2011 has been a terrific one!

It’s been a year of new people and friends. I’ve acquired many new friends who were completely fresh and a wonderful set of people. I simply cannot put in words the very idea of new people entering my life. Meeting new people, interacting with them and befriending them have always been fun. If these new people have not traced their path into my life, I would have mulled over the monotonous array of events that was decelerating my course of life.  I would not extend my courtesy to you by acknowledging your inclusion with a ‘Thanks for being there’ and thereby forcing a compulsive formality in our relationship. I would like to keep things informal.

A complete change in things has been brought in this year. I’m loving the newness and the comfortable me jutting out into a new arena. The arena has been both in my professional and personal front. Being there in something for a longer time, with no new things to do or follow becomes a dreary one. The year 2011 has brought in quite a number of changes in things around me. It is little feel-good awkward to realize the very fact that the change has happened already – not as worse as realizing a nuclear fission has occurred and there is no way to escape painful disintegration. But the changes were pretty exciting. I was hoping badly for those changes to happen and was under excitement for quite a number of reasons. I was not disappointed with the turn of events. I was in mixed feelings as they say, change is the only constant, which was/is and will be a paradox in itself. Not only the ‘Dhaag acha hai’ (Karai Nallathu!), but also ‘Change is also good’.

The year has also proved to be a new beginning for quite a number of things. A new turning in the journey of my professional life kick started in this year, taking a sudden diversion from a treacherous and rickety road. I was all stable and secure but the fear of sinking deep into a depression out of monotony and hecticness forced me to take new roads not travelled. I now love this journey and I’m sure I have a very long road ahead and the journey is gonna be exhilarating. We relocated to a new flat in a new location after me being there in my previous one for about 15 years.

This year has also brought in more peace in me. It feels as if life is peaceful and hassle free. There have been times in 2010 when I would be more uninterested in things around me, due to sheer weariness and sleeplessness. Things have changed much in this year. I’ve learnt to appreciate the intricate details. The outlook with which I perceive things has changed too. There is more clarity and undoubted certainty in things which I had looked upon in drowsiness. I sense an innate ability in me to find more qualities and new characteristics studded deep inside. I’m able to find time to drown deep in me & unearth something so profound or even shove laziness on my head and curl up under the blanket sinking deep into a longer slumber.

Well, apart from the same mundane events happening in my life, I have developed interest in Photography with the new acquisition of DSLR in this year 2011. May be this acquisition is done at the right time as I was talking about my outlook and my perception about things above. So with this SLR being my new love, I’ve done some travelling and hang-outs with friends to few good places where I was able to experiment my skills on photography and capture few good moments and things which I could appreciate through my eyes.

Apart from Photography, I have started reading few good books – the language which I can appreciate and do some learning and un-learning. Towards the fag end of the year, I’ve also decided not to read those cheap Indian authored CB flavored Novels. I owe tons of respect to few of those Indian authors who add vividness to English literature. I’ve been inspiring my sister, to read Dan Brown Novels in her holidays. After completing ‘The Lost Symbol’ and Wow-ing on the awesomeness and the brilliance of the story and its facts, she has now planned to read all of Dan Brown’s books.

Last but not least, I had to clean up my blog and revamp the site with new pages and had to do some re-alignment of widgets and contents. Hope the blog is now aesthetically neat and fresh. I now have options to change blog header independently. I’m kinda loving this theme. I would like to go for self hosting and buy a domain name for myself. But still, speculating more on that front. Let me see what is there for me in this 2012.

I see my life is happening. What I wonder is, the happenings in this year 2011 seemed to be more happening and creating marks in the pages of history. Hope 2012 turns out to be more exciting and fun filled year for me and for all of you.

Happy New Year 2012

Ciao!

A quick stroll in the early mornings, on the roads of various cities of Tamilnadu, can give you a wonderful sight of the paradigmatic idli under mass production in the road side Tiffin centres. The white steam emanating out of the ellipsoidical fermented dough of de-husked black lentils which are steamed in the shallow parabolic molds, serves as the staple tiffin the southern parts of ‘United States of India’.

The wolfram mathematics community proudly affirms the universal fact that idli and ellipsoid has fundamental Cartesian relationship with each other than any other shapes in the world of mathematics. The morning hunger can never be satisfied by any other shapes like stuffed semi spheres (Burgers) or even cylinders (Kola Puttu, No offence meant as we already have water issues with them!) which can have adverse effects on our bowel systems. The magnanimity of such oral daintiness is its cheap and easy availability and you never need a management graduate from IIM A or even a B, to come up with JIT management systems or Lean manufacturing techniques. An over-production in the idli, never ends up as a waste. It can always be re-engineered and value added to invent a new item called ‘Idli Uppuma’ or it can also be cut into pieces and can be sautéed to be christened as ‘Fried Idlis’ which can be served with same set of condiments.

The idli symbolizes simplicity and adaptability. Anyone can consume it irrespective of caste, creed, religion, height, mass, appearance or any other field available in the government application form. A new born who is yet to intake any solid foods can be prescribed an idli with concoctioned ghee and sugar crystals, and this is also a natural phenomena occurring in the balconies and terraces, with the children clinging in the hips of their mothers. The idli also adapts itself to environmental and geographical changes. When there is a change in the surrounding temperature, the idli hardens itself protecting its opaque inner encapsulations, keeping it still consumable and edible. The hardened idlis can be consumed after appropriately suspending it in the colloidal Sambhar solutions which loses its colloidal nature at times due to weak economic condition of the shop owners and with a creamy paste of colourful Chatni-s whose chromatic spectral range spans to white, orange and green only. These catalysts help us to intake the idli without much any struggle.

They may vary in its size and shape in different shops of different parts of the state. The ideal geometrical shape consist of thick surface which can measure an average value of 2.54345 centimetres in a scale of Vernier Callipers towards the centre and it tapers slowly as we move out towards its ends. The sharpness at its taper ends is always proportional to the time taken to steam the idlis and the duration of the fermentation process before the steaming. Time always plays a crucial role in its structural and oral properties. Some idlis appear deformed and may lack variable thickness. This is mainly attributed to the cooking tools that these Tiffin centres and households use. Idlis manufactured at home appears healthy in shape and sticks to oblate spheroid properties whereas idlis from road side shops seems to be very less in its vertical axial thickness.

Talking about condiments, idli adheres to the Cartesian co-ordinate systems in the field of graphical mathematics. If you look into the equation defining the idli, which is a scalene ellipsoid

The equatorial radii a and b denotes the Sambhar & Chatni where as the polar radius c denotes yet another micro colloidal mixture called Molaga Podi. As the Sambhars and Chatnis mixes well with its atomic spatial compartments, they form the equatorial symbolic representation of x and y axis. Whereas, the Molaga Podi which monopolises the condimental behaviour which can either be exclusively solutioned with either one of them, represents the z-axis.

Idli’s have been in existence even outside our planet. The shape has put many philosophers and scientist in awe. If you look at the UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects), most of them resemble the quintessential idli. It’s a master piece in itself. The heavenly bodies comprising the solar systems and stars resemble idli. Moon for example is almost the exact replica of idli. Its color and two dimensional projections quantify its collegiality with the Idlis. The surface of moon is believed to have craters created by the meteorites and also because of its constituents. If you notice Idli, they too have minute pores and craters formed due to improper ejection out of the metal molds. In order to prevent surface damage, ghee or oil is applied in the inner hollow surface, in order to provide less surface tension to the fermented batter. Care has been taken from the time of its inception to prevent such damages by using cloth pieces over which the Idlis are steamed. Deformed Idlis are a taboo these days and manufacturing such perfect Idlis explicates the pride and dignity of housewives and hotel owners.

The consumption of Idlis is sighted to follow the Fibonacci series under extreme hunger by eminent mathematicians. Consider the Fibonacci series below (for the unknowns!)

