A male's tales

Day break

2012-01-29T07:52:00.001-08:00

After one of the awesomest nights at the city in a very long time, just got back in time for that killer of the fifth set of the australian open final. For me, Rafa was the winner, whatever the result turned out to be. Yes, i belong to the bandwagon of people who is a fan of sportsmen that are not naturally gifted and who somehow struggles and wins. Isnt that what is lovely to watch ? Federer and Sachin are god-level. Rafa and Sourav are my kinds.

I realize that i have unromanticised day break so much. It used to bring a lot of good thoughts whenever i happened to witness it. And day breaks somehow always remind me of Raleigh. It is a side effect of how every day life has become. Work , gym, play, read. With a blink, a bunch of this "everyday life" has gone by. And still , i feel i havent changed much wrt how i look at things happening. I have now become resolute about making something happen. Very resolute in fact. I know 28 is nothing. But the 'this has to pass' feeling has started becoming within me. I dont know what has to pass and what has to come in. But this has to pass. All that resolute talks have helped me get over a huge dilemma that i had been playing with for not a long time about a 'seemingly' big decision. Putting it down here at this time after a long night is only making it clearer to me. So, here it is, if nothing 'life-changing' happens between now and a time in the 'near future', Bangalore is where my home will be. I have started looking forward to it. Something totally unrelated to me might have triggered this thought. But i am in the process of making MY decision.

2011-10-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a 'sad-angry' disoriented blog. Bail out if you are in good spirits and effing dont blame me for anything. Late twenties , officially. This last bday was like a slap in the face. Reached here without me taking notice of what even happened in the past 2-3 years, like it just never happened at all. Its a huge achievement by itself that i somehow survived stuff, survived myself to reach what i consider a very slippery period, by just reading , working, watching, playing and thinking about lost causes and relationships. Nothing more , nothing less. Now what ? - i ask myself , parents ask me , people ask me. Parents tell me , people tell me that it needs a new beginning, start everything from the scratch , yada yada. Questions and answers that befuddle my practicality. I don't need more questions than what the last 3 years have already barraged me with. Hell with 'moving-on'. It is just an undoable meaningless crappy phrase, crappier than 'shit is fcuked' - how can shit be fcuked? It is a big joke by itself. Yes, you can call it my weakness. That is all. Getting back to the new 'beginning'.

2011-07-19T06:57:00.001-07:00

I was thinking i am going through an evolution and that i will start writing again after i am through with that. I did go through one. But i end up being the same to the rest of the world. It is all a joke like the comedian says. And i can sense myself saying this to everybody 'But, i am plagiacci'. (Have been reading too much of watchmen of late. )

The bike and the rest

2010-07-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

The sun has been coming out , the birds are chirping a lot and shitting a lot on my car, California is becoming "California" and i am being 'gay' (three meanings to the word and i select two). To start getting into some serious biking had been something i was thinking about and yes thoughts translated into spending a fortune on a bike, accessories and what not. I own a fully-carbon Fuji professional 2.0 road now. I did go through the process - reading, researching, understanding components, test riding, size fitting, craigslisting, disassembling and assembling. I formally and auspiciously started biking a week before California's bike to work day and i have started regularizing it now. Driving alone was getting too monotonous. I ran out of faces to see. So, to see more faces, to add a little bit of "shtyle", to listen and talk to more people, to take the train, to go green (with a car that gulps fuel, i should say to go "lush green") , i am biking to work the bigger part of the week. I seem to be liking everything about it - discovering new routes for commute every day, parking the bike in my cubicle, fixing flats and a lot more. Yes, i know i am showing off, but so be it.

So my first big trail was with a frisbee friend of mine who wanted to practice for a race and i tagged along with her. We did the sunnyvale baylands trail that stretched for around 30 miles and a bit more both ways. Since it was my first trail, i was easily excited by the ponds along the way, the skaters and the very very lonely stretches that was a part of it. It was good to have an experienced biker along and made me feel all the more comfortable. And i was so dissing myself for not having a camera. Probably, next time, if i buy one i should have some pictures to post along. This would be a good trail for people living in the south bay and if you do not have a bike rack, its not too far off to begin the trail from the sunnyvale caltrain. Once you reach the baylands park in sunnyvale, near Moffett and Carribean, you should be able to easily locate a trail that starts right next to a parking lot. The trail goes along the 237 freeway all the way up to Milpitas. Once you reach the McCarthy intersection and if you are still up in energy levels, you could continue on to the Coyote creek trail.

And another big trail i did was the Stevens Creek trail. Probably not as touch as the baylands, but its a good one to go for a ride to move your ass on a lazy Saturday. I did the trail as a detour on my way to Stanford Oval for frisbee from Sunnyvale. The trail starts just after you cross the 85 ramp on Central Express way. I liked the trail for a good blend of aloofness and the people it offers. The trail gives you an option to take an uphill bridge for all the work-out-aholics or to take the flat roads for the casual riders. And its shade only at the beginning for it gets open and dry for the later part of the trail. So be patient if you don't see girls in minis.

This has been the most happening set of events in my life since the last entry, apart from a fun company-sponsored-trip to Puerto Rico It was an amazing trip for the serenity , the blue waters, a bunch of great friends, a drinking frequency of one an hour for 4 days, the southern ladies and the fact that it was totally free.

* I am reading
Bartimaues and Jerome.K.Jermoe these days. First time liking a fantasy , but , Bartimaeus is so not one. The djinni is the coolest one i have ever seen (in a movie) or read. He sure would crack you up with the language and the words, in their simplest form.

** I am watching
LOST. Only a few episodes of the last season are left. Thanks to Netflix ! Dangerously addictive. But i have to agree with the general opinion about the series. They raise good questions and build up amazing thoughts in their first few seasons only to give the dullest of answers and crappiest of explanations at the end.

*** I am going
Home in a couple of weeks for a vacation. V. Excited.

Down in the land

2010-03-08T17:35:00.001-08:00

I don't know how many times i would have to start a new blog with some justifications for being a dormant writer and for the entries being few and far between.But, to my defense, I in fact wrote one whole blog in my flight on the way back from Seattle. I titled it 'Up in the Air' and i was so gung-ho about posting that , more so t because it had all the fresh details from my very memorable trip. But then, technology is not that advanced to save your work when your laptop shuts down when it gets exhausted. I almost plucked some hairs out of my head when that happened. Luckily, i had cut it short then !

So yeah, i went to Seattle for the last long weekend, which was during the Valentine's day. I was taking a domestic flight in the US after like ages and American Airlines was kind enough to have my balls busted to delay the flights both ways. But , i had my netflix dvds with me and that is the first time ever i felt that i am a good packer for trips. I am very focussed, i think of all the possibilities, i think of extreme events, i think of all possible situations and there is so much more of my thinking that went into my taking the netflix dvds :P After some clubbing and blancos in Seattle for a day, i took a road trip to this place called 'Richland' to meet a special friend of mine, who i was seeing after ages which felt like after both of us crossed a phase in life between. Richland is literally nothing. It is like a city that you build in the middle of no-where in the game 'age of empires'. I could only see desert on either side of me in the car even when the GPS was showing '5 miles to destination' and i was getting reminded of all the horror movies i had seen and how each of them invariably has a story of a car breaking down in a barren land. It had a lot of creepy air and i was not surprised to know that the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was developed right there. After all the creeps, i saw her, talked to her, ate with her, laughed with her and less importantly, i spoiled a Valentine's day night for her when she had her other person in the same city :P She gave some good times profusely and has added some life to the west coast for me now and will be my strong point to my protest against the phrase 'West is a waste'.

Other than that, i have bought an Xbox now and is living my 'Fight Club' life through that awesome piece of technology. Some games help me take out some frustration through some brute force. We are still in that period of courtship and and i am looking forward to playing more. Seriously, such gaming graphics, when displayed on a big HD TV, lost me for a while and make me think how does one acquire this technology. And they say, the gaming industry is still to see its best. I wonder how. Yesterday, i totalled my car once and damaged my car four times and i lost some 70,000 dollars. However, it is a different matter altogether that i played and dominated a race day after that and i purchased a backup car after that. It is going good for now. It makes me a 'Renaissance man' in the Xbox world for now, because, with each day, i am becoming a better fighter, a better driver and better strategy maker.

I am doing....
Blogspot seems a little boring to me these days and i have started working on a vanity personal website. I will soon be moving away from here once i figure out everything.

I am reading....
Ishiguro was a suggestion from my library friend. I am amazed by how he writes a totally different english in each of his books.If you are looking for a recommendation, i recommend him with all my heart :P

I am watching......
Kurosawa these days.Kurosawa was a Netflix suggestion. Netflix suggestion just rocks. I totally bank on it. I know some people may argue whatever is there on netflix could be available for free on the cloud. But, its a 10 buck that saves all the hassle and you discover much more.

Of the crisis and everything else

2010-01-26T15:13:00.000-08:00

I cannot call it a mid-life crisis, because i dont think i am there yet. However, i certainly do feel i am caught up in a crisis now. Thanks to everything that is unfolding and acting upon. A few things that directly relate to me and a few things that are not necessarily related to me, that i am helplessly bringing it on myself. Yes, i do hear these complaints from a few friends that i get too philosophical for a GUY when i write a few lines in my blog. But then, i realized i cannot try to be a totally different person always, for there are thoughts that hit me very often especially when i forcefully try to get rid of them. Since a few days now, i was drawn a little too much into thinking of all the changes that visited me in the last year or so, some of which seem to have colluded to become 'green card holders' in my life. There were a lot of things that happened which brought about these changes and i have done my best to wear these changes on me. However, a little bit that gets retained from sometime back, is being very obstinate in rebutting every single attempt that life and events make to shift my stand on things completely. So, yes, this is what i am calling a crisis now and i know i will drive away the few readers of this blog if i write a little more about it.

I had a very awesome vacation this time when i travelled. I could not meet everybody i wanted to. But i had good family times, got high on amma's rasam and loou, refreshed my relationship with appa, and gossiped with cousins.Also, i got together with some very lovely friends of mine and we took a trip to some tree-housed resort near bangalore. I was totally glad that we all could continue our times from where we left in Chennai. Everybody had changed since the last time i saw them. But, together, we did not change one bit and that was truly exciting. B was still B and V was still V and did not become a Y or a Z :P Loou you all.

