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!!!