0 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 8……

You start with zero Idlis in the plate. When the Idlis are ejected out from the mold plates, due to its high temperature due to steaming, you start with 1 Idli straight from the kitchen standing beside mom and then dipping it in the Chatni which are usually not so hot compared to Sambhars. The Idli dissipates heat and the Chatni acts as a heat sink flamboyantly following all the laws of thermodynamics, and you promptly slide half the ellipsoidical structure into your mouth which then suffers impartial grinding in the molars, which then travels down the oesophagus right down to your intestines. By the time, the first Idli completely loses its particle constituents, a second one lands in your plate right in the middle of the Chatni puddle formed in the center of the plate. Now having consumed one Idli already, your hunger cells starts its fission reaction thereby multiplying your hunger exponentially. So you ask for 2 more Idlis which can be consumed in peace sitting in the sofa and watching the ‘Top 10 Movies’ in Sun TV on a Sunday morning! Moms are always caring and affectionate. They bring the Idli bowl right infront of you and ask for a further service of Idlis. Sons are also affectionate these days. They ask for 3 more Idli’s so that their moms need not traverse across Kitchen to Hall just for Idli disseminations. So the numbers have grown from 0, 1, 1, 2 and 3…This trend changes for grown ups and it scales further up in the Fibonacci scale.

Like Pizzas and Burgers, Idlis have become the epitome of independent retail goods. In the lines of Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner & Dominos, we now have ‘Murugan Idli Shop’ which is now available in the city’s leading outlets and prominent places and malls. Idlis are now never a stereotyped south Indian dish. They are now the style statements among the modern Indian chicks and dudes who preferred Pastas and Macaronis. Idlis have evolved from its ancient form to contemporary customised version. All the leading caterers are customizing it for the sake of national level customers. Even few customers from media are enhancing it themselves for the sake of their media marketability. For instance, our ‘Chiyan’ Vikram altered it to ‘Beer Idli’ in the Tamil movie ‘Saamy’ by suspending them in the beer and then mashing it well before consuming.

There are few idli haters too. They prefer Dosa over Idli due to its crunchy and slurpy nature when served with Sambhar & Chatni. Little do they know that, Idlis as hygienic, healthy and safe dish. They never lead you to any problems in the posterior or anterior end of you. Hardened Idlis are sometimes used as a weapon against husbands by wives and siblings against themselves. It is used as a grenade and when it is launched on a person’s forehead, causes severe injuries, physically and mentally. Dosas on the other end have many enhancements in which, the extra add-ons gain superiority over the Dosa itself. Moreover the masala which is secretly stuffed inside the Masala Dosa can lead to supersonic ‘Gaseous’ disturbance in the surroundings which are injurious to the olfactory senses of fellow human beings.

As said before, Idlis have a triaxial three dimensional quadratic surface and hence the position of Idli can be represented not only in Cartesian but also in spherical and parametric equations too. Hence Idli is represented in multiple forms. The normal representation is the white spongy Idli whereas other forms include Rava Idli, Stuffed Idli, Semia Idli, Oats Idli and idlis which can take possibly any other forms that we would like to have it.

Idlis are odourless and tasteless like water. They are worth consuming with the Sambhars, Chutnys and Molaga Podis only. Eating Idli with Sugar and ghee is considered to be childish. People who are down with fever are prescribed Idli by doctors. Idlis are never adultered, smuggled or even housebroken. FBI agents never question people who carry loads of idlis in and out of the country.

Next time someone eats idli in the cafeteria or in food courts, never ridicule the person. He is one of the highly health conscious, intellectual and safe to approach humans, who will only complain if the viscosity of Sambhar or Chatni deviates from its acceptable mean values!

Long live Idli eaters!

Image Source: Internet

Campus placements were buzzing in my sister’s college and I had to help her out with the HR interview questions and ‘be nice to her’ by writing up on the most dreaded “Tell me about yourself”. So here is the sample write-up I came up after gathering the details that she wanted to share with the interviewer. Sharing it here, as it can help everyone. This is just a sample write up which can be used as a reference.

***

I’m Akshaya from Chennai doing my final year engineering in Information Technology. I did my schooling in school-name, secured 87% and feel privileged to pursue my engineering in this prestigious institution.

I’m a passionate, optimistic & dedicated woman who takes up responsibilities with utmost enthusiasm and see to it that I complete my tasks and assignments in time. I’ve a great amount of perseverance to achieve my goal. My optimistic and planned approach in things I do is what driving me towards my success.

As how I strive for perfection in things, I expect the same from others as well. If things go out of control or go way out of track, I go an extra mile and contribute my efforts, in getting things done in time.

I love music – a good inclination towards Carnatic & a little of western. I do selectively read books mostly fiction & fantasy – Harry Potter, Narnia kind of, some cartoons occasionally too!

I come from Tamil Brahmin family born in Delhi and brought up in the multi-cultured, multi-cuisine flavours of Chennai. I’m the only daughter of my parents. I’ve an elder brother who is currently working in company-name and he has been my Wikipedia for everything under the sky. He inspired me in literally everything I do. I, being in IT derive knowledge and inspiration from him, as he is the source of constant support & help in all spheres of my life.

Well, that’s it!

***

This is just a two minute quick and brief write-up on ‘Tell me about yourself’. The idea is, everyone should have something like this written in paper and should give a quick read before the interview. This will help you to organize your thoughts and cascade the details which you are going to share in the interview.

Importantly, do not mug up your write-up. Be fluent and confident. If you miss out any point, you can always add it later on during the interview.

All the best!

PS: After my own First Interview Experience, I’m sharing another interview tip after a very long time. She is now placed in Infy!

The song in itself is a celestial incarnation of the mythological hymn that echoed the golden walls of heaven, sung with music emanating from the holy harps and ethereal melody from the chimes, supplemented to lutes and gongs. This song promises to accentuate the very fact that, music is a form of tacit cognizance, which can be understood only by the individuals who can perceive the real nitty-gritty of such aural delicacy.

This song is purely chiselled in castrated English and is wonderfully intertwined with the idiosyncratic Tamil which has linguistic, spiritualistic and realistic references ebbing out in Brobdingnagian amounts. It non reprehensibly falls into yet to be coined new genre of Indian Music called ‘Blacks’ unlike ‘Blues’ which forms a gloomy genre of songs flavouring melancholy of various types, all the way throughout the lyrics. The Genre ‘Blacks’ flavour only sadness that seeps through the heart, out of infidelity and has a metaphorical representation of oblivion or rejection of proposal or a break up.

The singer claims it to be a ‘Soup Song’ – a new band of songs that has instinctive connotations under a pejorative ambience. It dulls out the emotional flares that wanes out the rage and amplifies the melancholy musical outburst resulting in such linguistic concoctions. These emotions can sometimes be triggered with consumption of cheap alcoholic beverages available in TASMAC outlets spread widely in the city. The song is ‘for…, by…, of…’ the ‘Soup Boys’ unlike ‘Backstreet Boys’ or ‘Venga Boys’. So this Soup Boys neither plagiarise the Amsterdam based Euro dance pop group neither simulate the Orlando based American Vocal band and hence they do not represent the band who actually sang the song, rather they represent the group of unfortunate, cursed male souls to whom the song is dedicated to – forsaken by their female counterparts who can be called a girlfriend, sweetheart, soul mate, pyaari, laadli, or even bujju-kutti. So these genres of songs stay away from the conventional way of branding the songs with their bands.

After the initial ‘verse’ setting of ‘why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di’ as in pop music culture, the song drifts into a solo vocal demarcated by the ‘verses’. There is no chorus or pre-chorus or even a bridge for that matter. The song flows in an immature solo free singing style that suits the singer and the tune much better.

As said above, the lyrics amalgamate the spiritual philosophy of Vaishnava Theology – Dvaita with the melancholy.

distance la moon-u moon-u
moon-u  color-u  white-u
white background night-u nigth-u
night-u color-u black-u

which translates to, ‘The distant moon is white with the night offering a wonderful background of black’

The Dvaita philosophy stresses a strict distinction between God – the Supreme-Soul paramaatma and the individual souls of beings – jiivatma which is wonderfully metaphorized by the concept of black sky and white moon. When you see a moon, you don’t see the sky but you need a black sky to have a look into the beautiful white moon. Though they seem to be a single entity offering light in the dark, they are different in its matter and constituents. This brings in the Taoist philosophies of Yin-Yang which emphasises on the duality of the nature –God & Evil, Good & Bad and Matter & Anti-Matter and so on.

The next stanza brings in the metaphor with the analogy of a girl’s white skin and her black heart, where a skin is never white and a heart can never be black. It’s just the representation of unkind women’s hearts that ditch men easily and chuck them out of their life making the men’s future unfathomably dark. The following stanza gives the essence of such philosophy.

white skin-u girl-u girl-u
girl-u heart-u black-u
eyes-u eyes-u meet-u meet-u
my future dark

The dichotomised world as a whole is being represented in the lyrics!

maama notes eduthuko
apdiye kaila snacks eduthuko
pa pa paan pa pa paan pa pa paa pa pa paan
sariya vaasi

 If you notice this part of the lyrics ‘pa pa paan pa pa paan pa pa paa pa pa paan’ which actually denotes the sound of the saxophone, that has onomatopoeic nature of linguistic brilliance! 