I also had to go to the US consulate to get a stamping on my passport. And since it was my third visit to that place, i actually behaved like a seasoned visa-getter and went there with all my documents in the same old blue multi-partitioned file that i bought during the stone age:P And the place has changed over time. 'America' is not so much a big dream, as it was once, in the eyes of the people these days over there. ( My mom says some girls are very particular about non-america maapilais too.) People were pretty cool about the entire process and there were no 'high-tension' conversations between the people standing in the line outside the consulate. The line itself was not huge and it just took a little more than an hour for the whole process to get over for me. However, one thing that did not change there was the 'hum hai hindustani' scene and this is one of the very few places in chennai where you see some non-tamil-speaking population. Even the tamil population get to speak in english with each other without being made fun of. This is the place where a Ravi and a Kumar will converse in English however bad the english is and however bad the accent is. Also, there still were people supposedly from cold places like Bangalore and 'Hyderabad' (seriously ? ) who were complaining of the heat and make faces that say chennai is a place to visit only to get their visas stamped. You still could see some of those tensed up faces trying to eaves drop on the interview questions, making sure the tie is properly tied and that the black shoes are totally black. I did have a wicked laugh because it just does not matter at all. It is a perfect example of the tendency to get yourself worried about things that do not matter, which runs in our blood :)

And I would have liked a better seating arrangement in my flights. It cannot be a mere coincidence that in all my flights, there was a dashing young guy sitting next to me. I may be from California and i may be in love with San Francisco, but NO. So, i had to stick to watching movies and drinking some wine. I HATE drinking wine. I do not like the taste of it, i am not a big fan of the sophistication that it portrays and i do not like the feel it creates. But then, cathay pacific has a rule that they do not serve 'what you actually want' after your second time asking them for it.

I am back to life and work now and i am finding it very difficult to get myself to do any work yet. A few weeks of high intensity in life is bound to leave you confused and it is not an easy job to drag an unwilling body to cook and work. But, i hope i get over this laziness and cloudiness soon and get myself to start going to the gym, play some badminton and do some work. However, i got myself to drive along the coast to LA last weekend. It was a totally gorgeous route and it really goes on the top-edge of the cliff during certain stretches. I wish i had a camera to take some pictures. It is a much longer route and people who are familiar with california would know that not any sane person would do that unless you have a girl on the passenger seat. But i do love long lone drives and this is my third time doing it. It seems to be giving answers to questions that i have. (Hehe, now that is too much ! ) And i am looking forward to add an activity to my weekends. I have joined the 'Lets play ultimate frisbee' group that plays in Stanford every weekend and a colleague of mine was kind enough to get me started on that. So am hoping that will be another reason to ask the question 'when will the week get over?' one more time during the week.

And happy new year everybody ! Wish you all get to do whatever you want to this year. I do have a couple of resolutions for this year and i will tell it out if i succeed.

Back to where i will be

2009-12-09T17:43:00.001-08:00

So after a break that i was looking forward to, i am back to where i will be for a period of time that is going to be indefinite and seemingly infinite. I had some very close friends of mine who were kind enough to fly down to california one more time during the thanksgiving week, embracing the days with their mere presence, chirping in with their happy songs, and contributed to a memorable 'GUYS' get-away from work, life and all the chaos always associated with it. Thank you 'S','S' and 'Y' - I am not sure if the first alphabets of names are used only to refer boyfriends and girlfriends. Of late, i encounter this usage in a hell lot of places. Like 'A's presence was a respite', 'C did an amazing thing to lift my spirits' , 'wt F did today at the shopping mall was so funny'. I find it funny, but still i would use it. So, S came, Y joined and R hosted. S,Y and R did some 'GUY' things and S could not hang out a lot because S was busy showing mommy around. But S made sure S did not do all the guy things. Also S tried to impress S's mom and failed miserably. Y and R had a good laugh. Okay, now thats enough 'first alphabets'. But seriously, it was a good warm break, although for a while, i was wondering how each of my three thanksgiving breaks here had seen a completely different dimension of emotions.

So, now,i am back to being the person i will be for a lot more time. Sitting, wondering, watching,playing and loving San Francisco and around. I don't have any specific reasons as to why i like this place, but it just takes one visit to fathom that SanFran has a charm of its own, its population has a different spirit for food, for drinking, for music and for almost everything. People are very 'soft' like baz luhrmann says in his sunscreen - 'live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft' . And i am identifying myself with this spirit, happily for now, coz like everybody do, i too made a choice consciously or unconsciously to be where i am now.

And another thing that is contributing to my happy mood is the 4 week break ahead of me that includes a travel to home and people. And this time, its gonna be a little more special for a lot of reasons. Talking about that takes me to the shopping that is in store for the trip. The last two times i travelled, i had the privilege of being a student with which comes an excuse 'I don't have money to shop'. But this time around, even though 'I don't have money to shop' is going to be the truth, it would not be taken as an excuse. I have to admit that i am a really bad shopper of gifts. If i try to be a little more creative than what i actually am while buying gifts, i will end up buying a flat-tie for my dad and a french perfume for my mom , which would go into the 'beerow' (dont know it's english equivalent or even if its an english word. But, its something like a big shelf made of steel.) untouched for ages. So i am going to go conventional safe ones with it this time.
I also tried asking my parents directly about what they would like me to buy, and there goes my dad's reply - "First, finish off your loans, then think about the gifts'. He tends to be a little extra nice to me at times. But, still i will go shop for him, buy the kisses, hershey bars, biscuits, a WII and a lot more for all the recently married, about to be married people back home.

Homage to homes - III

2009-11-03T21:22:00.001-08:00

306,7th cross,2nd main, domlur, bangalore - 560071

That is an address i can write / say without a spelling mistake even in my highest 'high' or even if i had been potting the whole day (yeah, i started drugs recently. *). For a guy who moves from Chennai to Bangalore, the first thing to touch his heart about the tech capital would be the 'women on display'. Radha, you have to accept this fact - 'I am not a charismatic prince for whom you think you could have a swayamvar **. I am a very very normal looking 'Indian' guy and i like women' :P So i moved for my first ever job and took shelter in this home, in a small room in the basement of my uncle's land. A room, a small cot and my hoodibaba was all i had with me when i went there and when i left i had just those and a renewed refreshed relationship with my lovely girly cousins and with my aunt who i consider to be my 'virtual mom'. This place means a lot of family memories to me for it did open me up to my extended family and i dont mind sounding a little pompous and cliched here - 'my family has been a big relief for me through all my bad times. i do love most of them very much. And as i read on a particular portal a lot these days - my family has a very modern outlook yet they value traditions. OMG, i have really got sick of this sentence.)
Also, it reminds me of how i had to live by my uncle's rules, some of which would really crack up anybody. 1. You have to have plans for life. You always should be able to give a definitive answer to 'So, what is your plan?'. Your answer should contain the date on which you are going to get married and sometimes even the number of kids you would be having :P 2. No sleeping after 6:30 in the morning. The lights in your room would automatically be turned on and the fans would be turned off and the windows will be opened so that you wont be able to sleep with the mellifluous sounds of the amazing bangalore traffic. 3. Even if you have a brand new shirt outside of your closet, it will be put for a wash and a press. This has happened to me quite a lot. That is just some of them and if you are wondering, he is a very passionate business person and he really ISO-certified me through my stay over there. And i ought to talk about my aunt here.GPS as we call her lovingly, for she knows bangalore roads like the back of her hand, is the nicest host i could have asked for. Tolerance is her virtue and she showed it so frequently when i was living there. Most of the days, it would just be me and her in that big house,and we have had some very simple yet memorable times watching Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, those simple lovely dinners, and a lot of good conversations. I do love her a lot for all that and for just letting me be myself in her place.
As for me, domlur would have seen me grow as a 'nice family guy' with some minor setbacks in his personal life. I did start having a taste of how strangely weird life is,how it has an inherent friction against how you want it to be and how there is a 'catch 22' (I had to use this phrase now) with every situation that it throws upon you. And for the first time,i started feeling independent - which could mean different to different people. For some, it is all about being unconventional and for some, it is about being able to get away with murder and a lot more that i dont want to write about and cause an argument. But for me, it meant that i was able to get a grip on my whole self and my emotions. I was getting enough matured i guess, and yeah, i started shaving the facial hair frequently with a high-end razor only in domlur :P. It started growing late, but i believe in the saying 'better late than never' !

Champion Court, Raleigh
It always happens that the best moments in your life just whiz past much ahead of you, before it sinks in and while you start to appreciate them with a genuinity. I cannot and do not want to hide the fact that i did have some best moments of my life out there. I owe a thank you not to a big gang of friends, but just to a very small closed group of lovable personalities, a person who i just admire for very simple reasons and i also owe a big frown to you 'life' - I would really love to know, if there is any secret door to you like in the movie 'Being John Malkovich', where i could break in and understand the way you work.
I do not have pleasant memories of the home though, for it had a kitchen where you cannot cook, a restroom where you can only puke, a mattress ruled by an army of bed bugs and a room-mate with whom you barely have a conversation. On another note, before moving here, i was thinking i could live up anywhere in the world with my decently crappy english. But it did teach me that 'Hindi' is my national language :P A joey-laugh for "bhook lag rahi hai kya?" was enough embarassment. But now, i have progressed and i think of myself to be in the 'world of tamil man's hindi' who can say 'theek hai' at right places and who can sneak in some sentences appropriately and most importantly, who can figure out if the crowd is making fun of you and can retaliate:P

I still have fresh memories of a lot of trivial things, good and bad, which i would keep with me, to write about the forgotten dreams at a more appropriate time.

Sunnyvale, CA
I have written about how i feel out here. A lot of changes, may be not really the extravagant life turning ones, but some changes for the good and some for the bad. I am putting on my best efforts not to be just another software engineer in the bay area At times i am being successful and sparsely, i feel i am failing miserably. I am waiting, without effecting anything, on something life-changing to happen ! So, let me write about this home sometime later on.

HA, that completes my homage and i have comfortably left out a couple of places because one did not mean much (sunnyvale during my summer internship) and one meant the same as the other.(chitlapakam, chennai). Those are reasons i made up just now to over-shadow the fact that i am a very lazy writer.

Some random 'I,me' tidbits:

- I am reading catch-22 now and i am really liking the satire !

- I have started playing some real tough badminton, though its just been 2 days so far, i look forward to doing it regularly atleast for the 200 odd bucks i paid for the membership. I sincerely hope its not an infatuation i have for the game. Like its written in the club i go to, the game is not for SISSIES.

