has proved yet again that none can predict what he'll do!! All the exit polls and analysis by "experts" have been proved miserably wrong. The fact that the congress won over 200 seats would have surprised many, including the congress themselves!! This is nothing short of a resounding victory for the UPA, which now no longer needs people like Mayawati, Mulayam, Lalu and most importantly the "LEFT".

If you ask me, I would say this is a victory for Dr. Manamohan Singh, his personality, his clean brand of politics, his economic reforms and to an extent the younger brigade lining up behind Rahul Gandhi.

Just look at the experience of the cabinet that is sworn in, Pranab Mukherjee, Chidambaram, A K Antony, Kapil Sibal, man it cant get better than this and to add to this there are 6 former chief ministers in the lineup. The important part now is to groom youngsters like Sachin Pilot, Scindia and others by making them Ministers of State under these veterans.

What this election has also done is that the trouble makers like Shibu Soren, Lalu, Ramadoss, Paswan, tainted ministers and candidates with criminal background have been pushed into isolation, though still some have made it to the parliament, we can be rest assured that the PM will keep them out of the cabinet.

The loss of ADMK in Tamil Nadu is also a step in the right direction, cos her(I specifically use her!!) victory would have toppled the TN government and another election at this juncture could prove too costly. Also, I would say that TN government's performance isn't that bad. There are deficiencies, agreed, but this is the right time to address them.

Talking about the LEFT, a strong message has been sent to them about their policies and performance. That the Left have been resounding losers in their own backyards like kerela and west bengal would definitely make them think on their role going forward.

The CII, businessmen and the stock markets would heave a huge sigh of relief cos the hands of Manmohan are no longer tied by the LEFT. I would be really happy if the interference of Sonia Gandhi in this government is kept to a minimum. All the indicators are pointing just towards that.. The Gandhi family is taking a back seat and giving a free hand to Manmohan!!!

This election also poses serious questions on the future of BJP.. They would have never thought of such a loss. I feel its the right time for BJP to come out of the NDA and do an introspection at their policies, leadership and strengthen their presence in states like Tamil Nadu, Kerela, West Bengal where their presence is almost zilch.

Now if you tell me that BJP is a communal party and they lost because of that, then probably you are one of the most insane of guys, who has been tricked by the so called "secular" parties which are playing vote bank politics and dividing the voters based on religion. BJP need not lose heart at this defeat, all they have to do is to clean up their organization structure and strengthen the grassroots. Most importantly they have a crucial role to play as a constructive opposition party.

Why this election results make me happy is that, it is a vote for a stable government, it is a vote for clean politics and it is a vote for taking India in the "RIGHT" direction!!!

Jai ho! Manmohan Singh ji... We believe you, you can be the change here!!!

This happened to me today!!!

It was an unusually cool morning here in Hyderabad, cos for the past few days there had been no respite, with the mercury touching 43 degrees with ease and the sun beating down with all its might as early as 8 AM. Everything went the usual; coffee, hindu, breakfast and since I was on leave yesterday, I thought it would be better to be a bit early to office and started around 9.50 AM. I live around 14 KM from my office,at the BHEL township, since the road to office is a smooth highway, it barely takes 20 minutes to reach my office.

10:07 AM : Barely half a kilometre from the Raheja Mindspace entrance, I felt something slipping out of my right trouser pocket. OMG, It was my cell phone!!! Oh no not again. I had earlier lost my Nokia 1100 in the same fashion, while riding my scooty from ashok pillar to K K Nagar in Chennai. But this was Samsung U600, worth 13k bucks when I bought it about 2 years back. Well, frantically traced back the route in the "wrong side" of the road ( well riding wrong side is quite common here, and you don't feel its an offence). Once twice thrice the search went on, since its a highway I could not get any public phone to check if the phone is still alive. I found a traffic constable, went to him and asked "Sir, do you have a cell phone, my phone slipped from my pocket and I want to see if it is working still", blank stare was what I got as a reply. I repeated again, still no reply, I went the third time, he mouthed "meeku telugu ochindha?" (Can you speak telugu?). Kadavule kapathuda, and blabbered something in telugu I knew and he called my number and informed its ringing.

Mind relaxed a bit, and a picture of what all I did in the morning went before my eyes.