When talking about animal representation of God, the epitomized dog and the holy cow which has always been the paradigmatic representation of God in animal form has also been the essence in the ‘soup song’. The following lines may have zoological denotation but the spiritual connotation that it has, is never been noticed.

lovvu lovvu
oh my lovvu
you showed me bouv-u
cow-u cow-u holi cow-u
i want u hear now-u

The concept of love and God has been clearly exhibited in the lyrics. On a romantic note, the lovers are always associated with gifting cute fluffy dogs or pups, on which the female sweethearts go ‘awwww’ on them. Also on a religious note, the Sorakaya Siddar Thatha Swami Jeeva Samadhi which is 35 kms away from Tirupathi in a village named Narayanavaram houses the Jeeva Samadhi of the Sorakaya Siddar, which is built in the form of a temple domesticates dogs and they are never pelted stones or the street boys strings 100-wala-sara-vedis in their tails, in a divine acceptance of Thatha Swamy living in them.

On a co-incidental note, in an untouched theory of Uttalakadi Vadagiri euphemism, reading ‘dog’ literally in reverse may unveil ‘god’ (Whoa!)

Also the cows are considered holy and they are being affectionately agonised by bringing them into the house for Housewarming ceremonies and their by-products of milk and other ‘backend’ products are considered to be holy and are used for sprinkling, cooking fuel, and sometimes for consumption in infinitesimally smaller concoctions called ‘Panchagavyam’. Cows in temples and houses are considered to be pure and holistic in Indian culture.

‘you showed me bouv-u’ is actually the onomatopoeic representation of a dog (Bow-bow!).

‘i want u hear now-u’ is the plea that the boy makes to the cow which is having godly representation as said above, after being ditched by the girl.

God i m dying now-u
she is happy how-u? 

Finally his plea is submitted to the God as well!

The song ends in a very distressed note ‘this song for soup boys-u, we dont have choice-u’. These ‘soup boys’ do not have any other choice than to rant on their love fiasco because they are destined for such emotional excruciation.

Though the song being exorbitantly philosophical and powerfully persuasive, only the lesser crowd can really digest the essence of such lyrics. Tamil has never been a source of discouragement in the lines of musical innovation. From the realms of Carnatic, Classical and folk songs, the generation shift brought in more innovative genres of Tamil songs namely ‘Koothu’, ‘Gaana’ in the movies which were sung mostly in the privileged class of Madras Tamil with Deva being the incumbent Mozart . The recent generations suffered more autopsies with Rap and Hip-hop in Tamil with Yogi B, Natchatra and many other esteemed kavithai gundars doing their honours as a part of Tamil Hip-Hop culture. Now the new age Tamil music is slowly getting traumatised with such cacophonies like ‘Otha sollala’, ‘Kadal En Kadal’, “Voda Voda Voda’ and ‘Why this Kolaveri di’ songs!

I’m not sure if the markets of renowned singers like Ilayaraja, ARR, Shankar Mahadevan, SPB, Yesudoss, Unni Krish, Srinivas, Karthik etc will die, but I’m damn sure that Tamil will dismantle itself from its already exploited customised version in every region of Tamilnadu and one day the apocalyptic version will try to emerge from the ashes and bring ‘Order from Chaos’

Tamizh ini mellla saagum!

Cognizant Innovation Summit 2011 posters were so inviting which has invited speakers all over the world to dissipate knowledge and learning in the field of innovation. I was a part of Social Media – Live Blogging & Live Cweeting team which proved to be a wonderful opportunity to interact with many bloggers around the locations and witness mind blowing talks and get enthralled with the proceedings of the events.

Hack, Whack & Shack was the TED style talk session on Day-2 (Nov 16 2011) by Ankit Fadia who is an independent computer security and digital intelligence consultant with definitive experience in the field of Internet security based out of the Silicon Valley in California, USA.

He was young energetic and full of josh on the dais. He started with his life history of how it all happened. He narrated an incident that happened in Mumbai where a woman’s computer connected to the internet with the webcam was attacked and how an unknown hacker broke into her system online and the webcam was switched permanently on. This led to the live broadcasting of the activities in her small room in a porn internet site for around two weeks or so without her knowledge. Life was very normal for her but to the world, her privacy was compromised. Later one day when she attended a job interview, the interviewer was more than happy to offer her a job because she was very famous in a porn website and saw everything of her live. Only then she realized the security and privacy breach that has happened in her computer.

The remaining of the session was all about his life history.

• At the age of 13, he did his first hack on a Chip Magazine website and defaced it. He also said that his favorite magazine was Chip. He was more than happy to claim that he was responsible for it. Later he emailed the editor of the Chip India Magazine confessing the attack. The editor even offered a job for him.
• At the age of 14, he published his first book and the events that are associated with it. Normally at this age, all the kids would be playful, but he was busy writing his book and one fine day he showed up to his mom and informed that he has written a book on ‘Computer Hacking’ and wants to get it published. His mom initially did not give much attention to it, but had to believe it later when she was dragged to his computer and looked into the manuscript.Since he was very young and was little shy to talk over the phone, his mom was the one who spoke to the editor for publishing the book. The editor initially believed that the person on the other side, whose book is to be published, is a professor of some college. But when the mom denied and said that he is in school, the editor again understood Ankit to be a teaching staff in the school, but later when his mom disclosed that he is in 9^th standard, the editor asked them to submit the manuscript just to ensure that, it wasn’t a prank call. The manuscript was then reviewed by the professors of IIT was a different story.
• Later on he published 14 more books. The most interesting point to be noted is, usually these books on computers were published first in the US and UK markets and only then the Indian version would be released and then published in India. But his books have reversed the trend. All his books were first published in India only then they were released in other countries.
• At the age of 16, he was called for seminars by various universities including IITs and also for training the students, professors and CEOs in the field of Cyber Security.
• He was a part of many projects including India-Pak terror attacks, Al-Qaeda terrorism and Mumbai terror attacks in intercepting the emails and hacking into the networks of terrorists to unveil the mission. He was even called by US government to investigate on the cyber and intelligence front for 9/11 attacks.
• At the age of 18, he did his Bachelors in Computer Science with specialization in Information Security at Stanford University, USA. When talking about Stanford, he also mentioned few products of Stanford which he promised that we all use in our day to day life – Google, Yahoo, HP, Siri (A voice based personal assistant application for iOS in iPhone 4S). After graduation he started his own courses in Cyber Security which is available as ‘Ankit Fadia courses and certifications in Ethical Hacking’
• His achievements include : MTV Youth Icon 2008 (which only a Bollywood person or someone with cricket background or a billionaire gets!), Indo-American Society Young Achiever Award 2005, IT Leader Award 2005 (which only a Singaporean gets and Ankit was an exception in receiving this award!), Person of The Year 2002, Limca Book of Records, Hall of Fame Award, Outstanding Young Achiever’s Award, Silicon India Person of the Week, Embassy State Award, Best Speaker Award (4 occasions) and many more feather in his hat!
• He even hosts a show in MTV – What the hack! He also told the audience that, he used to give hacking techniques on how can you still access your girlfriend’s profile even if she blocks you and un-friend you, how to access sites that were blocked and many more hacking ideas! (Whoa!) He also offers training to the National Police Academy, Hyderabad without any fee. Well he still has the appreciation letter sent from the Police Academy laminated and mounted in his office wall which gives him small happiness and proves to be the source of innovation.
• He even works with major corporations, banks and other organizations for conducting security audits on their systems and use ethical hacking to find loopholes and offer security solutions for them.

He says, he has 12 years of experience in the industry and he is currently 26!

Few points to be kept in mind when it comes to innovation

• Don’t try too complex things to innovate
• Make it simple or keep things as simple as possible
• Don’t change many things many times. Change one thing at a time.

Giving back to the society is important according to Ankit. He says, ‘You need not donate half of your wealth and bring change to the society or to the economy. Even donating or contributing as small as Rs.10/- to charity through cash or even through options available in many of the online and paper forms available in many places can make a big difference in the life of under privileged class.