- I am going to the gym regularly. And i see some results :P

- And i am on a mission 'watch all Tom Hanks' movies'. I have found a big hero in him.

- I love the sitcom 'The Office'. Lot of people i talk to are not fans of the office comedy.They give me a feeling that i get when i hear 'No, i do not follow cricket' from an Indian guy. I like the subtlety in their comedy, that makes you laugh just enough. John and Jenna makes the 'most perfectest best' couple i have ever seen or read about.

- I am liking tweeting. Twitter is fun for me mainly because it has an environment where i can say about anything in short and it does not test my patience because i dont have to elaborate and blog about it.

* Mommy, daddy,wife,kids,friends,aunts,uncles,cousins and FBI - Come on, i am totally kidding.
** For those who wouldnt know, Swayamvar is an open event where a supposedly charming guy/girl gets to choose his/her partner for everything he wants in life.

Homage to homes - II

2009-10-21T21:33:00.001-07:00

5-D,AM Road,Srirangam,Trichy
My dad was the first one in his family to go unconventional, to perform an act of a breakaway from a big joint Indian brahmin family. It may not sound gutsy to a lot of people, esp to those who wear the 'i am unconventional' up on their sleeve. But in his days and in situations that were surrounding his life, he had been very very gutsy to go nuclear. I did not understand the bigness of the event then, but now, i do look at it with a clarity that makes me understand what my 'appa' would have gone through. And this place is still my 'HOME' today, that has grown from a single bedroom independent house by the side of a river to a reasonably middle-class-ed two story house that has two wonderfully sweet caretakers. For them, its their kingdom, like a small island something that constantly gives them a proud feeling. To me, its a house that did not invite me well, i very well remember how i bruised my fingers in the technically advanced 'grilled' gate in the front of the house on my first day of living there. This is the home that witnessed the majority of my schooling days, that made me grow into a studious reticent class-topper who does "sandiyavandanam" (a prayer that all white-crossed people are supposed to do) three times a day, visits the temple every other day, who can 'spashtama' say a lot of prayers, who wont talk to girls without a reason and who cannot fall asleep without a hand on his moma's tummy :P Although i reached adolescence when i was here, i cannot remember one bad thing that i would have even thought of doing apart from lying to my dad about going to a temple when i would actually be going for a game of cricket. He still thinks only rogues play outdoor games.

Room 6105, senior hostel, MIT
And i transitioned into a 'city-guy'. This was my first place away from my mommy's tummy and even now, it appears huge to me. This has been a subtle reason for what i turn out to be today with everyone i meet. My hostel room was one of the crappiest ever places i have seen and i cannot ,even in the wildest of my dreams, would want to go back and live there. The first day images when my parents dropped me off with a room-mate, who was tall and thin to an extent that you cannot imagine with a little bit of happy-sad tears in their eyes never tend to get away from my thoughts. For them, it was like their son was on a huge career-centric mission. For me, i knew right from that day that 'chennai' has that whisker of a chance to unravel some mysteries in me :P
And then in the hostel, we became a community, with weird habits, dirty rooms, smelly everything and a deep bonding ! I am grateful to this very place for the few friends who are still with me today, who are still special to me and for whom i am still special, no matter how many come and go meanwhile :P I love you all, if you are reading.
Cutting down on the emotions, this place witnessed my first time on almost everything. The first KF,the first H5, the first real loowe along with it's secret trips to bangalore, the first flirty conversations with a certain 'Julie' and even the first time i had to bathe with another guy in a bathroom that wont have a door. Like it comes in movies, i turned from a top-scorer into a very mediocre seven-pointer, from a guy who wears a striped shirt and tucks it into his pants to somebody who wears designer tshirts from the spencer plaza, and from a guy who would blush and become reticent on seeing girls to somebody who can come up with a neat pick-up line at the college canteen over a cup of tea. HA, that is one script for a b-grade tam movie that can feature Sam Anderson.
Neverthless,despite all the louche behavior that set into me, that was a setting i relished mainly for the people,for the changes in me, a sister companion and her clandestine boy-friend stories.

=============================================================================================

And another hiatus that manifests my tag of being an 'irregular writer' .I took this break, not because i lost that urge to complete this or not because it wasn't well received by the very few readers of my writings, but i was being pulled in to random thoughts, thoughts of incidents that threw me off balance, some of which are still managing to keep me unbalanced, keep my thinking murky and helplessly, making me realize that they will have a perpetual effect of turbulence deep down in me and that they will constantly engage me in some sort of reminiscence. I did not want to write about it and cause a digress. And this time, i also had other worldly reasons for taking a break - hosting some friends, my newly cultivated habits, my work bribing my hands to work the clock and some trips around the bay have also been keeping me busy, for a change.

Homage to homes - I

2009-08-24T17:31:00.001-07:00

I wanted to write something last weekend and the weekend before that and many a times in the recent days. Coz i had "things" to write about. Some "things" that were running through my mind that were trying to pull me in to a small wave of jealousy over people going in perfect directions with things that actually matter. But then i took to staring intently instead that has become my resort to anything complicated.

Ok, i really can never escape from reminiscing. Falling prey to that yet again, I thought i will do a small homage to all the "homes" that have homed me so far.From Trivandrum to Sunnyvale, i have lived in 9 different homes so far and each of them have seen me grow differently and have also witnessed the things that never change in me. And since i am becoming older and with that comes a shorter attention span, i am gonna write this in three parts :P

Karamana, Trivandrum
I dont know how much i troubled my mom in her travail, but i sure do know that i came out crying and informing her that "I am your woe". I was born eagerly in Trivandrum, more than a month before i was actually expected to. My first home was my grandparents', a big one that they named "Mithila" after their first daughter was born, thinking that she would be the princess of the house forever. Go down a few years, they finally ended with 4 daughters and two sons. "Just me,my wife and my kids" is a famous phrase that my grandpa uses with the auto guys and the taxi drivers. I have heard stories about how my mom used to cringe and cry in that house on seeing the size of her "prematuredly born baby boy". My grandma would convince her saying "the rat will turn into a tiger one day" (it sounds funny in tamil for those who could understand- indha eli oru naal puli aagum paru).The rat indeed has :)
Its been ages since i had been to this home of mine. However, i remember this house as my summer vacation destination, where i would get together with my cousins, play cricket with broken branches in our undies, tease the dog continuosly who was a pet in the opposite house until he chased me to death one fine day that started my interesting episodes with his species, where we would force our grandparents to take us to the beach, where we would lie to our grandparents saying we had gone to the temple when we would have gone to see 'rangeela' and where i would miss my mom and realise that i am so much a momma's boy.

Rockfort, Trichy
A small cramped up house in my hometown, that saw me grow as the loudest worst-est 'cry baby' who kept reminding my mom that i am so much her worry. She still hasn't fallen in love yet :P About the home, it was a very very tiny one on a very very tiny street in Trichy. The kitchen was only as big as the living room and the restrooms were located in a small corner that had a tinned door. And it was a joint-family of three to four brothers, their wives, kids and athais and athimbers visiting and those frequent guests, who never did any work apart from taking a bus and frequenting our place. The ladies will have to treat them for kaapi, tippan and snacks.This place used to always bustle with activity - the husbands hurrying to work, the wives attending to the kids, the husbands and the kitchen, me crawling and crying holding on to the edge of my mom's sari, my cousins getting ready to school, some people coming back from a temple, the street vendors calling for the ladies in the house, the 'guests' parking their butts in the middle of the living room watching tv and shouting 'extra sugar in my kaapi radha', a flurry of eloping incidents and i vaguely remember so many things that deepens my respect for the people who had sweat it out over there. On top of this,my mom was the working lady too. So extra credit for my Radha :P As for me, this is where i started schooling and i have heard stories of how bad a school-go-er i used to be. My uncle used to take me in his cycle making me sit in the 'child seat' in the front of the cycle above the bar. Since i was smart enough to know that i am being taken to the school when they put on my uniform, he used to outsmart me taking me for a 'naked' cycle ride and leaving me and my uniform to that cruel Sofy miss who was a bitch.

Just for the namesake

2009-06-27T15:07:00.002-07:00

There is something everybody likes about a 'friday night'. I like the longevity of the friday night.it goes so long for me until my hands automatically pull that plug of the last lighted reading lamp by the side of my cot and until all the puling and the shouts of joy of the numerous thoughts come to a full-stop.Yesterday was about watching a movie mostly full of crap sitting in the second row of a theater full of people who had come with great expectations and had to go back disappointed coz the movie was nothing like the earlier one in the sequel and they did not show a lot of Fox as well on the big screen. And then, i talked to my cousins to catch up on all the happiness surrounding a couple of engagements happening back home and to my mom for a very long time , who easily gives the 'you-are-the-best-guy' kind of a talk despite not doing anything that she would want me to. She is my bank for all kind of emotions, love her. And i furthered a lot into Lahiri's 'The Namesake'. The book has been stunning and i am realising that i pretty much like reading cross-cultural, lifestyle-clashing stuff.I want to read 'shantaram' next.I feel she has awesomely narrated this substance in her book and has celebrated the concept of cultural-clash with a silent wave of caution and warnings. She is a paragon of cultural narration and i am not gonna miss 'interpreter of maladies'. A lot happened between then and the time till i went to my 'lala land'. But, i did get to see when Gogol and Maxine kissed for the first time :) It's funny to think how a line in the book can make you sleep peacefully. I would have loved a little of sam adam's or 2SOfH(sth i learnt recently) on a friday though.

"
MJ really was an era in this country. He was just too young to pass away. As i read somewhere, its shocking to know that people like him are mortals too. RIP....

Nadal not playing Wimbledon. That sucks so much coz i was so looking forward to seeing him on the TV esp after he lost out in the French open, when he wasnt playing his best.

Take it from us 'Gaylos'. So you think you can defeat us haan ?

Here comes the long weekend. We are getting together, going to a volcanic park, camping, driving a rental jeep convertible :)

Congrats Arun Anna, welcome mekhala manni :) Congrats soum dearest, welcome doctor !
Enjoying my anonymity in california. Coz i dont have to face questions that i dont want to answer.

Right now, with a whiff of some fresh air coming through the window, i cannot believe that a chunk of my memories are just becoming a slight smile on my lip.Sigh :(
"

That was randomness painting some shades in my life.