9.35 AM : Had a good shower and was getting myself ready to office, when my phone started singing the Chennai Super Kings theme song, it was Ramesh, my school friend, working ( rather in traiiiinnnnning) with Infosys, in Mysore. Just to remind about the train ticket which I need to book for his friend. Kept the phone on the top of the fridge, had water, prayed, dressed up and was all set to leave.

10:30 AM : A sudden flash occurred!! Hey, did I really take the phone at all!! I prayed that I should not have, but again I never leave to office, without ID, phone and purse. "Oh god, please I should have forgotten it at home, I will offer a coconut, if so". Prayers, thoughts, tension and finally I decided to turn back and check if its there at home. Heart beats were heavy, cos this is not the first time I am losing a phone, its going to be the third time, will I be third time lucky???

The speedo touched 85 KMPH, the Honda stunner was really stunning, with its stability in that speed for a 125 CC bike, really amazing.

10:45 AM : Reached my house and ran to the door, unlocked it, didn't bother to remove my shoes. My mind, body, soul all went towards the kitchen, took a glance at the top of the fridge.

Thank god, the black shiny, slim( unlike me :-) ) U600 was there, smiling at me!!!

What a start to the day.. I did almost 50 km in one hour and reached office at about my usual time of 11.15 AM

Well, what can you call this, the height of forgetfulness... a great experience that I will savor for life :-)

ME : I can't understand Hindi, I dont know Telugu.. X : Are you from Tamil Nadu?

Well, many of us, who are outside Tamil Nadu would have encountered this dialogue on a daily basis, is it not? Why? Because we are the only set of people (in India) who have not cared about learning Hindi. Almost in all other states, Hindi is a compulsory language, whereas we in Tamil Nadu are planning to re-introduce German into our school curriculum.

Now, this can be attributed to the anti-Hindi agitations of the DMK in the 1950's and 60's which saw the emergence of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu and end of the congress era. This prompted Annadurai to proclaim a famous law called as "Irumozhi Sattam" ( Dual Language Law), in which Tamil was considered as the official language of the state, and permitted English to co-exist with Tamil, as the medium of instruction in schools, colleges and technical institutions.

The infrangible grip of dravidian politics on Tamil Nadu ensured that its people remained ignorant of Hindi, except for the few who took pains to learn it. While the "imposition of Hindi" started as early as 1937, after Independence, it all was started by Pandit Nehru, who proclaimed that Hindi will be the "official language" and "link language" as it was easy to learn and that "popularizing Hindi" does not mean "imposing it" on non-Hindi speaking people. Well this seems out of place as the states of India have been re-organized on linguistic basis. Hence, the agitations considering the situations that existed at that stage seems to be justified. (The fact of the matter is anti-Hindi sentiments also evolved cos of the anti-brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu, I will discuss about this may be in a separate post. But Tamil Nadu is not the only state to protest Hindi imposition, karnataka, Bengal, Assam and host of other states also protested against it. But, it was so vociferous in Tamil Nadu, that it was given a lion's share in the history)

After 70 years of protesting against hindi, what have we gained? and what have we lost? ( Certainly we prevented a Raj Thakre from rising all of a sudden from no where :-P )

One certain gain is the knowledge of English. This is where we have gained while the other states ( esp Hindi heartland) have lost. We are seeing more (international) investments, landing up in lucrative jobs, and one of the main factor is the knowledge of English. If you compare man-to-man across various sectors from a sweeper to a General Manager, Tamils speak and understand English better than their counterparts anywhere else in India. Where we have lost out is again on (domestic) investments from NRI's of other states, and also the settling down time in the other states is quite longer for us,the lost job opportunities in sales and marketing in other states.

Coming to the flip side of the coin. If people of Tamil Nadu protested ( should i say protesting? ) against Hindi, the Hindi heartland is protesting against English. This certainly is a step backward in the present scenario of "global village" concept. ( Well this is a vicious circle isn't it?, people around the world protest on imposition of English :-), and even developed an alternative language called Esperanto, as the common link language of the world. But it did not become popular).

What we (OK, I ) generally dislike is the attitude of the Hindi-speaking people. While we try to learn the local language of a state ( plus Hindi) when we ( should I say I here naa, WE) are in a non-Tamil speaking state, the same cannot be said about them, where I see people in sowcarpet( area in Chennai which has lot of Hindi speaking population), still struggling to speak few sentences in Tamil even after being here for generations ( well this is my personal opinion, based on what I have read and observed, it might be wrong, kindly apologize if so)

Hey, did you people think I am against learning Hindi? Certainly not. Learning new languages always helps ( cos they don't know English :-) ) and is quite fun too, by the way I am trying to learn Telugu and Hindi. But my sincere request to the "babus, nethas and thalapathis" is that don't try to impose your ideologies on people.