He also said that, he has lots of hate clubs and blogs spreading hatred against him. But he never missed reading those critics and blogs, as those critics sometimes proved to be an opportunity to understand the fallbacks and mistakes from which one can learn and keep an eye on things happening around us. Even a bad remark can be helpful to us. Those remarks need not necessarily be a mistake but the outlook in which they have been written can be understood. We cannot satisfy everyone and cannot make everyone happy around us. It is our duty to do what is right for us. Even his website was hacked twice. When asked about it, he says, the US government website is being hacked every year and the websites of CIA is hacked every month.

Towards the end of the session, he recreated and demonstrated the hacking, which he did for US Government during 9/11 attacks using a technique called Steganography.

The session came to an end with a Q&A session with more of inquisitive audience asking him questions on security and other general questions. He always encouraged kids to do what they like to do. He recommends all the parents to allow the children to chase their passion and not thrust their own ideas and dreams into them. He also advised parents to place the computer in the common room and not in the kid’s bedroom (!) so that they can monitor them and prevent them from landing on a wrong site or in a wrong company! On a funny note, he even offered to help the parents out, if they want to hack into their kid’s accounts. More questions followed and since they were running out of time for the next session, one last question was allowed and Ankit left the stage, leaving all of us in awe!

Overall, the session was inspiring, enthralling, exciting and kept us glued to our seats. Thanks CIS2011 team for inviting him and help us know more about his life in person in his own words. But on a serious note, it would have been more useful if the session had been oriented more on the Cyber Security & Ethical Hacking techniques and other technical front with examples rather than him emphasising on his childhood and life stories for an hour. Those details could have been got from the internet as well, but a practical session on hacking could have given more insights on the security threats and legal hacking techniques.

For more information you can visit his personal website here – http://www.ankitfadia.in/

P.S: For all the registered delegates of the Cognizant Innovation Summit 2011, the Innovation Passport Tag with the QR code imprint was given so as to identify them! This one below is mine!

Ciao folks!!

oOo

I was wondering for a longer time than the usual, on why this movie ‘7am Arivu’ has been bestowed with such an amalgamated positive and negative reviews.

(For Bodhidharman’s sake please understand that the ‘am’ is not the one which religiously denote in time…no no…It’s not morning Seven Yae.Yem...rather it is the transliterated Tamizh equivalent of the apostrophised ‘s’ which means 7’s rather 7^th to be grammatically correct in English. Pppaah…so tired of hearing people commenting about this as ‘morning 7 a.m arivu!!)

So, why all this commotion?

Mr Murugadoss, the director of the movie has taken some tremendous effort to bring technology based story into the Tamil films. What is expected out of it is mere appreciation and praiseworthy comments of the movie’s storyline being sublime and acknowledgement of such a futuristically modern work. But the mere conscience of the Tamil film audiences ceases to accept the uncanny effort and blame the director for such a foolishness of instilling some modernity and technology into the story. No wonder the directors are forced to concentrate on the ‘C’ class of audience in general.

The movie is all about how Bodhidharman’s martial art skills, who lived in the sixth century and his medical scriptures, are being used against India in the contemporary period, by a Chinese corporation to conquer India and bring under their control by initiating a Bio-war in the name of Operation Red and kill Surya, a descendent of Bodhidharman, who also has the similar DNA characteristics, who can be detrimental to their plan, if Shruti Hassan’s research in Genetic Memory Restoration  that can bring back Bodhidharman’s skills and memory to Surya, if his DNA is resampled carefully. In a mission to kill Shruti and Surya & kick start the Bio-war, Dong Lee (Johnny Tri Nguyen) lands in India and hunts down each and every one of them. How Shruti and her team with their technology prowess act against him and save India is the crux of the story.

The movie touts and preaches openly about Bodhidharman and its associated Tamil history and why we should be proud about being Tamilian, which was promptly done by the first twenty minutes of the film, taking us to the 1200^th century, enunciating who ‘Bodhidharman’ was. The scenes were set in a very historic period where Bodhidharman was portrayed as a well versed Martial arts warrior, a medical practitioner and a saint guru who travels to China from India after being blessed by ‘raj mata’.

The Chinese back score and the mention and clippings of Shaolin Temple kept me constantly reminding of the Tamil dubbed English movies (starring Jackie Chan, Jet Lee and all other Karate, Kung Fu themed movies) telecasted in Vijay TV every Saturday and Sunday. The high toned Tamil narration also fortified my essence of believing the movie into a documentary cut, which every local theatre in the city screens, before the start of the actual movie. After spending some 20 odd minutes with the past, which was more like an induction session for the conceptual movie and analogous to the contest setting session for the IT freshers, the movie snaps back to the present with ‘Ringa Ringa’ song.

Few good aspects of the movie persuade us to appreciate the contemporary theme and inclusion of scientific theories. – One of them being the storyline. A well set theme and the screenplay drag us to believe the same. The story is not another Tamil flick horrendously set in countryside or a village, having Heroines with oil laden, tightly plaited, jasmine loaded hair and dull dim-witted characters, unkempt and beard cultivated heroes in khaki trousers roaming on the mud roads or the Tamil cacophonies loaded with family sentiments and fights for maternal or paternal cousins or some village love fiascos and intimidations by cantankerous mamas. (refer Mayandi Kudumbathar, Nadodigal, Vennila Kabadi Kulu, Goripalayam genres of epic(!) movies. They have been crafted to be awarded direct Oscars sans nominations!)

7A is rather a story line supplemented with science and technology. Usage of Bio-war, Genetic Memory, DNA sampling, Hypnotism etc may sound too high for us, but the subtlety and brevity at which the story drifts along these outline makes you think in the lines of Hollywood.

Surya as bearded ‘Bodhidharman’ and as a circus acrobat has toiled to play his parts flamboyantly perfect to its role. As Bodhidharman, he amuses the Chinese villagers when he cures the ‘uncurable’ disease which spreads in the village and also when he ‘air bends’ and exhibits his unparalleled mastery in martial arts and mind control. His six packs speak more than himself. As a Circus acrobat, he charms us with his humour and slackness, in his falling for Shruti Hasan, as he steals, insults and gets insulted, runs, rides elephants and meticulously woos Shruti for her love, until he unveils the fact that she has been after him for a mission for one and a half years.

Shruti Hassan has done her part equally well as Subha Srinivasan, a genetic engineering student, but fails to sprinkle the charm potion on the audience. She has a manly demeanour and an awkward looks that she carries herself with in few scenes. She cannot be deemed that pretty though being hot. She teaches, preaches and handles KT (Knowledge Transfer or a mere ‘lecture’ for non ITs) most of the time on Bodhidharman and Tamil culture. Her dialogs incessantly make the movie appear more like a documentary in few scenes which is unavoidable. She talks a lot about DNA, genetics, fore fathers, Virus and many more biological and scientific terms.

She grabs every opportunity to handle sessions about how Tamil culture is being stained and shattered by Chinese and many other foreign intruders in her dialogs. She speaks a decent Tamil and bearable one without any ‘killings’ and fights for Tamil rights amidst the currently-living-in-the-foreign-land research professors in the conference hall. The argument that she takes forward with a professor who throws a cheap comment about her being a ‘Tamil fanatic’, could have been more ‘audible’ in the English sections. Those were muted out in the theatre. All we can make out is a ‘Bastard’ with her lip movement as the first word, before she fires up on him, in rage. I felt her reply was just a perfect slap.

The movie shows few clippings of statues of Bodhidharman in China. Few scenes were more focussed on how Tamilians are unaware of the great warrior Bodhidharman and a ‘public questioning’ on how Chinese were more knowledgeable about you-know-who (tired of typing again & again!) and how Tamil population is illiterate about him.

Public questioning in which, you know someone carries a mic and asks random people on streets – “You know Bodhidharman?” and many of the sleeveless’d-bespectacled-EA-AmpaSkyWalk-hanging-out chicks answer, “No no…*giggle*…hearing it for first time… *giggle**giggle* and few unkempt or sometimes well-combed-full sleeved-neck buttoned-tucked in pants pazhams would answer, “I don’t know Saar”. For the same question, the Chinese people get excited and answer few random words from the Wikipedia pages and some say ‘yeaaah…the great…saint…and…Kungu Fu man…Yaaa Hooo’.