2009-05-03T00:20:00.004-07:00

On a bleary saturday evening, a weekend day that i spent cleaning up all my stuff from the toilet bowl to the most unreachable inch of my car, i am about to finish this 19h century book 'Rose in Bloom' that i had stumbled upon last week in the eeriest part of Sunnyvale. I realised that it is a girly book soaked in 'blatant feminism' only after i was quite some distance into the book ! Surprisingly, i could not resist finishing it and i was getting attracted to the old-virtues portrayed in a girl's character who we would call lame in any of our days' creations. Now that i am finishing this, i am going to start with the Kite Runner and i have checked-out the first of the 'Anne' series - 'Anne of Green Gables' too, which i got to know is a very intense series about an orphaned girl.So, this has been the thing of the day for me today. And for the most part of the day, i was feeling a very different joy. I looked around and everything in my room and bathroom is the way i want it to be. Enough clean and enough mine. I had always wanted some space for myself in life, some space that i can get back to after a day out, some space that i can keep it my way, some space where nobody monitors me and some space where i can draw myself into when i would become a loner and shut down all the connectivity to the rest of the world, which is something that is bound to my very character.With this, i dont need to go through the fear of having to walk out of something, give up on people you love and be afraid of what would life throw at me. The more i was looking around, the more i felt at peace with this loneliness and independence, before life (or my mom:P) puts me into an endless loop. Everyone i feel must go through this at some point in life.

On a different note, my room-mate's parents have come to visit him from India and that would mean that we can bask in the glory of home-made food day in and day out for quite sometime. Something that made me write about this here is that i missed my parents very much today. I made it a point that they see my cleaned up room today because i know these are the kind of things that make them happy. Simple love isnt it, unlike us escaping away from everything and everybody in search of perfection and what we presume will be that lasting happiness.

On another different note, i have become crazy about a certain kind of beauty, the one Mila Kunis - (Jackie from That 70's show)
and her kinds have in them. She has that 'Indian' beauty in her and if i can be a little r**ist, i woud say that Indian-ness looks the best in girls and i know guys from a particular nationality who would vouch for that ! I am gona watch 'the blue kite' now and looking forward to sleeping the most of the Sunday.

Cruel beautiful days

2009-03-24T23:57:00.003-07:00

When i was reading through some of my recent blogs, i strongly decided that the next time i attempt to write anything, it should be something that i havent attempted before.I badly wanted to write about the triumph of a 'Slumdog' musician that changed the history of a nation. Or i thought i should at least write about some anecdotes that keep happening in my everyday life and that are going un-listened to as a total "nothing" coz i find significance only out of these insignificant happenings.But i give up realising i can only ramble about certain things and thats when i write the best i guess :)

Its been about one quarter of an year since i wrote something out here and there is nothing much that has radically changed around me, though i sense a lot of things having changed in me that i forcefully brought it on myself. 'These days' are about random things happening, a whole lot of things happening that arent captivating enough that i dont even remember them at the end of the day and sensing some snickering from some people. Sometimes, its better to accept defeat and say 'Oh yeah, you totally won' isnt it ? I am a totally naive person when it comes to a few important things in life. However, it becomes easier when you accept defeat and you somehow start feeling lighter about it. Something that is becoming a kind of pattern with me is that when i would be laughing crazily listening to a joke, when i would be cracking a really funny one with my 'sense of humor', when i would be digging through at work with something critical, when i would burst into laughters seeing the two and a half men, the bart simpson, when i would just be listening and singing (with my horrible funny accent) some of my new favourites or when i would just be reading a book intensely, suddenly and randomly a big jolt in my memory would take me to those deep recesses of my mind for a couple of seconds and i am just getting so used to it !

Huh, those are some stashed thoughts that were waiting to get out of my system. And i have started liking California a lot. The pleasant weather, a sunny charm that is very California like, a motley of people, a new infiniti :) , new songs, new books and a lot of trivial things are keeping me happy and content for the moment ! My life for now does not have a deep meaning and intent like the ones of those special ones and i am not working towards making anything happen. I know i have to cross this phase and i am not complaining.

Btw, i am supposed to take on a tag. I started writing something for the tag and i stopped midway coz i realised i am so bad at answering them interestingly enough :)

Good bye Raleigh

2008-12-06T10:33:00.003-08:00

My last few days in a place that has given me more than what i expected, that made me learn more than what i came here for.Good bye "Raleigh".I came to you with no dreams and no thoughts.But then, you unfolded a few and made me dream.And now, as i get ready to "move on", i have to say "Thou shall always stay in me as a fond unfulfilled dream... just like so many of mine remain!" But then, i am happy you taught me how to handle broken dreams ! And you shall always be another home for me for you have given me so much of good memories that i will be taking along with me as a very pleasant burden.

Talking old times tale is always pleasant for us. Looking back at the not-so-long-last time, smelling the not-so-old scents of this place with a dazed look, the one big thing that i take out of this place is "life is fast and changes in no time" at all. People aint no exception to this matter of fact.

The wide-eyed image of myself when i first came to you is still fresh in my memory. The first few days - you gave me so many things to think about every night before i went to sleep, you taught me so many small things about a new country, you showed a new spirit that unveiled in me. The calmness you have in abundance suited my spirit and i never felt home-sick. And then, you connected me with the most unexpected of people during the most unexpected of times when i was just sailing through very normally in a foreign land. You made me dream big, painted a healthy rosy picture in my mind without me asking for it.When you go to yet another dinner in a friend's place thinking of just good food and you come back not knowing it could bring to you some out-of-the-world-feelings, you showed me that life at times is as simple as that.And then, you made me understand that you are not what exactly you seemed to be. Or may be I was too naive and you were always what you now seem to be. You taught me strongly that life is beyond the wildest of your imagination. You forced into me a big jinx and made your imprints. As i am packing all my stuff with all the good,bad and terrible memories to leave you, i ought to tell you that you taught me lessons, the importance of which i am not able to fathom now. You initially showed me specimens and then showed me "specimens" of those specimens and above all, you taught me big time that my life will always follow this pattern by tearing apart the dreams that you gave me into unrecognizable, un-understandable little bits. All i wanna say is that i have completely realized that i cannot pretend to be what i am not,i cannot hide what i actually am and neither can i change some unchangeable parts of me.

But then, i love you for what you are and never wanted to leave you ! Still you want me to move, make the choice and go away from the warmth that you offered. I am shifting base to California for some sun, sands, beaches and girls and i am so looking forward to living a life all by myself.

Good bye you !

Some refreshing loneliness

2008-11-20T01:53:00.002-08:00

I did not ask for it, neither did i think of it in the wildest of my dreams. All of a sudden, life seems to be giving me "some refreshing loneliness". And weirdly, i feel that this is some long awaited time to spend with myself. And all of a sudden, i feel blithe, i feel am drowning in a deep well of tranquility, i feel a silent wisp of a smile is penetrating into every trivial action of mine and i feel a very different spirit in whatever i am doing these days that richens me and my thoughts throughout the day. Sometimes such loneliness and laziness sets in you that all you do is dreamily watch some episodes of your recent favourite sitcoms, watch cricket matches, cook your favourite food for yourself, check your emails,listen to your favourite songs, sip some beers and spend some time with your marlboro butts once in a while. And how much ever you try not to think of your future because it scares you the most, your mind keeps thinking, you ponder over a million things, you manage to relive all those cherished moments of your life and you keep thinking how wonderful life has been and how more wonderful it could have been.
And it is refreshing because, i feel an unknown calm inside me. I am not getting overwhelmed with anything, anything at all. I am just feeling a lazy contentment with whatever i get to do and with whatever that comes my way. I am loving the occasional conversations i get to have with the coffee haven female discussing countries, student life and some out of the world things. I am loving the cricket match that i am watching now sitting all alone in the AFC study room at 4:30 in the morning and going out once in 2 hours to do a thing :) I am loving those songs that i listen to on my iPod and i am loving the lunches that i have on hillsborough all by myself ! All these couples well with those intangible gushes of long forgotten thoughts, thoughts about dreams that blossomed and dreams that didnt, and getting caught up in certain reveries and in that "dearest one" thoughts ! My gtalk chats becoming bigger with unexpected people and becoming shorter with expected people....marking the beginning of something new....measuring my steps into something unknown...is haunting me for a while....and culminating with return of happy memories and scary thoughts of the future.
It is an irony that only when you are silent, you are actually talking the most with yourself.

Me and my iPod !

2008-11-15T14:49:00.003-08:00

I own an iPod now and it has re-opened the love I have for some tamil songs. This little thing that is so much a part of me now contributes greatly to the enthu and the tempo with which i am doing things now. It's sleak, colorful, cute and it's effects reigns supreme in my everyday life now. I was recently talking to one of my friends about some of our favourite tamil songs and a couple of blogs i read recently and my iPod's effects spurred me onto listing some of my favourites here(not in any order) and tag people to follow up !

nenjikkul peidhidum from Varanam ayiram - A song that recently captivated me. A melody that keeps playing in my head of late. Such a soothing one to the ears ! Though harris' music gets monotonous and never gets out of a zone, at times his latest songs get on top of you. I am sure he will re-use the music within his next couple of songs.

valaiosai from Satya - Nearly Ilaiaraja's best. A very romantic song that i have liked the most in a very long time ! Lata mangeshkar has brought life into the song and its commendable considering the fact that she has sung it not knowing what the lyrics mean.

en mel vizhundha mazhai thuliye from May Madham - A very slow song that i like for the lyrics more than anything else. I am sure anybody who understands the lyrics would connect to the song and it would make you feel and wonder how and when that love blossomed in you suddenly !

ilamai idho idho from Sakala kala vallavan - This song is jazzy even by today's standards and one of Ilaiaraja's out-of-his-zone songs.

onna vida from Virumaandi - Another one of Ilaiaraja's slow poison, if i can call it so. Simple tune and simple music and simple choreography. Not a very great song. But it manages to kill me to happiness !

I miss you da from Sakkarakati - May not be Rahman's best, but he has never given anything like this before as far as i know. Too unique and it manifests the magic inherent in Rahman.

Uyirae Uyirae from Bombay - A song that will always have its freshness in me. Its not jazzy. Its not too instrumental and its not too Rahman-like. Its simple and thats the best part i like about the song.

En Uyirae from Uyirae (Dilse) - This song does not belong to any genre distinctly. Its soothing, its jazzy and above all, if you are sleepy and dont want to sleep, you should listen to this one.