Had Nehru, recognized this sentiment of people and promoted Hindi as an additional ( and optional) link language along with English ( his proclamation that he is actually doing this came after much damage had been done), there might not been a necessity for this dialogue ( and this post :-) )

One final request to Hindi speaking people, Hindi is not the "National Language" as you perceive, it is just one of the official languages in India, and try to learn the local language if you are planning to settle there. My request to all Tamils, start learning Hindi (ek gaon mein ek kissan, raghu thatha :-) ), but ensure that you don't lose your identity ( thereby necessitating an organization like MNS or Kannada Rakshana Vedike), because Tamil's pride is not in its antiquity but in its continuity!!!

Vaazhga Tamil !! Valarga Hindi !!!

Disclaimer : This post is certainly not written just because I failed in madhima :-)

The ideal wicket for test cricket ??

Last week, there had been a lot of discussion about test wickets around the world and the “lost” art of preparing wickets. These are days when the popularity of test cricket, for that matter even One-day cricket, is eroding at the hands of T20, and the spectator counts are dwindling, even in cricket crazy India, except for some ardent test venues like Chennai.

Well I for one, am not against a sporting wicket for test cricket, which would produce results and extend to the full five days, should the weather permit. But I am certainly against the pitches losing the “home flavor”.

In the pre-1980’s test cricket was played on “uncovered” pitches. True to its literal meaning, no covers were used to protect the pitch from the weather conditions; hence the pitches were soaked in rain and baked in sun. Hence, naturally it favored the bowlers, where the ball off the pitch caused nightmares to batsmen and the ‘keeper alike. Hence, sticky wickets (wet wickets) and green wickets (full of grass) were quite common.

But once the law of covering a pitch was introduced, the wickets behaved akin to the nature of the soil and the prevailing climatic conditions. But now, due to “entertainment quotient of cricket” and changing climatic conditions around the world, the pitches are slowing down. Even the WACA (Perth), the nightmare for batsmen, has lost its bite considerably. This has made cricket a batsman’s game, rather than a game of balance between bat and ball.

The ideal test wicket according to experts is: Assist seamers for session and a half, ease out in the next two days and take turn in days 4 (later part) and 5. While this seems “ideal”, the question of local flavor to the pitches and home advantage disappears, making test cricket all the more uninteresting.

The answer needs to be found out quickly if we want test cricket to survive and thrive in these days of T20. Nothing can be more exhilarating, than seeing cricket when there is equality between bat and ball, 100 odd for 3 at lunch, 250-300 odd at the end of the day.

A sense of awe transpires through us, not only when Sachin plays a back-foot cover drive, but also when a in-swinging Yorker clips the bottom of leg stump, when a ball jumping from good-length clipping batsman’s gloves and falling just short of the 1st slip, we all have our heart on mouth, don’t we?
The following are some useful links for further reading on pitch preparation and how the pitches around the world play
Wikipedia
Cricinfo

This now leads to another topic spinners vs seamers. Because of the fact that pitches in sub-continent assist spinners while those in the rest of the world aid (to an extent) seamers.To essentially maintain the local flavor, the pitches should continue to do so, with an “AND” operator of being “sporty”. While rank (bad) turners are considered not to be sporty, the same is not being said about “green tops”. So this leads to another debate “turning pitches” vs “green tops”.

Well, this has a scope for a separate post, where we can in detail discuss about them!!

The current crop of youngsters(those who are in school), need to be taught the importance of test cricket, they should not be carried away by the glitz and glamour of 20-20. Otherwise, the game of cricket will be nothing more than a business venture.

Why Mouli said "I am not interested" and how a "dead hen gave birth to two dead chicks!!"

Well, lot of things happened in the last fortnight (dated till 31st March lol ) and one of the good things was the visit of mouli and Inigo ( read : body and the soul :-), just that this body and soul always go in the opposite direction) to Hyderabad.

It was an unexpected call from mouli on a lazy weekend morning (all mornings are lazy for that matter ) sometime in January, when he announced their arrival to Hyderabad during ugadi weekend (now that's some planning, hats off mouli !!!) .