Okay boss, we really do not know all this, unless someone dusts such persons or concepts from the shelves or even from ‘olai chuvadi’s and bring it to the limelight. But, why such an exaggeration is being puked on us? That was a mere insult to the audience. It simply makes us comment, “oath ugh, Day!” (Read it fast ). For your kind information, we were even unaware of ‘Tsunami’ too until Kamal Hassan starring Dasavatharam happened sometime back and the real Tsunami itself happened sometime before in 2004!

Johnny Tri Nguyen is an imported one man army bad ass who mesmerises everyone he sees (Yeah hypnotism or rather Nokku Varmam as they say in Tamizh which has been taught to Chinese by Bodhidharma when he travelled to China from India!) He hypnotises, kills and wrecks havoc in the city and a havoc itself in prowl waiting to slay Shruti. He is THE VILLIAN who can just sweep you off your feet with his hypnotic eyes and brings your mind in his control. Few supporting characters pitifully die in a horrible manner. I should mention that Nguyen is a Vietnamese American film actor, stunt artist, stunt double and a martial artist and has worked in the movies Spiderman – 2, X-Men First Class, Mortal Combat and has been an actor in the movies viz., ‘Sledge’, ‘Cradle to the Grave’  to name a few.

Having the presence IIT Madras, a Genetic Engineering Lab amidst and a good bird’s eye view of the campus mentioning IIT’s campus as ‘a forest inside the city’ deserved a big round of applause. Merely showing the usage of iMac and iPhone4 was a nice attempt to portray the technical superiority of the subject in the movie . Aircel seemed to be the communication partner it seems, the Aircel banners were more explicitly brought to focus in many scenes (SIMs, Bus stand illuminated banners & so on). Having witnessed few scenes of this movie in the theatre, I could relate many other movies here – Shaolin Temple reminded me of the ‘Karate Kid’ where Jaden Smith & Jackie Chan walks up to the holy water and they observe a woman controlling a snake with her eyes and her movement, Surya browsing through Shruti’s Mobile videos, where she would have video-logged few of her tasks reminded me of the movie Avatar where Jack Sully video logs his experience and few of Surya’s martial arts moves reminds me of the ‘air bending’ moves from the movie ‘The Last Airbender’. Well, these are derived inspiration it seems!

Even after all this technological and mythological hoots, the movie slightly fails to get a thrust up in its rating which is required to surpass other competitors, as there were few glitches here and there, which really spoiled the sanctity of the screenplay. The songs were not worth the appreciations. They decelerated the pace of the movie. The romance was pointless between the leads. It actually ended before it started and for that, a blue melody song was inserted right into that place. Watte! It did invite obvious yawns. The hypnotism concept was used deliberately everywhere and every time and wherever possible, which lost its sense, leaving us in a state of obviousness acceptance. Apart from few subtle technological, political & logical glitches that might get unnoticed with the sequence of events and the songs, the movie is a definite watch for all technology lovers.

The camera and screenplay for the sixth century scenes and Surya’s body language with his martial arts is a definite ‘pat-on-the-shoulder’.  The first half was satisfactory and slow but the second half picked up speed, seethed  greater heights and glued us to the seats, finally ending in a interview which was supposed to be a part of the movie, but ended as a ‘convey-this-message’ kind of oratory by Surya with the director himself on the Camera, on how should women be prescribed the Turmeric Powder to be used as a Science and not as God and how should the idea of cow dung be used to clean the floor outside the house in the entrance, to be taken in a scientific outlook and not as a cow’s excretion!

A good attempt to strike a scientific chord but sans all those hypes and inspirational talks in the TV & over exaggerating ads in the radio, the movie would have crafted the winning symphony silently!

7am Arivu – Arivaligalukku Mattum!

Fun fun & fun,
Where else can you get one?
As you occupy the seat,
In the Indibloggers meet!

(Pls excuse for the bad poetry!)

Getting in

Indiblogger.in again organized a one day bloggers meet at Hyatt Regency, Chennai on October 9, 2011 (Sunday). It was yet another fun filled evening!!!!!!

As I parked my bike and walked into the Hall, I was asked to enter my email ID in the text box.

*boing*

There appeared a message in the big screen placed in the hall informing “Kalyan just walked in”. Then a blue seal was then punched in our wrist with a stamp mark of the text Indiblogger. Aahh!! I’m christened as an elite member of the cult – Indibloggers!

As I slowly walked into the hall towards the chairs, I was calmly looking for a place to park myself and enjoy the yet to begin proceedings, there was one guy sitting in the corner of a row. So I decided to start socializing with that guy first. It was just a brilliant co-incidence that both of us had many similarities. He was Pawan!

So as we were getting known to each other, I got a tap from behind, “Hey Hi”. I asked him to come over beside my chair. Now this time it was Anand. As I was talking with him, I spotted this girl who was sneaking in, doubtful to occupy a chair. After fixing a particular position, she chose a chair behind us. She seemed to be so familiar to me. I thought I had seen her somewhere in twitter. But unfortunately she wasn’t when I asked her! We all exchanged Hi-s and ‘where are you from’-s. It was so surprising to know that she was a Hygiene analyser from Rain Tree.

Then started our conversation – Me, Pawan, Anand & this girl Janani. As the discussion was steering in another blogger occupied a seat near Janani and gave us all a warm smile. “Can I also join??” pat came the question. “Of course, you are welcome!!!!!!” we all greeted her. She was Susan. Then God only knows what happened amidst us. It was a fun filled chit-chatting session among us!

You know – *Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota hai* – *Ovvoru friendum theva machaan*

49 seconds of fame & other events

After all the Hi-s & Hello-s, the proceedings started with the ‘49 seconds of fame’ which is almost ‘Tell me about yourself’ session. Everyone took little more or little less time to gobble words and deliver their intros.

Well yeah, the event was hosted and sponsored by TATA GRANDE. So folks from TATA joined us to promote the TATA GRANDE SUV with the ad video which reminded me of the placement session which used to happen in our college seminar hall with the company’s video playing in the screen.

Coming back to present, I was busy in the registration counter, submitting the photo I clicked in my cam for a photo contest which they announced. I had to take the memory card, transfer it to the laptop and then send email & stuffs. By the time I came back to my seat, I could find a big chart and a sketch pen lying in my chair and in every other chairs. The lights were then switched on. I know what it is for – The ‘activity’ time. The rules were simple. You have to suspend the chart with the thread attached to it, on your back and then meet people, introduce yourselves and get their blog address, twitter ids, email ids and so on. There were prizes for that too – highest count of people one met, funny comment in the chart and so on. After we exchanged details and the chart was full, the time was running out and finally everyone settled in their seats back!

Serious time or Fun time – It’s up to you!

After everyone settled, Anoop announced that it was the time for some serious discussion. A POC was assigned for the following groups to be formed where in one can form a group and discuss.

1. Blogging – Monetising our blog, SEO & other stuffs, Themes etc
2. Chennai – All about Chennai, roads, travels, traffic, fuel hikes etc
3. Cars & Travel – All about cars, maintenance etc etc
4. Anything – You can do anything here!! (That’s what Anoop said!!)

Clueless on what to do, our gang Me, Pawan, Anand, Janani & Susan were just glued intact in our seats confused on what to do as those topics did not interest us. We got introduced ourselves to Gitanjali, Sandhya, Prashanth, Ashwini, Ganga, Websnacker, Vidhya and few others too. As other groups have already been formed and the discussions have already been started, we decided to form a new group called “No Agenda” or “Untitled” group!

We basically had no topics to discuss or to ponder over. But we too wanted to be a part of ‘happenings’ happening over there. So we formed a small round initially. Slowly people started pitching in asking us

“Is this a no agenda group?”

We all said, “Yeah yeah, come on in, join us. We are ‘No Agenda’ group”

Hence the circle started expanding and the diameter slowly increased. It was so surprising to see many people of our kind – with no topic to discuss. It was so fun to see folks joining us with inflated enthusiasm. So we started Human Resourcing. We made noises, whistled, clapped and hooted as people joined. The crowd was building in and many others joined (Sorry ppl I don’t remember your full names!! Please leave a comment if you were the part of our group!!) and it became a large deformed circle with enthusiastic and fun loving people.

I suddenly got remind of the Badsha Dialog

“Ithu naanga setha koottam ille, thaana sernda koottam” & so it was undoubtedly!

“Whats the plan? whats the plan….?” were the questions.

“No plans yet, no plans yet…Its against the rules to form agenda in the group” were the answers!

After some funny discussions, we decided to play TRUTH OR DARE!