Kadhal Rojave from Roja - Think Rahman and this song will never slip your mind. Perfect song to the situation in the movie and this is Rahman's forte. He gives music to situations. Doesnt he ?

oru iniya manadhu from Rajni's Johny - Another one of Ilaiaraja's lullab-ies. I like it more coz of Rajni though :)

Athiradee from Sivaji - Call it my craziness for Rajni. Call me a Rajni-freak. But this one is the best Rahman can give for Rajni and the music is tailor made for Rajni. I cannot imagine any other actor picturing in this song.

thottal poo malarum from NEW - One of those weird songs that i like. Not for the music. Not for SJ Surya :) But for the remix that makes me sway for a while.

Munbe vaa from SOK - Rahman keeps it simple at times and this is one of those songs that is fantastic just because of its simplicity.

Enna satham indha neram from Punnagai Mannan - Another one of Ilaiaraja's fine efforts into making the listeners love his melody everytime they listen to it as much as they would have the first time they had listened to it. And if Kamal does a duet, you cannot expect less at all !

Thee thee thithikum thee from Thiruda Thiruda - This song gives me an out of the world feeling. So much of instruments and so much of sounds have gone into this song. And also so much of Heera :)

Mandram Vanda from Mouna Raagam - The movie name translates to "Silent Symphony" and the song reflects the translation perfectly. An easygoing melody. It comes so easy for Ilaiaraja.

Ivan Yaro from Minnale - I guess this would always stay in the top of my romantic-songs-list. This song creates such an amazing effect in me for a hell lot of "reasons".

There are obviously more songs that i like and this is just the list that came out of the top of my mind without thinking too much about what i like. There are numerous songs which i had listened to and forgotten. This could just be those few that will ever live in my memories, each one for a different reason ! I tag everybody who chances upon this blog to put up a list and let me know your liking for my list !

And listen to this one too that made it to my list very recently.

2008-11-04T23:49:00.002-08:00

Exactly an year back, it came into me instantly and it refuses to go away, it refuses to die down...reeling deep down in me, showing its prominent presence before i go to sleep after so much of efforts every night and in the morning, the moment after i wake up and during many other moments of the day. Since an year, many little incidents have been piling up, insignificant in isolation, but when put together, it makes me feel empty and benumbed.Sometimes i wish i knew what i am supposed to do and what life was all about. Life at it's most confused best. I'm not depressed when i realise a few things. I am just feeling that sinking, totally void, dull aching feeling inside. And when such a phase seizes you, it's kind of difficult to gather yourself and start your normal work!

"Time" bites and there is no way around it.

At 25 :)

2008-10-14T10:06:00.002-07:00

25 - one of the numbers that i never thought i will associate with my life (apart from scoring a little 25 in street cricket matches and waiting for saurav to get to that every time i see him bat), but here it is, right in the centre of my life, staring in my eye, captivating my emotions and giving me a hell lot of insecurity as its kindest birthday gift. So, i have turned 25 now and looking at the last year that sprung quite a few surprises upon me. Some good, some average and some terrible. It makes me wonder how in an year, life can turn and turn again, how it can take you a few rungs up the ladder and rudely get you back to where you started. I’m more numb than sad when certain things flit through my mind giving me no control to exercise upon it.
And, on the other hand, now i look at the year ahead, wondering what surprises does it have in stock, what changes will happen that will again allow me to be myself and if life will turn and turn again. Nevertheless, i chug on hoping and realising that all turns are either for your good, or for somebody else's good. The 25th year has been nothing less than the most exciting one I have ever had.It has been a very quiet, a very happening and a very happy year mostly. I have seen myself grow more sensible, although not in world's terms and grow happier with things happening around me and around a special few. I have been happy with my simple thinking and am still happy with it. I have become more open to the happiness of the very few special ones and have allowed it to have such a great impact on mine too. I am not trying to act like a Sanyasi wanting everyone in the world to be happy. I care and i care extremely for that special person, and for a very few who fall inside the circle that i own. I did meet some very nice affable people, some characters that i will always want to be and never can be and an amazing person with whom words seem to fail me when it comes to how much this person helped me see the happiness that most of us keep searching for. It is so delightful to knock on the doors of my happy memories and get them flowing through me giving no space to anything else that is happening and unhappening. I do feel lonely at times and feel unimportant in a few particular ways..but then there are these memories and i am big hoarder of these memories that keep me away from feeling totally desolate.
Just wanted to wish myself a much belated happy 25th !

Hats off to the "American Spirit"

2008-08-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the last time i witnessed another live music show of the sunnyvale summer series. And of all that i have seen, yesterday was the best and the show made me tap my foot involuntarily. The performance was by a live band called "Busta Groove" and they busted the true american spirit out of the audience. Surprisingly or not-surprisingly, the bulk of the audience were the senior citizens and they were all in their own world, tapping their foot the way it took them and giving some sexy moves to their special other person. I dont know a lot of English songs frankly and what got me so excited was their playing of Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi which is one of the very few songs that i know and have listened to.
But more than anything else, i was so awe stuck on seeing the spirits that was on display on the streets. Man, these guys have awesome energy and they very well know how to have fun and how to get rid off the bigger mundane things in life. In contrast, what some of us do is "worry about who got a full-time and more importantly, who did not get a full-time, who is doing the course CSC *** next semester, if that company is e-verified, be extremely passionate and concerned about getting a H1 and a greencard, if i have done things what he hasnt" and what not ? Sad people :( .

Coming back to the scenes that i loved, there was this very old man sitting on a chair, who i am sure would have fallen if he was standing, taking in shots of tequila continuously and showcasing a youngster look on his face. He defied the convention that people of his age should be sitting at home and taking care of their grand children. He defied everything that would be associated with people of his age and was tapping his way throughout the show. And then, there was this small little girl lost in the crowd. She looked around for her parents and did not find them in her purview. And did she start crying, which is what we would have done even at the age of 15 ? Amazingly not. She started dancing with unknown people to a rock song that would have scared the shit out of many of us. And then there was this old couple who would pass for nothing less than 60 were bloody entertaining and were bloody entertained on the streets. They were giving their moves to each other that showed the cupidity that they had for each other and cared nothing about the crowd around them.

Half an hour of looking at them made the day for me. And i was standing there just wishing i get a little of their spirits. It is only in retrospection that you get a little judgmental about yourself. However, life keeps taking us forwards and that is the message for the day people !!

Before ending, i wanted to write about a few random things:
* I love this song "I miss you da" from Sakarakatti. Rahman rocks. Everytime he comes up with something totally out of this world and if you listen to this song, you will know that you have never heard anything like this piece of music before.
* Today is my last day of the summer internship with Informatica. It has been a good stint and i was able to keep up my reputation :). And i will miss saying "dos chicos cappucinos" to the pleasant Spanish lady at the cafe in our building here. She has been so kind and has given me a lot of unofficial discounts
* And 9 hours from now, i will be seeing a face that makes me happy from the inside. 3 months has been a long wait and i am waiting for this person to come and looking forward to feel the niceness that comes with this person and am hoping to have a week that i will relish forever.

The city that is Madras

2008-07-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

To the very few people who read my blog out of a compulsive force from me or out of the love you have for me, i am back after the ever happening block inside me. I always tend to write only in fits and spurts when something deeply pleasant or unpleasant strikes me. I know this would sound pathetic to the regular bloggers. But, thats the way i operate !

A word of caution - This is not a strike back to sentences like "The city is filled with sad people"(incase, if a particular somebody is reading this) that i recently bumped into. However, it is also one of the reasons that made me write this one.

I prefer calling it "Madras". The climate in the city throughout the year is very hot and humid. Every inch of your body will give out its share of the sweat. It is not a cosmopolitan city and the vast majority of the population are Tamilians and Tamil(or rather thamizh) is the almost the only language that is spoken throughout the city. There are a lot of immigrants into the city and they are also Tamilians from other part of the state and that is as far as it can get with respect to diversity in culture. The trains and buses are mostly bustled with people of all kind. We cannot compare a something that is in SFO to a something that is in Madras. You dont get a deja vu when you roam around New York after having lived in Madras for a while. "Madras-iz" add the letter "h" at wrong places and miss the letter "h" at the right places and add the letter "a" at the end of every verb. I agree to everything tat is and that is not Mad"h"ras. Machans and machis, "hold your breath", i say.

Though it has been quite sometime since i moved out of the city and have seen so many other better cities , I still dont feel like making a secret of the fact that i love Madras and it will always be another place that makes me feel that i belong there. For reasons that cannot be comprehended by people who have not lived in the city, I always feel that it is also one of those places where I always feel welcome to drop in for a visit.

Now walk with me guys. Let us stroll through the Singara Chennai that is dear to a lot of people like me !!

Out of Trichy after my twelfth grade, getting away from the luxuries and the constraints you get with parents around, Madras was the first big city that honored me in my life.I still remember how racy and fast-paced my hear beats were in the first few days.Atleast for me, the shift was comparable to a shift from India to the US. Differences were staring at my face. Homesickness was all over me and for the first time in my life, i missed my mom and dad and i realised how much a moma's boy i am. I will write about Trichy another day and now coming back to the topic, i lived there for four full years during my undergraduate and that was more than enough to make me call it my home.

Naturally, the best thing i like about Chennai is my college, "Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chrompet, Chennai". My college was a very small campus just besides a metro station and the sounds of the express trains could break your eardrums. The campus was always under trees and had some wonderful trails to walk through. You will have plenty of places to walk a girl and fry some groundnuts. The hostels were not livable and the food in the mess was not eatable. The small canteen and the big tree was the place that hogged most of my undergraduate time and greatly contributed to my mediocre seven point something. There were some lovable spartanz and peterz and also some dangeroz guys(private lingo). Though it has given some very good and very bad memories, its always pleasant to think about Madras and my dear MIT.

If It's Friday, then this must be IIT. I had a privilege of having a sis studying in IIT. And atleast during the initial few days, on all fridays, i take a particular 70 and go to IIT sharavati, the girls hostel in IIT Madras. I used to wait for my sister to come down and i get some amazing sight-ings during that wait time. How i used to wish she always gets late.

If it wasn't for those cheap shops in Spencers, i'd have been naked in MIT. I bought almost everything that i used to wear from those cheap shops in Spencer plaza. And that is a place, where you can just spend a day with an empty pocket. You can do some girl-watching, check out every stuff that is available and that really was a luxurious outing when you dont have any money. I still remember some days when we used to go to spencers with exactly 11 rupees(i.e 27.5 cents) just for bus tickets.