The day arrived, 27th march 2009, and i was found waiting in the kachiguda railway station for 50 minutes from 5.30 am to 6.20 am as the train was late by quite a few ticks of the clock ( the minute hand of course !!). Mouli as usual had slept over his phone and it got switched off when i was frantically calling him, seeing that it is waste of time i called Inigo and told him that i was waiting in the station, as usual mouli offered dummy explanations saying there was "no tower" and so i got the reply as "Switched Off", well that was one "technologically sound reply"

Finally reached home and had breakfast, got ready and took Inigo to my office to pick up veerakumar's shine that i had borrowed. Showed Inigo my workplace, to my amazement he was impressed with my office ( just thinkin hw his wud be !!). We picked up balaji near hyderabad central and en-route i showed inigo the "strict traffic discipline followed by the hyderabadis".

Three became four when balaji joined us and we started roaming all over Hyderabad ( read : malls and other places of interest :) ) . We were in hussain sagar lake and mouli was talking about "birdies" and how to differentiate them from the "rest", as usual we were mocking him. Balaji and I then went to get a drink ( cool drink of course), then we heard mouli say "I am not interested (??!! :-) !!! ) ". U must have guessed for why and for what!!!

Nothing much we did on saturday except for watching match ( India Vs NZ) and yeah i almost forgot, i prepared lunch for them !! ( they are still alive, that stands testimonial to the preparation, expecting true comments abt it from you guys!!) and in the evening we visited the hyderabad central and prasadz imax and dined at the McD, night was the time for some serious discussions about politics, sports blah blah. Mouli streamed the episodes of "enge brahmanan" by "cho" this was one serial my grandmother asked me to see and i was unable to because of the time, thanks mouli for that!!!

The next day we started early in the morning at around 6 am( tooooooo early for a sunday ) to the new Hyderabad airport for a bike ride. Read more about that here . ( Inigo's blog)
One fine sunday it was, but we ended up paying Rs.400 as "kappam" ( fine) to the police because the shine didn have an RC book ( this was the bad thing, i should ve checked for it) .

Balaji and mouli then went to meet their school friend ( 100 out of the 400 was paid during this time !!) , while inigo and i went to anjappar for lunch. Inigo ordered "naatukozhi biryani" (Country chicken biryani). I being a vegetarian, asked him the difference between the ordinary hen and the country hen, he said the country hen would be smaller but a lot tastier. Just then his order came and true to his explanation the chicken piece was smaller (than he expected !! probably it was killed wen it was a chick). We complained about this to the supervisor, he knew tamil, so it was not so difficult to convey our displeasure. And lo!! ten minutes later the dead hen had given birth to two little dead chicks, that too fried in masala!! To top the things, Inigo kept one of them as leftover ( probably paying homage !! )

They left in the evening garib rath to Bangalore. Nice little weekend with friends, vetti aratai, roaming in bike. We mocked mouli many times, as we wud always do, and dei mouli sorry if anything has hurt you and my sincere apologies and we wud ensure that we will always repeat this in the future !!
Thanks Inigo and Mouli Waiting for u guys to come over here some time again in the near future !!

When LIFE was equal to CRICKET - II

Hi guys, I am back !!! its almost a fortnight now since the last blog, well it has been a very good fortnight though. This one is going to be quite a long post i guess, lets see

To continue from where i left, at last we decided to shift to the famous ____ ground, in bhaktavatchalam street. We would be mostly 10 or 12 ppl, olli prasanna, ramesh, raghu, c balaji, ganesh prabhu, sindhuraj, anbazhagan, myself and few more. There would not be a weekend or a holiday without cricket. But you should be lucky enough to get a "pitch", as every possible inch would have been occupied by humans and cows!!

Many times i would return back home from ground with a severe headache ( yes i do have a problem with this) and get heavy scoldings from my parents, as usual i will say i wont go to play tomorrow, but that tomorrow never came !!

But, andru oru naal, i was getting ready to go to the ground when my father called me,

father: enga da pora? (where are u goin?)
me: ground uku dhan pa, seekirama vandhuduven (am goin to ground and will be back soon)
father: parava illa seekiram lam vara vendam, nalla velayaditu vaa, bathiram (its fine play well, no need to come early, take care)
me: !!! :-) :-)

well it was like having a cake and eating it too. Played to my heart content and returned to my paati's house.

me: paati, appa amma enge? (Where are my parents?)
paati : ava ellam "mudhalvan" paduthuku poiruka da, unaku theriyadha? (They have gone to a film dont u know?)

appa puriyala enaku ippo purinchudhu, en da enga appa enna "nalla" velayada sonnarnu !!