Read more below…

A Bisleri water bottle was lying in the middle of the circle, so someone would have to rotate the bottle along its body. When the bottle comes to rest, the person sitting near the ‘cap’ end will offer a Truth or Dare. The person sitting in the other ‘bottom’ side of the bottle will choose to do what he/she is asked to.

We framed ad-hoc and JIT Dares like

1. Sing a song and dance in the centre.
2. Go & honk the Horn of the TATA GRANDE SUV kept in the hall musically.
3. Barge into some other group (which is discussing very seriously!) and ask them ‘29C bus enga Pogum?” and come back.
4. Take a romantic snap of the person in the group.
5. Join the two boards kept in either side of the hall by moving on to another side and complete the TATA GRANDE Picture in it.

I’m telling you, it was total fun. We even decided to form a Facebook Group for our ‘No Agenda’ group and Christine it as “IndiMeetFunGroup”

Suddenly it was announced that T-shirts are being distributed. Suddenly half of the circle was gone!! OMG!!! Jeez…where is the group now? Where is the loyalty!! *sigh* But we were not complaining as we had no rules, no agenda and it was only for fun loving and fun-minded people. So we too dispersed to get the T-Shirts as if Puliyotharey and Sakkara Pongal were distributed in Temples!! But there came another jolt to us as Anoop announced the photo session amidst this. We were not able to decide which one to go first.

So photo session became our priority coz, our T-shirts are always there for us!! So we barged into the group of people standing, occupied proper places so that we are visible in the photos, and later joined the queue for getting our T-shirts.

After having a good conversation, we started bidding adieu to our gang friends and later it struck us that we didn’t take a snapshot of the Indiblogger Seal that was imprinted on our wrists. We quickly formed a small koottam and people extended their sealed hands forward as if to give a punch with the Seal visible on top. I got hold of a chair, climbed on it and clicked it from the top.

So our gang was the group of pranky kids doing all sorts of tomfoolery in the hall!!!!!

Later we also realised that we did not take a snapshot of our gang too. So with a help of one Indiblogger, we the ‘No Agenda’ gang again posed for the photo!!

Say cheese!! (Click the image to enlarge)

Sorry I could not remember few names in the photo. I tried searching names with the blog ID but couldn’t find. Please add me if you are reading this.

Waah!!! That’s it.

An awesome finale or a new beginning!!

As we were bidding adieu to each one of them, offering handshakes, we were not only taking with us, the gifts and the T-shirts, but also the memories of fun filled evening and the newly brewed friendship with us.

Thanks a lot Indiblogger for providing us with such an opportunity to network with the bloggers of the elite group of indiblogger network!

Some pics for you.

Our Youngest Indiblogger!

Finally the Tees!!!!

Front

Back

Here is the Picasa link of few pics which I managed to click amidst the excitement and fun

Picasa Link – Chennai Indiblogger Meet TATA GRANDE Hyatt 2011

Happy blogging!!!!!

Ciao!

As I curl up with the girl beside,
Rays of sun spreading in the bed aside,
Having my face still buried deep inside,
I could feel the day dawning hillside.

As I feel her warmth wading in,
I hold her slender arms breathing in,
Wrapped around my neck, tugging in,
Lying awake hugging, as the day started sneaking in.

***

Night was when, our kisses grew passionate,
Burning the bleak hours of night annihilate,
The souls bewitchingly left to confabulate,
Left us writhingly discasing accentuate.

Lips were engaged in tender fights,
Harmlessly fighting for the other’s rights,
Till we reached astounding heights,
Seething in pain, savouring emotional delights.

***

More than warmth, the love is profound,
Now she is mine and everything around,
I in her and she in me, all the stound,
Love in us ends only when the sky hits the ground.

As the winter sets, comes the end of September,
Its time for me to wake up and burst the slumber,
I wish I hold her, feel her and breath her to an infinite number,
Making her my sweet, lovely and adorable wife coming-
Christmas after October, November in December.

PS: My 1st attempt to write a poetry! Excuse moi for any errors!!
P.P.S: This is posted for a contest in my Office!

It was a long weekend and I desperately wanted to watch some Tamil movie completely avoiding any ‘run of the mill’ Genres viz. politics, hopeless country side cacophonies or of any mass hero movies. After much scanning through the music channels and comedy channels, I found some uniqueness in the songs and scenes from this movie ‘Nootrenbathu’.

Quickly googled the movie’s torrent and after careful examination of the sample screenshots, I took the decision to download the torrent and left the system to its own seeding and leeching simultaneously for the next four hours (God bless my ISP’s speed and package!)

Okay off to review!

No bang on Hero entry, no colorfully dressed women dancing behind the Heroine scenes, no punch dialogues, no ‘Kuthu’ songs (Aadukalam rem’?? Otha sollala…type of cheap songs), no revenge scenes, yet this bilingual Tamil Telugu romantic drama film ‘Nootrenbathu’ is crafted awesomely beautiful or beautifully awesome I should say! (You can see Geetha still speaking in Telugu!! )

Everything is kept to its level of subtleness – A humor, an emotional outburst, a suspense, the flashback, romance  - they make a profound impact on you though delivered gently. It gives a feel-good sensation while you watch the movie. It gives a gentle touch of smoothness and comfort to the story and the screenplay.

So whom should be given credits? The female leads? The Hero? The supporting casts? or the Director? I should tell you the whole team should be. (come on I’m not being diplomatic here!) The whole screenplay and the camera angles are a visual treat to the audience. Every shots are carefully edited and composed to its uniqueness. The colors are so contemporary and dramatic. The screenplay and cinematography are a definite toppings to this double cheese pizza!

The lead characters – Wow! They simply outperform each other in every scene.

Nithya Menon  - The bubbly chubby girl with her cheerful tone and inquisitive big rolling black eyes, catches everyone’s attention, everytime she plays her part on screen. I’m not sure if the unnatural Tamil dubbing that flows in her tongue, which makes her dialogs cute or her presence itself. She carries Canon EOS 5D DSLR! (Sorry can’t help noticing this, being a Photography enthusiast and a SLR owner! I don’t know why did my conscience force me to watch this movie which ended up having a Photo journalist with SLR again. Rem’ ‘KO’ movie? ). She flirts, smiles, laughs, adores, and loves Siddharth, completely ignorant of his flashback. Even we do not have the complete picture of his story and the movie unveils itself with suspense and unties the knot one by one gradually, making us comfortable and keeping us with the pace of the story.

Priya Anand – hmmm!! No words to write about her. I was just admiring, admiring, admiring and admiring her throughout the movie. she was equally a naughty and a playful girl who played her part at par to everyone in the movie. Her playfulness and her sweetness permeates through the screen and soaks our hearts with cuteness and drenches us with her prettiness. Aahh! First time seeing her in the screen.

Siddharth – His movies have never been so rich and appealing as this. His characterisation is just perfect. Starting from the first scene to the last one, makes sense without much nonsense being delivered. He speaks so casually and with the same ethusiasm and clarity as in Ayutha Ezhuthu movie. This guy is simply superb!!

Sricharan, Mouli, Geetha were other supporting casts who delivered a decent performance which added demeanour to the way the movie is served rather than irritating terribly.

Well, the songs ‘Nee Korinal…’ and ‘Santhikkadha Kangalil Inbangal..’ are a melodious treat. Lyrics are simply superb and the tune lingers in one’s heart till the end of the movie. ‘Rules Kedayathu’ has stunning visuals with photographic freeze shots. Noticably these songs remain fresh and occupies few MBs in our mp3 players and iPods.

On a different note this movie has lots of Photographic elements with rich visuals and compositions. Any photography enthusiast can clearly notice the beauty and awesomeness in many angles. Okay this is not exaggeration but just my observation. But yeah, atleast for the shots, you can risk watching the movie.

Humor is not a scarce element anywhere in this movie. There it is, like a pinch of salt here and there subtly burst at places and not sprayed too much spoiling the main story. Without this witty pinch of humor, the movie would have been a failure. Mouli has done his part well with carefully studded dialogs. Nithya Menon’s never fails to tingle the humor bone whenever she attempts a comedy stunt. The Amithab Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar scenes and ‘morning brushing’ and theatre scenes are some notable LOL-able clippings.