And you have the sea shores that you can enjoy after a week of chores. You have the globus and the westsides and you have the satyams and the inox and you have the Le Meridiens and the roadside airways and you have the geoffreys and the tasmacs. And it indeed is a very nice city and it will always remain something very dear to me.

And i still manage to have my love for the city when i am living amongst a population that unanimously hates this city. I agree that there are myriad reasons to hate - the water problems, the heat and the air pollution, the heavily crowded buses, crimes and eve teasing, a bad section of population, garbage odors in some places, the innumerable power cuts and being very backward in technology and much more. Which Indian city does not have all these. And now living in a place, where such things have never even been heard off, i must say i miss them. Once in a while, things seem very surreal and artificial staying in a place where the roads are clean, everything is automated and you do a life rather than living a life.

Chennai has a soul of its own. The people here live life normally and appreciate the city's normalcy and they love the city as anybody would love a Mumbai or a Newyork. ( I am comparing the love and not the places, an FYI). It has got a mix of fashion and tradition too. I know people who shop at globus and westside as much as they shop at renganathan street and pondy bazaar. Chennai has enough things to make it a nice city too. I am sure my life will smoothly glide into a chennai way of living anytime i go to the city. Standing in long queues, taking bath before the water flow stops, getting crushed in metros, talking in TAMIL, eating in those road side shops, watching movies at Vetri theatre in chrompet, manoeuvring through the traffic and yes, living a chennai life - that only people who have lived here can connect to. I take a bow to the city that is chennai. And i sincerely hope that Madras retains its niceties and simplicities even if it becomes advanced and more cosmopolitan than what it is now.

And to a somebody who feels the city is filled with sad people and to all those somebody-s who support it, give me a break please, the city has its own way of being a nice place and it is loved by many a soul including me.

Some random thoughts

2008-05-29T17:21:00.001-07:00

I thought i will get to blog only for a look back at the end of this year. I managed to pull up the sock to do a look back at the first quarter. For people who have no idea what i am doing in life, i have temporarily relocated to California for a summer internship.

Around 3000 miles away and 3 hours behind from the place where i feel i belong to. The bay area is known for its multitude of attractions, people's unique way of living, the comfort, the money and a lot more. This place is known to make a human mind constantly relish disparate experiences day after day. Beyond all these, the moment i become aware of my presence in this corner of the country, i start realising that i miss Raleigh. The hassle-less-ness that it offers, the greenery always in our sight, the feeling of being young amongst students and the time it allows you to have for yourself and the freshness that is Raleigh. I want to go back soon :(

But for now, I am a Software Engineer - Intern in the bay area and I have to:
use the term "bandwidth" for time,
do too much of planning for everything,
fill my plate with CRs,
work (atleast pretend to) atleast 8 hours a day.....

Though i like coding and i dont have much complaints about being a software engineer, i have never relished the way i got into this field. I have written and complained and talked within myself about this a lot and everytime, i think about it, it leaves a huge void inside me and i dont want to get into that too much now.

Lot of things have happened in my life since my last blog and the gap is too big to organize the thoughts and write it down. So, what i am going to do is randomly write about whatever that comes out of the top of my mind and do not mind if it does not make any sense collectively.

Losing of the stamina
A week back, me and some of my friends went to the Santa Cruz beach and we played a modified version of the American football. I prepared myself for the game. Changed into shorts, wore my sunglasses (shtyluku :) , removed the slippers to run on the sand and sported a sporty look. We started playing and never did anybody say that this game will have a lot of running to do. 5 minutes into the game, i was puffing heavily. "Idhuku dhan indha build up-aa?". I had to tell myself "Building strong....aana foundation konjam weaku".
After such incidents, what goes through your mind is so obvious. "I must go to the gym from the Fall semester" :)

My newly developed love for Hollywood
Though i was never a hollywood buff, I have somehow started watching a lot of hollywood movies and man, i love the way these people make movies out of everything that you can think of. I have seen some classics now and is still actively looking out for good movies to have myself wet enough with hollywood. The next time i hear the name "Jodie Foster", i can say that she was the heroine who acted in "The silence of the lambs" and who did a controversial role in the movie "Taxi Driver" as an underaged prostitute :)

hindi me better hogaya !
Lesser Joey laughs for those hindi jokes these days. I have grown by leaps and bounds from "Ek ghaav me ek kissan raghu thatha" :) to what i am now.

Los Angeles
A break from the reality is always a bliss esp when that reality is a "harsh semester". You are aware of all the projects that would be lurking at the end of the break, though it does not bother you at all. And i got this bliss in the form of "Spring Break" and managed to visit Los Angeles. An amazing city it is. It is like this place which makes you feel like a world full of happiness and dreams is bottled into one single place and is named "Los Angeles". To keep it short, it was an experience surreal for a "lot" of reasons.

Apart from this, life has shown me more specimens of people. Some who always has that genuine passion to go that extra step ahead of others; some who are extremely manipulative in going that extra step ahead of others; some who wont go that extra step and also does not want others to go that extra step; some who are unassumingly intelligent and some who assume they got the better of everything. I know I will discover more with time.

Much delayed new year musings

2008-01-10T10:50:00.001-08:00

2007 has obviously seen a lot of changes in my life. Rev-ing up my bike in the Bangalore roads, quitting a lucrative job with Informatica with a guess that its time for another change in life, those unforgettable secretive midnight parties in the terrace with my dear cousins, getting excited with the newness of a place called “Raleigh”, becoming better with the tennis racket, getting more familiar with the national language (sheesh, I am ashamed of myself), learning to push my way into the kitchen, doing some justifications to my interest for Network Security, learning how to learn, feeling the kick of going to big cities like SanFrancisco, Washington DC and Chicago is all that comes out of my mind when I do a rummage through the 2007 I have had.

The beginning of the year made me richer at Informatica in all ways I can think of. Feeling the real taste of the industry and understanding how competitive it is to be a software engineer in Bangalore (Trust me, you will be looked at like a rickshaw wala when you say you are a software engineer in Bangalore), Informatica has definitely taught me how to comport myself with an attitude of this generation’s software engineer. Looking back at it, I miss working with those great minds who steered my energy in the right-est possible directions, the IP phones, the smell of softwares, the small chit-chat I have with my dear friend during the snack break, the table tennis that was a part of my routine, the security guards addressing me as “Ravi Sir”, the coffee served to my cube once in 2 hours, the brainstorms that we have had on a single line of code and much more trivial things that I can bring out when you stimulate the Informatica region of my memory. Wah, it has definitely taken me to the next rung in the ladder. My decision to leave my job for an MS is a definite highlight of my 2007.

On a completely different dimension, I relished the really unforgettable times I have had with my bunch of cousins in 2007. Not that they have not given me such times before, but, this year has seen my relationships with them spiraling into something better. The secrets that we share have “perfect forward secrecy”. The secret parties in the terrace, the tennis matches, cricket matches and one-pitch catches, the ever-pouring gossips and the overnight road-trips are all being reminisced when I am writing this. I know these are normal things that most of us share with our cousins / friends. But, I am just showcasing the happiness that I share with them in my look back at the year.

And deciding to pursue my graduate studies was another highlight of my 2007. I am a total un-planner and I just hate making plans of what to do in life. I cannot be a person ever who sketches the outcomes in their minds before taking a decision and who meticulously calculates each and every move in their lives. And this decision of mine can be called an epiphany in the sense that I suddenly realized I need a change in life. A break from a lot of “Bangalory” is what I needed and it has turned out to be a nice uncalculated experiment. ‘Raleigh’ and my ‘MS so far’ have opened me to a lot of new-ness in life. Comparing my MS with my BE, I feel “ I am learning and not doing the same mistakes again”. I have atleast been trying to pursue my interests. I am sensing a kind of fallout happening inside me and things are settling down nicely. The murky image you see of yourself on the fogged mirror in your bathroom when you take a hot-water bath is now getting a clearer and clearer. And Raleigh in the previous year has instilled in me a very different spirit that I look forward to carry on with me for a long time to come.

Apart from these, the Sivaji day, my child plays with my nieces, the Federer Vs Nadal, my promotion email, my mom and dad praising me even for my mistakes, some nice dishes I have made in the kitchen, the Diwali night in Raleigh, the dolphin show in the shedd aquarium at Chicago, the coming of a rodeo girl and so many happy images of me are flitting through my mind when I do this look back at 2007.

Probably, all years in life will be an eventful one when you do a look back with such astonishing clarity. Nevertheless, I am happy about 2007 and I am looking forward to the same elements of uncertainty in 2008. 2007 have also given me moments that have made me realize those inescapable ugly truths about myself. However when I am trying to think only of those happy moments, they don’t deserve a mention here.

Though it is 10 days into the year now, wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year would delight me more than anything now and would be a fitting conclusion to end this post

Disgraceful,Unfair,Stupid,Senseless,Partial Umpiring

2008-01-06T16:46:00.001-08:00

Anil Kumble is known for keeping his cool and temperament under control even in extremely demanding situations on the field. The final day of the second test match against Australia in Sydney was just another hard cricketing day for this gentleman. But if u see Kumble fuming in the press conferences and on the field, then it does mean that there is something extremely unfair happening on the field. "All bad adjectives" - umpiring and the frivolous conduct by the opposition captain triggered even a person like Anil Kumble to vent out his anger and frustration.

Bucknor should be called *ucknor from now on. I do not mean to humiliate an umpire who has proved his goodness at the international level. But the mistakes (rather i would call it crimes) he committed on the final day are enough to fire him from this position. I am not ashamed to say that I was cursing Bucknor and Benson in my dreams yesterday. Though the aura of nicety and "lightness" is prevalent in my life at the moment, such small critical things pierce the aura and does affect me for a moment.

It was not one small unfortunate decision that costed the match for India. If it had been just one or two, we could give the benefit of doubt and justice to the umpires. Symonds' big knick did not catch the umpire's eyes and ears in the first innings.The knick was so loud enough to crack Fucknor's auditory nerve. However Benson had an x-ray vision when he gave Ganguly out with a dubious catch. I am damn sure Michael Clarke would have known that the ball hit the ground before he took the catch. However, Australians are known for playing the game with a "SPIRIT". To hell with their spirit. If that was not enough to affect the outcome of the match, Rahul Dravid was given caught behind when the umpire did not even know whether the appeal was for an LBW or a caught behind. Atleast this time, India did not lose the game to Australians' good cricket.

