|
Saturday, May 31, 2003 Wedding bells seem to ring louder than ever in our group. Three of us (yeah... that includes me!) in our MCA batch are getting married this year. Am sure that many others are on the line and yet to declare. hmmmmm..... Boys are becoming men!Posted at 5/31/2003 03:37:18 PM Link Friday, May 30, 2003 It pains!Nothing to say.. just read this. Posted at 5/30/2003 12:37:55 PM Link 45 deg C in Chennai - the highest in the last 93 years. Am gonna be royally roasted when I go to Chennai next week. It would be like jumping from a freezer to the frying pan. :-) Posted at 5/30/2003 11:50:24 AM Link Thursday, May 29, 2003 It was heartening to know that the Indian Railway Engineers are one of the sought after tribes in UK. I met an Indian Railway person yesterday, who said that he has come to UK on deputation through IRCON and lot many of his colleagues are here as well. Apparently, the company who is in charge of maintaining rail tracks in England has outsourced the work to IRCON in India. After the Software Engineers, Doctors & Nurses, it is the turn of Railway Engineers now. Way to go!!Posted at 5/29/2003 10:07:06 AM Link Wednesday, May 28, 2003 Misquoted ?"Love your job, but never fall in love with your company because you never know when the company stops loving you." - Narayana Murthy (Chairman, Infosys) I got a mail with the above quote. I couldn't believe that Mr. Murthy would have told this. Any ideas, anyone ? Posted at 5/28/2003 10:55:35 AM Link Tuesday, May 27, 2003 I turned 27 today!Posted at 5/27/2003 10:24:10 AM Link Sunday, May 25, 2003 What a great feeling it is to meet a fellow Indian on an alien land. After coming to Bournemouth 13 months ago, I met a Indian family for the first time and was greeted with the typical Tamil hospitality. The kesari & bondas, they served tasted like devamirtham and it was a welcome change, particularly after my taste buds got used to the self-cooked food I have been taking for the past several years.Posted at 5/25/2003 11:15:40 PM Link Saturday, May 24, 2003 FM wave has lit up Chennai it seems. Interesting to know that the Radio has found a way to bounce back. Years back, I used to listen to 'Vividh Bharathi' in Chennai AIR which was launched to counter 'Ceylon Radio', which used to be a big hit in South TN. Now, there are lot of private FM channels with Suryan FM leading the way, closely followed by Rainbow FM of AIR and Radio Mirchi.Good for the Radio fans. I am missing it! Posted at 5/24/2003 11:15:16 AM Link Friday, May 23, 2003 Dullest BlogEver since I discovered this dullest blog, I couldn't restrain myself from checking that out for new entries every morning. To my disappointment the blog gets updated only once in 2-3 days. There aren't enough dull moments in life, perhaps... & this is one of the blogs where I find such a lot of responses. I am sure that whoever writes that blog must be very pleased! :-) One of the entries, I liked. I was at a meeting and became aware that I had nothing of any interest to add to the discussion. So I said nothing, and the discussion continued. Check out the rest!! Posted at 5/23/2003 10:05:18 AM Link Thursday, May 22, 2003 Professional Contractors Group is an organisation that represents the freelancers and IT contractors in UK. Last year, they were up in arms against the Indian Software professionals in UK, claiming that they were eating up the local employment. Their pressure tactics worked as the Government removed 'IT' from the list of shortage skills. This effectively prevented the IT personnel (from India) coming into Britain for work. Now they have turned their ire on the pros already in the country, campaigning against Intra Company transfers. Gone are the days where young Indians used to dream of jobs abroad if they managed to learn a computer language or two in a institute of reasonable repute.Posted at 5/22/2003 10:56:10 AM Link Wednesday, May 21, 2003 Truckers STRIKE!Medico's STRIKE!! Bank STRIKE!!! How many more strikes are gonna paralyse our daily routine further. Scary!! Posted at 5/21/2003 11:09:18 AM Link Yesterday, I got to know what the weatherman means by a 'WINDY' day! I went for my usual evening walk along the seashore and the sand from the beach simply blinded me. My cap simply flew away and I had a tough time retrieving it. Then, I just started walking in the opposite direction which made things better on many counts as I have to make very little effort for walking as the winds literally pushed me through. :-) Posted at 5/21/2003 11:06:47 AM Link Tuesday, May 20, 2003 I came across a book at my office today listing the places around the world that a Traveller should never miss. I flipped through the pages to see what they have mentioned about India. Quite surprisingly, that 350 page book didn't have a word about Taj. Jaipur's Hawa Mahal & Udaipur palace found a mention though. This makes me mention another point. Very rarely, these Tourist guides (sadly, even the ones published in India) mention any place in South India worth visiting. Don't these people know about 'God's Own Country' ? I don't want to raise a 'us and them' debate here, but I strongly feel that the Marketing skills of South Indians should be put to best use.Posted at 5/20/2003 10:34:47 AM Link Monday, May 19, 2003 Express vs NitishIts not unusual for