But irrespective of so many positive elements, this movie has a very weak script. Few things cannot be just taken in. It leaves with so many questions unanswered. There is a thin line of separation between the story and the logic. But yeah considering the instant entertainment in screenplay, the unanswered questions are better left unanswered. Though the sudden turn of events and the way the story oscillates between past and the present, at the right places, untying the sequence of knots, is quite Wow-able one, the weak storyline drips its score slightly.

Though you carefully and anxiously watch the movie as the scenes unwind one by one and finally after so much of bad incidents, heart breaks, misunderstandings, longing-ness,  and confusions, you expect something good to happen, but the story disappoints you with its incompleteness.

The hero never ‘happily lives ever after‘ with either of the heroines. What is the use of running away to some random place in the world after having fun times with them? Okay he is going to make people happy by his presence but why not with one of them? Lots of question and thoughts. So without much revealing the crux of the story, I should tell you that, when the movie ends, it gives a deep feeling of incompleteness in their life, their purpose and their existence. Though the movie makes us ponder about such things in the end, which itself can be attributed to the film’s success, but the randomness and the incomplete spaces still remains unfilled in our hearts!

Well, Just sit back and enjoy!!

Nootrenbathu (180) – Rules Kedayathu, Neenga kekkara questions kkum answer kedayathu!!

Rating:  ■■■■■ (3/5)

Shhh!!

Who doesn’t have a secret desire or rather a desirous secret!

Back in kindergarten, a small boy would have had the secret desire to deceive the teacher’s eyes and run back home, escaping from the torture of repeating every line of rhymes, sung horribly by the teacher or writing A, B, C in those multicoloured four lined notebooks in a devastatingly tedious cursive handwriting. He also had the secret desire to escape from his mom’s wrath, when he playfully, carelessly loses his Geometry box in the school premises, even sometimes flicked by a notoriously naughty brat in his class.

*sigh*

Back in college days, every guy would have had a secret desire to win the pinky rose and cute heart of that-one-girl-from-city who never ceases to amuse them with her round inquisitive eyes and her sweet little lips which slips, dips and pouts at instances which guys never forget to remember. The desire to secretly encroach her heart, by helping her out with the for-loops, structures and polymorphisms in the computer laboratory periods with frequent ‘groundnuts’ charring in the conversations as if indigenously borne in each one of them, leaving others to gape in flaming awe and to many’s dismay.

*sigh*

Back in corporate training days, every single, yeah read as ‘single’ guys, who have failed to experience those sweet secrets – koo-chi-koo talks, late night SMS-ing her, weekend ‘enjoy maadi’ to Mayajaal, Satyam and Mahabalipuram, would have had a desperate desire – a secret desire rather, to get clandestinely committed to that one chick in the hall, who always completes her assignments in time and spends the remaining time in her mobile phone sandwiched intact in between her palms and ears. They even have a desire to walk casually with her to the office Food courts, Canteen, Coffee Machines, Coffee Cafe Days and to building lobbies to read newspaper and to hold their head high with pride and fall into the prejudice of incinerating their friends’ and onlookers’ stomach. Little did they know that, they are one among the many who hang out with her and not the only one hanging out with her!

*sigh*

Back in real testing times, when work piles up and tortures you with the ‘Kumbibaagam’ retribution as in “Garuda Puranam’, you have a secret desire for the client to drop a mail to you informing that he doesn’t want that particular functionality to be implemented in the module which is torturing you to hell. You even have a secret desire to show case to your manager, your extent of putting ‘extra efforts’ to fulfil the year’s goals by stretching more than one’s capability.

When the project gets implemented successfully and mails float to and fro from onsite to offshore, you have that ‘secret desire’ to find your name in the mail with a special mention for your dedication and commitment. Little did you know that few months later, some unfortunate cursed soul will be banging his head, to fix the fatal bug in the code cursing you – the code which you had worked day and night, invariably adds to your adversity.

*sigh*

Now, every blogger will have a secret desire to get 100s of comments in his blog for all the crap he writes and would refresh and check his mail every other second for the mail alert from the blog. The desire even secretly builds up to such an extent that it desires a dedicated Facebook page for your blog and 1000s of people ‘Liking’ it multiplying your fame to infinity!

Desires are easily mutable. It exists in every form and in every place. They are not controllable and acts like an unstable Uranium isotope. It is up to us to use cadmium or indium control rods of common sense well ahead, to prevent the uncontrolled fission reactions bursting later on!

So what’s your recent secret Desire?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviors that make them feel driven to do something (compulsions) – (wiki)

So I gonna list out three OCD’s I’ve been freaking with here and ofcourse I’m ought to tag three of my random blog friends to Compulsorily Express their Obsessive Disorders.

1. Pace Deceleration of Books

I do not know from my near consciousness as when did I start stopping near the Book Strands and other road side book shops. Seriously, my pace decelerates and I find myself locked at the titles of the novels stacked on the shelves or on the pavements. I spend a solid 15 to 20 minutes based on the volume of book titles to be scanned. If it’s a Landmark, then it’s going to be a scanning and reading of few books for a solid 1 hour or two. I don’t know why I’m so much obsessed with just walking along the shelves and scanning the titles.

Whenever I drop to T. Nagar or Pondy Bazaar with my Mom, Dad n Sis for any of the shopping occasions, they find me missing suddenly beside them and after a glimpse on left, right and at back, they will find me near a road side book shop which has a nice collection of Novels in half rate. Ranging from John Grisham, Michael Crichton to Chetan Bhagat, all those colorful publication from Rupa and Penguin delights me much, though they have become so old and cello-taped. It irritates my mom and dad much for delaying their shopping schedule and my dad usually ends up coming up with the analogy of lamp-posts and dogs with bookshops and I . Who cares!

In case of hanging out with friends in Spencers, Citi Center or any mall in that case, we spend around 40% of the total time spent for haning out in Landmark. Though we actually don’t have anything to buy, we love window shopping and obsessively some solid time in the Landmark scanning through the Books, Magazines, Perfumes, Antiques and Glass ‘Pieces’, PSPs, Movie/Music DVDs and pretty girls coming there to buy those smiley balls and ID card smiley pins!

How vetti the time may be, if I get a book store and a large volume of books inside it, then I assure you I won’t complain and nag you with my boring talks for another two hours!

2. Blood Acceleration of Prettiness

Okay this is very normal with guys, but I guess, I’m bit over sensitive to pretty girls. At all the same places described above, if I happen to lock a pretty girl(s) with my sight, my heart beats faster and of course things will be in control, but still all those butterflies flaps its wings in a colorful shimmering paths orbiting around me. The scene around the pretty lady freezes and I’ll be like Shahrukh Khan in “Aankhon Mein theri ajab si ajab si adaayein hain” song from Om Shanti Om, except that nothing from my dress, gets entangled in the girls’ dupattah or chains or anything loosely hanging around her and I don’t become behosh falling down hands in chest

Well, I do stop sometimes to scan them for their prettiness. I get so much obsessed with their features. You see, girls don’t become pretty because they are fair or tall and has perfect contours in appropriate places. But It’s in those small small things that make them so much adorable – the way she eats those Chocolate stubs or a sandwich, the way the strands of hair fall on their shoulders, or how she carries herself in the dress she is wearing, the way she turns the pages of the book, the way she thinks about something biting the tip of the pen which she is holding and many more such notable niceties.

The worst part of this is, all those moments last for a brief period of time until she leaves the place. Then what, I too leave the place!

So this obsession of prettiness is always there! Hmmm.

3. Mind temptation of Gadgets

Well, Girls and Gadgets never cease to keep me occupied. I’m one obsessed freaking gadget maniac. Come the gadget into existence, Google suffers a lot in my hands to churn out loads and loads of pages about its details. I love reading the technical reviews about those gadgets. Starting from the hardware, operating system, their processors and its user interface, I read everything. Be it a mobile or a laptop or even a desktop, ranging from SLR, iPad, and other touchpads, touch phones, Android, HTC, Samsung, Apple, Canon, Nikon, Cloud computing, Concept phones, Bikes, Cars, blogs, and other technology buzz words, I’m freaking obsessed.

My mom keeps worrying about the girl who is gonna marry me. She says if you spend a all your time with gadgets/Internet like this, I pity the girl who is going to spend her life with you. Well to be frank I use Gmail anytime, browse Facebook and Twitter from mobile liking, commenting and tweeting during bus/train journeys, listening to mp3/Radio as well, at Home again FB, chatting, thinking what to write next in my blog, what to click with my cam and where to go. Hopefully my future girl will also join my league along with me and I’ll have more time for her and for her obsessions too!