Not every Australian captain can be a Steve Waugh. Steve Waugh's Australian team epitomised the characterisitic of playing the game with spirit.

Gone the distance :-(

2007-12-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

Semester one is out of the door and i feel so accomplished and thought this feeling of mine deserves to be blogged. The last few weeks were the toughest times since i landed in the US . I had to write three exams in two days which meant 9 hours of thinking about questions that i havent done for quite sometime. I spent around 14 hours a day preparing for the exams and spent three-four hours a day sleeping with the exams haunting my dreams. More often than not, i had only one meal a day. I did not watch a single episode of FRIENDS for sometime. I came to know about Saurav's double century only the day after he actually scored it. I did not know Gary Kirsten was appointed the coach of the Indian Cricket team. " www.cricinfo.com" was not appearing in my recently visited websites. That pretty much describes "The week it was".
Phew..I am glad i walked my way out of these times and now i have all the time in this world to think aloud about myself and about things happening around me. I can now enjoy the euphoria that i get out of my comforter and i can re-start enjoying those little tiny winy things i like about people.I can lounge around in dishabille throughout the day....
I am now thinking about the wonderful week ahead with my college friends who are getting together in Raleigh. These are the guys with whom i had spent most of my chennai-life with. And now meeting with them in a city called "Raleigh" in a country called "United States of America" is something special no matter what.
Now that the year is gona be ending in sometime, i am bound to do some retrospections. Technically speaking, i am one semester old now into my graduate studies and i clearly see myself better than what i was before i came here. (This is a diplomatic way of telling my parents "Your money is not being wasted ! "). On the other hand, I have made friends with people with roots totally unlike mine and have bonded extremely well with some whom i thought i would not even get a chance to talk to all through my MS life.
I always enjoy life when it is this "light". But can it always be light? Definitely not is what i hear from my inner self. There would be times when you wont really understand what you are feeling bad about. I wanted to stuff some happy moments into this blog that i am writing after a really long time with absolutely no academic pressure on me. But human mood is so unpredictable. By now, i am lost and i want to understand what is happening with a devastating perspicacity.

The lyrics that caught me

2007-11-23T17:36:00.001-08:00

I am usually not the lyrics guy when it comes to listening to songs. I usually appreciate music that is good to hear and will hum along with a tone of mine (that some people don’t know to appreciate  ). Recently, I heard this song “En Mael Vizhundha….” from the move “May Madham” and I inadvertently fell for the lyrics more than anything else in the song. It gives me that unfathomable feel deep inside me. Not that it is so very relatable to things happening around me. It has become one of those small things in my life that makes a day for me. With a cup of chai in my hand and with my ears glued to this 4min 46 seconds video on youtube, I get lost with this song forgetting about the plethora of the assignments and projects that are due very soon.

The lyrics definitely deserve a space on my blog. For all people who know Tamil: (For others, I will take sometime to dub this in Hindi :-))

“
en mael vizhundha mazhai thuLiyae
ithanai naaLaay engirundhaay?
indru ezhudhiya en kaviyae
ithanai naaLaay engirundhaay?

ennai ezhuppiya poongaatrae
ithanai naaLaay engirundhaay?
ennai mayakkiya mellisaiyae
ithanai naaLaay engirundhaay?
udambil uraigindra oar uyir poal
unakkuL dhaanae naan irundhaen

maNNai thiRandhaal neer irukkum
en manadhai thiRandhaal nee iruppaay
oliyai thiRandhaal isai irukkum
en uyirai thiRandhaal nee iruppaay
vaanam thiRandhaal mazhai irukkum
en vayadhai thiRandhaal nee iruppaay
iravai thiRandhaal pagal irukkum
en imaiyai thiRandhaal nee iruppaay

ilaiyum malarum urasugayil
enna baashai paesidumoa
alaiyum karaiyum urasugayil
paesum baashai paesidumoa
maNNum viNNum urasugayil
enna baashai paesidumoa
paarvai reNdum paesikoNdaal
baashai oomai aayvidumoa
“

Some level this is.

My hazy expectations

2007-11-18T00:38:00.000-08:00

The question that has been dominating my introspections over the past few days is “What is it that I expect to gain out of my MS?” It’s a difficult question to answer especially when your ambitions in life are fantasized a little too much (way beyond your potential) and the extent to which you would get there is still a hazy picture.
International Exposure??
To hell with that. The demographic details of my department reads “196 Indians and 191 Americans”. Not that I hate being with Indians. Its even more special to be with your folks in a totally foreign part of world. But this is not something I had contemplated before I came for my masters. And this is not the kind of environment I expected myself to be in doing a masters in USA. I still get to watch and play cricket here. I still get to not to stick to my schedules. I still get to speak in Tamil.
Research Experience??
The opportunities are awesomely wide enough. However, the more I get to work with great minds here, my weaknesses of not being a research material are getting exposed. I have to work on the art of understanding where things would not work rather than appreciating how things work greatly. When I get to see students with behemoth potential, my perfervid conscience reminds me that I still have a long way to go.
With a lot of money at stake, I will definitely not want my MS to be a a flaneur. The unclear expectations have been pricking me quite a lot over the last few days and making me feel as gloomy as the weather at this time of the year over here. Nevertheless, some soul has been kind enough to bring a smile on my face frequently despite all these haziness and confusions dominating my introspections. MS is gonna be an ordeal to my mental strength.

Diwali ’07 – Known in an Unknown

2007-11-10T11:36:00.001-08:00

I truly missed being @ home for diwali getting together with a bunch of people and getting mesmerized with mommy’s food. I had a rush of excitement on diwali calling and wishing all my friends here. Some people were like “Oh diwali-aaa? Big deeeeal. Anywayz, happy diwali.“
That made me realize how foreign some Indians have become and I believed this is a land inimical to my native festivals.

However, what infact transpired was totally different and thanks to a bunch of people who made it a one-of-a-kind experience and who could ameliorate the dying of excitement inside me.

I am keeping it short as I believe it would be best explained by the collage below:

Do you know what is dy/dx (cos x) ??

2007-11-10T10:37:00.001-08:00

I recently read a well written blog of my cousin that spurred me onto writing this one. To mention the gist of his article, he had mentioned the importance given to ‘Mathematics’ as a subject in India and how influencing is a factor is it when it comes to judging a student’s potential.

After spending sometime as a grad student in a US university, I am just realizing how truer cannot it be. In a country like US, the greatest strength of its system of education is the flexibility that is provided to students even at the grass roots level. They ensure that no student feels low on esteem if they do not know what is dy/dx(cos x). Infact students here do not learn calculus until they enter college. In India, you cannot afford not to know what is dy/dx(cos x). [Your peers will make fun of you by closing their mouth with their right hand and do a humiliating laugh.] Quoting Arun Ram – “This fallacy that academic or logical intelligence is the only yardstick for personnel measurement has become outdated in most societies”. Certainly US is one of them. Students here are so proud of whatever they are doing. And they have a world of confidence about whatever they do. This sense of attitude is the most positive outcome of the system of education that is setup here.

Am I proud of being a branded ‘Software Engineer’ ? Am I proud of knowing the answer to dy/dx(cosx) ? Did I really know what I was doing when I took Computer Science for my undergraduate studies ? ……There are a lot of questions that I am asking myself now and the answers to most of the questions would be a NO.I care two hoots about all that now and I have started becoming proud of what I am doing now. I am shaking the cobwebs and trying to get a clearer picture of where I am heading to and what I would want to be doing. This is after seeing a plethora of confident fellow students who are extremely sure of what they are doing. Unlike in India, where most of the students get pushed into doing their masters following a trend, people get to that level of doing a graduate studies only if they really want to be doing so.

Conclusions ???

……. My F1 Assignment…..

2007-09-09T01:31:00.000-07:00

……. My F1 Assignment…..
I am keeping up the promise and I am not even changing the title. Blogging on something that is not the in-thing is somewhat odd but then here I go unleashing on what has been happening with me since I quit INFA and left India on an F1 Assignment.

The JET journey does not have any complaints and I can only say that they have caught students big time. Every second passenger was an INDIAN student going to some school in the US for their masters. I was bemused to see so many of them and for a moment felt like just yet another guy. But then I heard people going to universities that I have never heard of ( Ferris State University, Kennesaw State University, University of Texas in Pan America to name a few), I got back my senses and said to myself “Dude, NCState rrrrrocks !!!”. Throughout the journey, I was just thinking of all my dear ones back home. I love my folks and was contemplating on when would I meet them again. Two years is not a big time. However, two years is not a short time too. I will miss playing tennis with my dear cousins. I will miss making fun of and being made fun of by my dear folks. I will miss parental care. I will miss my long phone calls with my dear friends. I will miss my not-so-bad salary. I will miss playing with my nieces. I will miss my sister-in-law’s five flavored pani poori. Above all, I will miss being an IRRESPONSIBLE BLOKE.

Carolina Style In Amreeka
After arriving at Raleigh,NC, I was promptly picked up by my aunt who is next in turn in their family to put up with me after my aunt in Bangalore. (Is it gona be Australia or Coimbatore or Haripad next? ) The first few days in their place was nothing less than luxurious and it was a home away from home. I am sorry if I am turning on the fire alarms in HongKong. I know somebody’s stomache in Hong Kong will burn on reading this. Anyways, take that from me my dear bro. However, after moving in to my apartment, I was made to realize the fact that being in America means you have to fend and defend for yourself. You are completely on your own.
Raleigh is a very quiet capital city and it belongs to the Wake County, one of the 100 counties in North Carolina. Famous for it’s lakes and oak trees and of course NCSU ! Nothing more and nothing less. People here love the summer and Raleigh is rated one of the fastest growing cities in the USA. People pay lesser tax here than some of the neighboring cities and that is one major reason for a lot of people moving in to this city. Huh, I have collected enough information to put it up here 

After my classes started, my life was on a fubar for the initial few days. The education system here is a way too different than what most of the institutions in India have. Assignments (that you should do on your own), pop-quizzes etc etc were all too new to me and it took around two weeks to get a glimpse of what is happening around me. It all sounded a little scary and me and my friend were discussing of doing something illegal and get deported to India so that we get our return tickets free of cost . I crossed that phase and now I am kinda settled out here. And now, I need to mention about the profs I met here. The profs are so damn intelligent and are completely against the picture I had about them before I came here. I was thinking of bespectacled, wrinkled people as profs. The truth is they are just a little elder to my old cousin in Hong Kong (I am sorry again. I cannot stop pulling your leg! ). One guy had been with the US Army before he became a doctorate and one guy is a down to earth cool dude who is a big shot in the industry and wears a blazer to the class that does not match a shade with his inners. Some characters they are.