Indian Express to find themselves in the bad books of the politicians. Now, it is the turn of Union Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar to spew venom while being interviewed. It is disgusting to see a Cabinet Minister speaking so irresponsibly. Perhaps, these guys have faith in the history. After all, in all these 55 years, can you show a single politician getting punished for recklessness ? Posted at 5/19/2003 10:36:14 AM Link Sunday, May 18, 2003 Christchurch Road in Bournemouth is the road through which I walk to my office everyday. This road has so many charity shops & antique shops, though I have seldom seen any customers in these shops (dunno how they manage?). I used to pop into one of these shops when I find time and most of the times, I used to spot something useful. Last evening, I found the book, "A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster, capturing the spirit of India during the days of "Raj". Good thing about that is, it was priced at 10p. Flipped through few pages and indeed it was interesting. Though I have a proud collection of books at home, the sore feeling is that my 'unread' list is growing as well.Posted at 5/18/2003 11:40:05 AM Link Saturday, May 17, 2003 Tamilnadu has replaced Kerala as the leading state to bring in total literacy. While this gives the Government of the day to blow its trumpet, I wonder whether there is uniformity in the literacy benchmark among the various states. I heard that in some states, if a person knows to sign on a piece of paper, he is considered to be literate and in some states, the benchmark is slightly higher. All said and done, there is no point in claiming total literacy unless the standard of living improves.Posted at 5/17/2003 03:16:05 PM Link How do you tell the feeling of buying something at one shop and finding the samething at a lower price in the next ? It was quite irrrrrrrrrrritating when it happened to me today though the money difference was very small. Posted at 5/17/2003 02:39:08 PM Link Friday, May 16, 2003 I have this habit of waking up people exactly in the midnight on their birthdays to wish 'em. I like the way people say, "thank you" or some thing else in their deep sleep. At times, they even blabber something in confusion and that would be used to pull their legs later. Well, today is my sweet sis' B'day. But this time around, she outsmarted me by being completely awake and talking something sensible. :-)Posted at 5/16/2003 10:12:13 AM Link Thursday, May 15, 2003 Mother of all miscommunications happened with Microsoft. First, there were reports about a MS project on Internet Toilets, iLoo. Then it was clarified that it was just a hoax. As the world started giggling about the latest prank, MS has now confirmed that the news was no hoax. hmmmmm.. never thought that technology would come chasing down to the toilet. :-)Posted at 5/15/2003 11:06:04 AM Link Wednesday, May 14, 2003 Yahoooooooooo!!! Ever noticed the small but useful feature additions to your Yahoo! mail ?Now Yahoo! mail would show you the mailbox size right at the top of the Inbox. Earlier, one has to click the 'Folders' link to check the mailbox size. Not a big change, but as a Yahoo! fan, I am quite impressed. :-) 
Posted at 5/14/2003 10:03:42 AM Link Tuesday, May 13, 2003 Its gonna rain in Chennai. I just love rains and I would be doubly happy if it rains in Chennai, though I don't live there at the moment. The city is so water starved that people have started greeting storms anticipating heavy rains. Posted at 5/13/2003 10:53:23 AM Link Monday, May 12, 2003 I noticed a strange way of bus fare calculation here in UK.The fare from Bournemouth to London (about 100 miles) by coach is £22. If you want to travel from Bournemouth to Bristol (about 65 miles), the fare is £17. The funniest thing in this is that there is no direct coach service between Bournemouth & Bristol. So, one has to travel from Bournemouth to London and then take another bus to Bristol. Thanks to National Express, now I save £5 on every trip to London. Probably if I do some homework, I might be able to save even more. :-) Posted at 5/12/2003 12:57:02 PM Link Friday, May 09, 2003 Indian names, particularly the longer ones are tough to pronounce for people from other countries. Very often I have to spell my name over phone and over the years, I have learnt how to spell it so that they would understand it easily. The trick is to spell it word by word like "C for Charlie", "H for Hotel", "A for Adam".. likewise. For some strange reasons, many of the Call Centre operators are stuck with the letter "N". When I say, "N for November", or "N for North" or even "N for Nottingham", they struggle a lot to get it right. Yesterday I had to face a weird situation, where in the lady at the other end said it point blank, "There is no such letter N in English!". ;-) It took a lot in me to convince her that I didn't smuggle any alphabet in to the language and somehow got her to realise that it is the alphabet next to "M for Mother". Oooff.. so much for having a big name!!Posted at 5/9/2003 11:43:34 AM Link Thursday, May 08, 2003 There is a big media hype about the peace overtures between India & Pakistan. Newspapers & websites are dishing out column after columns and expectations have skyrocketed. Similar hype was there in '99 & '01 prior to Lahore & Agra summits, but things fizzled out. Lets hope for the best, but lets not overdo things!Posted at 5/8/2003 10:20:25 AM Link Wednesday, May 07, 2003 I played Beach Volleyball for the first time in my life yesterday. As usual, I went for an evening walk along the beach, where some folks playing the game were one man short. Not sure what the other 'players' thought, but I enjoyed every bit of it. For a person whose sporting exploits don't go beyond TV screens and Internet, it was a refreshing change.Posted at 5/7/2003 09:46:43 AM Link Tuesday, May 06, 2003 I just discovered a lovely, green pathway in my neighbourhood leading to Boscombe Gardens in Bournemouth. The pathway is full of tall & shady trees that even in broad daylight, the place is quite dark. What made me write about the place here is that, the local authorities are planning to chop down few trees in the walk due to safety reasons and they have identified those trees and have marked them with paint. A notice board at the entrance informs the visitors about this and asks them to file objections, if any about the trees faxing the axe. Wish someone extend the same courtesy to the trees in India, which are often been replaced by concrete blocks.Posted at 5/6/2003 10:33:17 AM Link Monday, May 05, 2003 World's biggest(?!) Live IQ Test was telecast in BBC today. The show was quite good and it went on for nearly 2 hours. The IQ test is available online as well and it would be there for the next two weeks. Check out your IQ score. Good luck!!!Posted at 5/5/2003 12:21:38 AM Link Sunday, May 04, 2003 One anonymous moron has been desperately trying in vain to irritate me by making blank calls to my mobile. My mobile would flash "Private Number calling.." when the call is made and if I try to answer the call, it would be hung up. Over the last one week, 20 such calls have been made and for the record, I haven't got pissed off so far. I am not planning to either.Posted at 5/4/2003 08:12:02 AM Link Saturday, May 03, 2003 Film producer GV commits suicide. I had met him in close quarters about 12 years back when his company GV films had just gone public. After the release of Thalapathi, the share prices went up to 80 bucks, which was quite a price those days for a film company scrip. Very soft spoken and mild mannered person that he is, it is quite shocking that he took such a decision for financial reasons. Sad!Posted at 5/3/2003 08:52:33 PM Link Local body elections were held throughout UK recently. As Commonwealth citizens, Indians are eligible to vote. Its a different thing that I didn't get the voting card on time. What elections with absolutely no spice. No blaring loudspeakers, no innuendoes, no counter charges.. but just plain & simple campaigning. Brits need to learn a lot from the World's largest democracy! ;) Reminds me of the article I wrote in 1999 after the Indian general elections. Posted at 5/3/2003 02:50:54 PM Link Remember Me. There is a check box next to "Remember Me" in Blogger.com. I am sure that I check the box everytime, but it seldom remembers my login details and I have to enter them time and again. I am quite sure that I didn't delete the cache/cookies in between. Problem is that, it doesn't happen consistenly. Has it happened to any one ?? Not a big problem though, but still.... Posted at 5/3/2003 10:27:57 AM Link Friday, May 02, 2003 Is this real ?Heard about railway crossing and even ships crossing under the bridges. But, have you heard about Flight Crossing ? See the picture. The vehicles wait for the flight to cross the road. I got this picture in a forwarded mail which said that this place is in Germany where the runway crosses the road ? Can anyone tell me whether it is really so ?? Posted at 5/2/2003 03:08:43 PM Link Tehelka is gonna bring out a Sunday newspaper from August 2003. Tarun Tejpal, their Editor in Chief promises that the paper will not align with any political party or business house and appeals for advance subscriptions from NRIs. With people like Kapil Sibal, Ram Jethmalani etc. known for their political stands in the Advisory Board, I wonder how Tarun promises to be politically neutral. May be he has the will, but would it translate in to action ? Any thoughts ?? Posted at 5/2/2003 10:48:36 AM Link Thursday, May 01, 2003 A joke for the database guys.... Do you get that ?"Relational Database father Edgar F. Codd died last week. Interestingly enough, his three children and 11 grandchildren died at the very same time." A joke that you could only get away with at a conference full of database developers. Posted at 5/1/2003 02:47:21 PM Link BLOGS - I heard about this about 3 weeks back and just checked out few of them over the net (haa.. where else?). Yet to learn the tricks of the game, but ever since I heard about this buzzword, it was *itching* somewhere to start blogging & join the gang. Couldn't believe that Chennai has so many bloggers and recently they had a Blogger's meet and all that. Lemme see how regular I am in this.. :) What a day to start.. Mahesh Shantaram has written a piece in rediff that tells what else this blogging could offer. Posted at 5/1/2003 09:11:52 AM Link |
|
|
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://www.chakkarapani.com/main/blog/images/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