You will always here from people that " do something(good is what they mean) so that future generations will talk about you" Well I dono if its good, but if you enter the ground and see straight opposite, you ll see a house in the second floor, whose window has a protective shield, i was the reason for it, broke the window with a superb six !! off ramesh's bowling, aana adutha second all boys escape :-)

Cricket, cricket and only cricket and after that eating in bakya :-)... Olli Prasanna and i would be in the same end for the second run, he would have completed the 2nd run and i would'nt have started it !! and even worser than me, i have never seen raghuram come to the crease without a runner, dhadiyan !!

I moved to ahobila math for my 11th and 12th and so the home ground for the aho boys, was the bigger somasundaram in t.nagar. Those were the days of some serious cricket, we have played bet matches and each team would be of 11. I usually open the bowling or come first change and come at no 4 in the batting. Aho boys like deepak, suresh, madhu, ajay, vj, bharath, bharadwaj, kasi, me and 4 other in one team and R. S Bharadwaj's friends form the other team. We ll sledge them like hell, esp one guy called "Balli".

Vj is a big hitter, madhu and ajay are consistent scorers, deepak (captain) responsible player, suresh and me all rounders and rest all bat and bowl. So we would always post a good total and defend it. But one match i could vividly remember is, its the last over and we needed 5 runs, Vj was facing and deepak was at the non-striker, 5 balls Vj swatted the bat and created sandstorm. Last ball 6 runs needed, timber it was!! kuniya vechu avana kadhara kadhara podhu maathu potutom.

Murugan Idly shop, a famous restaurant was nearby the ground, full A/C, konjam high range ppl ll be eating , aana naanga fully sweating, dusty costumes, loud language oda apdi enter aavom, the entire restaurant will turn and see us.. but we never care about those, do we??

In college, playing cricket became a rarity, and we didn have proper bats also, during that time i had to adjust with a small sized bat and was not able to bend down ( you know why :-) ) and got out when the ball was yorked (podhumada balaji !!) .

Here I am now in Hyderabad, with a bat at my home, but none to play :-( Satisfying myself with seeing and talking cricket, missing those days and the guys :-(

Well this is quite a long post, but at the end it was my all about my LIFE (= CRICKET).

When LIFE was equal to CRICKET

Thank you all for your time for reading the previous blog (crap?)

As i said before, I am primarily writing blogs to look back at my life pre-2004, to rediscover myself.


Part - I

Oh my god, I was talking cricket, watching cricket and of course playing cricket all the time. Well, not the technically sound cricket at coaching nets, but "verithanamana" street cricket or gully cricket as you would call it, no doubt that "Chennai - 600028" was such a run away hit in chennai, cos most of them would easily identify them with the characters of the movie. But this is not Chennai - 600028 rather it is "Chennai - 600033" !!

Early days then, 96 world cup time I was not old enough to play in grounds, but we used to play in Patel Street, in West Mamabalam, my paati's hse was there, it was a very narrow street but long enough, with traffic almost non-existent. Raajkamal, Suresh, Naga(Murugan) , mani, vasanth, kumar, cheena, raja, vishnu, myself and few others divided ourself into team and played "maanga throw" cricket or overarms. The rules will be quite interesting, anga oru veedu irukum, andha veetla ball pona tharamaatanga, so andha veetukulla pona out.
When the older guys like guru, sriram, surendar anna joined us, we wud play bowling with stumps( no hifi stumps rendu kallu dhan :) ) 1 bat or 1.5 bats wide, with no runs, the primary aim is to survive the bowling. You should not play the ball with body more than twice and you cannot hit it into any house and especially that particular hse. Kandipa ball tholanju poidum, adhuku appuram andha ball owner poi avanga appa illa amma va kootindu varuvan, adhukulla naanga ellam escape! adutha nalaiku ellarum paisa potu oru ball vaangi avanuku kuduthuruvom.