Before the classes started, we had at least three different orientation programmes that were monotonously boring. We were taught not to plagiarize ( a word that I very often hear in NCState) and we were taught not to call lady profs / staffs for a date. The best thing however was that I got to meet and make friends with a lot of international students and even better was “FREE FOOD” (my Indian mentality will never die down in me). We had a get-together at a church and we were made to dance for famous numbers like “Do the hokey pokey”. I was reminded of my sweetheart niece “Srishti” back home who used to dance so cutely to this rhyme and it was an irony to see fatsos dancing for this.

Another thing interesting that happened was the nightout @ Yard Sale. You spend the whole night out of a church to buy stuff for cheap for your apartment. This is not crazy as you may think. This is the way of life of the Indian student’s community @ NCState. The amusing or not so amusing thing about this is that all the students who was there the night before were Indians. And what you juxtapose with an Indian crowd is quarelling, cursing, abusing and a lot of commotion. All this happened outside a church in a city called Raleigh in United States Of America. Indians are always Indians and we don’t believe in “Be a Roman while in Rome”. After spending the whole night out there, the sale started in the morning and we grabbed a dining table and some rocking chairs for our apartment.

On the entirety, following is what I have understood as to what it means to live a student life in America. It means:

• You cook for yourself. You make sambhar that does not taste nearly like it. And you even try Bainghan ka Bartha which comes out good out of the blue. You clean the dishes and the kitchen. It also means Dosas are not round in shape and omlette is a semi-solid dish.

• Capsicum is Green Pepper and Brinjal is EggPlant.

• You have to follow traffic rules even while walking. You cannot do “Jaywalking” ( an American word for crossing the road without signals) which you always do in India.

• The prof gave me work up the butt does not mean something bad. It just means that he gave you too much work to do.

• You have to keep distance with the car in the front and cannot tailgate (another American word added to my vocabulary) cars while driving. This is also something we always do in India.

• You have to look at your left side while crossing the road.

• You buy the cheapest stuff and rather than the famous stuff. I use “Gazz” soaps. Have you heard of it?

• Football is played with hand and not legs.

• We are called P.I.G.S ( Poor Indian Graduate Students).

• And finally, it means you use tissue paper to wipe your *** and not your face.

I will add more to this list later on.

Sorry for putting up this after a long delay. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Finally, I am signing off with a plagiarism of a thought from an advertising company:

My house rent – $200 per head. My monthly expenses – $400 . The laptop bag I bought recently – $25. A big sliced pizza @ NY Pizza – $4 A chocolate muffin - $1.
Spending time with my wonderful cousins and awesome friends – Priceless ! ! !

We are P.I.G.S. (These are the fundo guys i am staying with)

Felt @ home

2007-08-22T08:00:00.001-07:00

Aug 21, 10:30 PM, Raleigh, NC, USA:
"Power Cut" - i thought this was a term that never existed in the US until yesterday. The tables turned and the lights went off yest out here. My roomie reacted saying "This place is just like a glorified India dude". A home away from home made sense to me for the first time.

My INFA World

2007-08-18T17:21:00.000-07:00

"
Exposure to great software, working with elite people, making some real good friends, awesome and awful shots in the TT room, raucous birthday bumps, delicious treats…….Life @ INFA has made me deliriously happy very often in the last two years. And I am sure my stint here has taken me to the next rung in the ladder.

The vicissitude of life has made me take this really difficult decision to move on from a place that has given me so much. I am “revisiting (INFA jargon!!)” school in pursuit of an MS in Computer Science from the North Carolina State University.

“Thanks a Ton” to all of you for the wonderful times and continual help, support and encouragement that has definitely made my time here a pleasant experience.
"

This is the mail that terminated all my official connections with Informatica Business solutions. My last day at Informatica was more than an eventful one. Backing up all my personal data on the computer and packing up all my INFA memories, that was a first-time experience for me to quit a job and trust me, it was not as easy as I thought it would be when I submitted my resignation. May be, I will get used to it later on in my life, I suppose.

A lot of friends are lost and the perception that was filling my mind was that things are never going to be the same again. As I moved around, thanking and meeting people who shaped my nascent career, people who had put something in my brains, people who were really kind in helping me overlooking my inexperience and people who steered my thinking and energy into meaningful directions, I felt satisfied with the work lessons I have had during my stint @ INFA. I was not sure about who all will still stand to fight another day and now that some days have passed, I feel happy that some are still fighting 

INFA has a tradition of getting together at the cafeteria for sending off people quitting. I was a little overwhelmed to see a lota people at the cafeteria who had come to see me off. But then, I was a little bemused to see a lot of amused faces over there. “ Is everybody happy that I am leaving ? “ Mine was a little different than the other see-offs I have seen. I was brought to the centre of the crowd and was asked to give a speech which was the last thing I wanted to do on that day. I made them understand that my writing skills is a shade better than my speaking skills and got away with that. However I could not escape the ragging session that followed and worse the bumps that I got. (Though only one guy was so interested in hitting me. I found a good enemy in a good friend.). My dumb answers made them disinterested and it was curtains soon with the send off gifts that really overwhelmed me.

It really was a day to savor and moments that I will cherish forever. Thank you guys.

So, what next ? I had clearly envisioned the answer – “My F1 assignment” .

The S-Day

2007-06-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

June-15, 2007

The Rajni Mania is at its peaks as the theatres have started to serve the sizzler to a community of people called “Rajni Fans”. The frenzy amongst the fans around a Rajni movie release this time has is like never before. Bump into a national news channel or browse through a news paper, you would not be missing to find out the hype that is surrounding the release of Sivaji.

Imagine the feeling that would have been running through Venkatesh Prasad’s mind when he was sledged incessantly by Aamir Sohail in the most famous cricketing encounter that happened during the quarter finals of the 1996 world cup in Bangalore. When he clean bowled him the next ball, the usually calm and composed Prasad lashed out and shot back. The rage that he displayed was un-namable. It was reflexive, instinctive and out of pure unbridled passion. In Tamil, you call it “Veri”. This is analogous to what you call the “Rajni Fanomena”. Rajni Fan – is a heart that beats @ a tremendously high frequency when he sees the superstar on a big screen. The war cry “Thalaivaaaa” (the word that would funnel through the larynx of a Rajni Fan) that would be heard as a shrill in any sort of acoustics when the Rajni Fan sees him on screen is instinctive, reflexive, out of pure unbridled passion and out of Veri. Such is the phenomena called “Rajni Fanomena”.

I badly wanted to unfold this phenomenon today by watching the BOSS on a big screen. High hopes, says my conscience. Anyways, I gave it a shot two days back. I zipped through the evening Bangalore traffic to INOX in Bangalore two days back only to know that they are not yet sure about releasing the movie on the 15th. However, I saw a plenty of notices displaying a special number to which Sivaji enquiries can be directed to. From then on, I had that guy tell me “No sir, we have not started issuing tickets for Sivaji” once in every ten minutes (a lil exaggerated though!) . Atleast, I disturbed him to such an extent that the next day morning when I had called him, I did not even have to say a hello before he excited me saying “We have started issuing tickets sir. You can buy it @ the counter in INOX”. I hung up and by instinct, I typed an “OOO for an hour mail” to my manager and managed to take two of my friends @ INFA to INOX immediately. One is a true Rajni fan and one is not a Rajni Fan (He is not a fan of anybody. That is a different story altogether).

It was not a surprise to see a big queue there. Rajni Fanomena was on the air in the area surrounding the counter where the tickets were being issued for the movie. This friend of mine who is not a Rajni Fan was viewed with suspicion. Maybe it was written on his face that he is not a Rajni Fan. He was periodically uttering his punch liner “Manushan paapana, Indha padatha” and was crossing swords with Rajni fans swarmed around him. Some television channel was capturing us on a camera and we resorted to a “Hide and Peek” to hide ourselves from parents and managers. Luckily, one of my friends was huge enough to cover both of us together. I usually don’t like standing in queues and that is the reason I attribute to my not going to temples or to reserve train tickets at the counters. If my mom happens to see me standing in such a big queue, a 1000 wala would be in the waiting when I go home the next time. But who cares?

As we were moving forward in the queue, tickets for the first three days were sold out. This time around “Justice delayed was just justice delayed and not justice denied”. We bought 25 tickets for a show on Tuesday and returned with a sense of satisfaction. Back at office, the story is summed up by the equation “demand >>>>>>> stock”. Now Tuesday looks so far off as I start meeting people who have already watched the movie. The long wait has begun to watch the unleashing of the superstar and to hear the roars that would make it impossible to even hear yourself thinking. The movie is already making ripples internationally and I am sure it would be an experience surreal for Rajni fans.

What to say? The frenzy that was there for “VV” does not even compare to this.

Signing off for now with a dialogue I heard for the superstar:

“
Vaanathula irukudhu pala star;
Nilathula irupadhu ore star, adhu namma super star
“

...Here i go....

2007-06-06T05:25:00.001-07:00

Huh, so here i am tapping my keyboard.....Do i start by paying a small tribute to my inspirational blogger (one weird guy called "MULLI" - name changed for obvious reasons) or do i start by enunciating my interests in wireless network security or something else??? "Uncertainity in life is looming large on me at this point of time".
My nerdy schooling days in Trichy, my indelible college days in chennai,peterz,spartanz,9over90,crushes,Informatica(my present employer), the looong INFA WORLD today morning...Life has come a long way to take me until today evening.

Well, i am gona focus intensely on the problems with WPA(WiFi Protected Access) and the solutions to them. Okie, now before you close this window, let me tell you that i am not even gona try writing about the afore mentioned stuff. I am just going to be blogging about a lot of tales that i have to tell, my life in retrospection and my optimism and pessimism about my future. I may touch technical topics as well once in a while as i do have a lota geeky friends.

I am not a blogger nonpareil. So please do bear with me when it gets gloomy and dont be afraid to leave a nasty comment !

Btw, have you ever wondered what the result of a long endless technical talks in an official event would be?

The answer is : Inception of "A male's tales".