Whenever someone talks about anything technologically new or attractive, I spend the next one hour or two reading and scanning images of it. My recent obsessions are the owned Canon SLR, not-yet-bought Samsung Galaxy S II, not-yet-released-India Nokia N9, rumoured-but-seems-to-be-gorgeous Phone 5 and err…many more.

Guess it was too much of insanity overloaded in this post!!!

Lemme stop here and I tag the following people to take the meme forward.

• Ghata Singhal
• Karthick Rameshkumar
• Yeshu

Hope you 3 will let me know your obsessions!!!!

Silhouetted on the shores of Marina, she walked along in a revealing attire. It was a sleeveless top with small, above-the-knee skirt with patches of open stitches here and there. I looked at her as she walked holding a big plastic cover full of assorted materials. Her hair, left open dangling and swaying in the air. When she walked past me, the silhouetted image just came to light revealing her face and she let out a smile in which I became a captive.

To many, it can be an awesome experience, but to me it was a pitiful sight – the sight of a 10 year old rag picking girl, who picks up random stuffs from the shores of Marina for her livelihood. Every item that she picks up, it creates a profound value in her life. The life that needs to be sustained and survived is controlled by the litters of those, who throw things, which do not make any value to their life. She doesn’t complain. She has no regrets doing that. The only concern she has is, of the food that she gets when needed and a safe shelter. Education doesn’t mean anything to her. Neither is she aware of the sanctity of education nor does she have the financial support to uplift her economic stature.

There is an array of huts and houses built just with thatches, with no bricks or cement. Every morning, as my office bus passes by the Marina Beach Road running parallel to the beach behind the light house, it gives me a dual view of the cavernous mighty Bay of Bengal on one side, whose shore is impregnated with homeless destitute souls sleeping on the sandy shores, an assortment of painted fishing boats, in whose interiors, sleeps a lazy dog, scattered papers, plastic bags and torn pieces of clothes, tents under which the child sleeps hugging the stinky fishing net and the sands sticking all over their dark and tanned skin, random people from huts walking aimlessly on the sands.

On the other side of which consists of the untidy huts and stinky slums, with children bathing in the open, under the hand pump, an array of colorful plastic pots to be filled with the ground water – the only source of clean water for them, the construction site half built and half completed, completely revealing the red bricks and cement pastes in between them, for holding the bricks intact for eternity until demolished by a bulldozer from the government for illegal construction, a hand drawn caricature of local heroes implicit of the ‘Narpani Mandrams’. Few small children clad in maroon or blue trousers and skirts with white shirt walking uninterestingly towards the government school situated in some corner of the dilapidated roads and buildings, just for the sake of free mid-day meals scheme.

‘She’ belonged to one of those – who hates schools, who hates homework, who hates being commanded by the teacher, who doesn’t care about how a Garnier Fructis or a Elle-18 can affect her, who does not even think about entering a boutique and prefers staring at the skimpy clad mannequin bearing an apparel from the brands of Arrow Women, Levis, Sanaa, Hugo Boss, Benetton or even Elliza Donatein. She only cares about next course of good food, an untiring day of work in a nearby construction site or surprisingly good items savored to her from the roads and sandy shores of Marina and lastly a peaceful sleep at night.

It gives me an extreme twinge in mind – a spasm that conducts through every nerve endings and sparks in the cranial hollow space, filled with blood and flesh. This pain recuperates for a time period until unexposed from them and sets back again when passing through them. When speculating their lives and its progress, the intellect guides me to its very own programmed fact – the way of life – way of their own life.

It’s merely a line which divides the economic condition of every Indians. A line that demarcates the financial well being of every individual, decides the very fate and destiny. Once someone falls in the range, they continue to be in that range and their very conscience never ever accepts the idea of upgrading their economic condition. Upper-class of people continues to stay there, the upper-middle class strives to cross the boundary to attain the upper-class status and a middle-class never ever attempts to cross any line. They just sustain themselves in that scale and protect themselves from falling below the line. The poor cadres as defined by the line, curse their fate and live their life in the mud ridden roads and pavements.

Everyone in this world belong to some scale of that ‘holy’ line and also gets an opportunity to watch, stare, ogle, gaze or see such a ‘stranger’ in their life – each one of them belonging to some scale of the ‘line’. Everyone desires a position but very few are destined a position.

I’m wondering how many other strangers are desired, destined and most importantly a blessed one. She is definitely a destined poor dark-skinned financially fragile little rag picking girl.

She complains only of mosquito bites at night and torn patches of stitches in her dress and we complain of number ‘Likes’ in Facebook! *sigh*

I was waiting for my turn.

As the queue progressed, the school Correspondent distributed small packets of Sweets and wished me, an LKG-B student “Happy Independence day”.

The hoisted tricolor flag waved above!

***

P.S: What is 55 fiction?

A little long P.S:

I took this picture late at night around 1.30 am when I was watching a movie in my comp on a Friday night. That insect was irritating me crawling all around the Hero’s, Heroine’s and possibly on everyone’s face in the monitor. It was because the light was switched off (I know its a bad habit to see a monitor with all the lights switched off!) and the monitor was the only source of light in the room.

I shooed it away. but it kept crawling over the monitor. Suddenly it struck me. not sure if the movie I was watching did the effect (Tron Legacy!) I quickly went to my other room, took out my SLR, slid the battery in and came back to my comp, opened a sample C program and was there all set with my cam focused on the monitor, as how a soldier waits for the target with his sniper!

The insect didnt come!

I uneasily waited for it around 10 minutes and there it was again in the corner of the screen, I was waiting for it to come near the code snippet at appropriate place so that I can have a shot at it. I even used my mouse pointer to guide it to the center of the monitor or amid the code snippet, duh!

I was waiting patiently with one hand in the Camera button and other in the Lens focus ring. After some 10 minutes, it flew around the corner and came and sat right in the center. I was all excited again, focused my cam, adjusted the zoom and there I clicked.

*cluck*

The  fly flew away with the click sound. The image was also not proper. Insect was skewed and composition was little bad. Later I realized that there was pin drop silence in the room and hence the shutter sound frightened the fly! (Not sure if the fly can hear sounds!)

*sigh*

I then devised the plan. I played the movie in the background little loud in the speakers and then again setting my camera right (ISO 1600). This time took few shots of the code to check if the shutter sound is barely audible. Yeah! it wasn’t audible.

Now again some 15 minutes of waiting, there came the fly marching up from the ‘int nmax’, I quickly zoomed and there it goes, three shots!

Aaaah! Watte satisfaction!

Atlast the Bug was caught.

P.P.S: I should show the same dedication while de’bug’ging my COBOL code in office!

Have you ever been bored to death on a saturday afternoon and found no solace in your idiot box which always telecasts serials, neither the system full of movies and songs helped, nor Facebook, Twitter  gave a shoulder?

Yes, I’ve been subjected to such a situation and so I decided to shred some boredom. The last opened extracover.net was still open in my Firefox and some unexplainable force in me pointed me towards the bottom right corner where some online Ad was blinking in Red. It was a small box of ad about omegle website, which enables you to talk to strangers with complete anonymity.

I just thought of giving it a try, since you need not give your name or location or any details. It is upto you what you share and what you dont! (Come on you dont have to create or have an account in it, like the old school of Yahoo Messenger Chat Rooms where you require a  Yahoo email ID)

I opened the website and it offered me TEXT/VIDEO Chat. I selected TEXT chat. First few pings were from desperate guys craving for a horny chat. Everyone started with the famous ping

“ASL?”

I plainly disconnected the chat, initiating a new converstation with some random stranger. This happened quite a few times.

So when I disconnected the penultimate stranger who was asking me if I was Horny, a new converstation session was established and then came something interesting. In one of such random pings, there was someone who was more interested in establishing a conversation rather than knowing if the other side is a female stranger!

The remaining of our converstation went quite surprisingly interesting and we were totally in a different world of far future. A scientific possibility of a fictitious world.

In the chat, Stranger is referred by the same name and I am referred as “You”.

Presenting you the original transcript of our Omegle chat without any edits, right from the Omegle conversation initiation message!

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

***

P.S: What is 55 fiction?

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P.S: What is 55 fiction?

The doctor echoed, “Nurse, let’s start the operation”

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P.S: What is 55 fiction?

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P.S: What is 55 fiction?

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P.S: What is 55 fiction?