My house was in Kavitha flats, Lakeview road, anga engala cricket bat ooda paarthale terror aiduvaanga, we have broken enuf no of glasses, lampshades in both my flat and adjoining coral glade with nishanth and bharadwaj. Then we shifted base to Mahalakshmi flats, angeyum oru kannadi odanjudhukappuram all escape !

Seri ennadhan panradhunu theriyama irundhapo dhan.. neighbouring susil flats construction got over and new guys sriram, kiran and one more guy (forgot his name) came to the rescue. Shifted our base to susil flats, everything was going smooth, one fine day.. kiran edho vithyasama try panna(in underarms only), sriram adha "palar" nu adika, "dabal" nu oru satham, ennadu nu paarhta putham pudhu lamp shade govinda !! Watchman ramaswamy ooda ooda veratitar adhoda yen "flat cricket" sahaptham mudinju poachu atleast in mambalam!! To add about kiran, appo enaku avan "dei kiran" dhan, ippo "ivur, avar aiytaru" cos I never knew he will be my senior at PSG Tech, after 9th std (he was in 11th) i shifted to K K Nagar and lost touch with him and never imagined he would be the Student's Union Chairman(05-06) and to others who are wondering who is this kiran, he is none other than our own Viswanath!!


Then we narayana mission guys decided to shift our home ground to, bhaktavatchalam street ground(better known as _______ !), so finally a promotion from "flat and street" cricket to ground cricket!! Will play about that in the part 2 soon !!!

Week That Was!!!

Well this is my first blog and this is about the past week (from Feb 28 - Mar 8) I spent at home in chennai, I was on vacation, after the grueling 3 months for my product release.

March 11

Today morning @ 6, as usual, prepared my filter coffee and switched on the television for the pre-match show of the India vs New Zealand 4th ODI at hamilton, while sipping the coffee a plenty of thoughts of crossed my mind as of how life changes quickly!!

Pause!!

rewind a week back, 6 am it was and I was in chennai, in a small 800 square foot apartment in west k.k.nagar. After a long thought i woke up, only to hear my grandmother say, "seekiram pallu thechutu vaa, coffee potu tharen". 6.15 am: with "The Hindu" in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other, comfortably settled down in the balcony to read the headlines. 7 am : Stretched out to snatch the "Dinamalar", from my mother sitting opposite to me, cos by then my younger brother was up and snatched Hindu from me, then my grandmother came, "enna tiffin seiradhu karthala, illa sadham vechudatuma?", and after a long fight between me and my mother, cos i like tiffin and she likes rice, i won and at 8 am, hot dosas with tomato chutney came to the dining table. After devouring on the dosas and i got a large tumbler of tea to wash them down. And it is 8.45 am now.

Back to reality! NZ have won the toss and elected to bat first on a not so flat wicket, thought this decision augured well for India's batting, as they can chase any target!

Back to my thoughts, lazed around the whole morning and at around 11 went with mom to pay property tax and water tax. She took the driver's seat in the car and said she ll never ever give the car to me, after the accident i caused few months ago! Finished the chores and was back at home, just at the right time for some delicious lunch, courtesy grandmother! then a long afternoon nap, just to be woken up my mother for evening tea and tiffin. And then a discussion on where to go out that evening, finally we decided to go to SMS in udhayam complex, only god knows for how many days the theatre will exist, for its up for sale now. The movie was good and back home again, had dinner and slept.

Well, jesse ryder and mcCullum have taken NZ to a good start here now, lets see all india need is to remove those two at the earliest!

Phew, That was a day's work, I thought. The next few days went in cleaning the house, supervising the electrician who came to replace few electrical fittings.

Visited temples, Padmanabhaswamy temple in adayar with my family.

Dined at Saravana Bhavan, Ratna Cafe and Data Udipi hotels. Spent the whole week with my family, did not even venture into any of my friend's house in mambalam for that matter. And the day arrived finally, at 3.30 pm on mar 8 left my home with 5kgs of sugar that my mother had packed in my bag and some more provisions, increasing the luggage count to 2 from 1. My mother dropped me @ central and left at 4.55 when the train finally started.

Here I am now, NZ have lost two wickets, but mcCullum is still at the crease! Now I have to start preparing my breakfast, no I am not taking lunch today, have to manage with horrible lunch @ office or i ll have noodles for lunch, that's better, will sit and see the match and start to office at around 10.45 am.

A Week that was, still lingering in my thoughts, think my next long vacation will be during deepavali.