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

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!!

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 :-)