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Wednesday, March 31, 2004 10.4% - Impressive! Way to go!!Did anyone notice that the India Shining site has been taken off due to LS elections? i.e., if you know about the existence of such a site in the first place. Posted at 3/31/2004 11:50:42 AM Link Vanakkam My wife & I were in for a pleasant surprise yesterday when the dentist we went to consult with at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital greeted us with a big 'Vanakkam' in sweet, plain Tamil. He is a Malaysian national and his only connection with India was his visit to a remote hamlet in Tirunelveli District of Tamilnadu about 15 years back for 4 weeks as part of a Student Exchange programme. Though he was very sorry about the infrastructure (rather, the lack of it), he has got vivid memories about South India. Also, he has managed to learn quite a few phrases like "enga poreenga", "inga vaanga" etc and use it with ease too and it did surprise me that he remembers those after all these years. It always gladdens one's heart when you hear your mother tongue from a totally unexpected quarter. Posted at 3/31/2004 11:22:25 AM Link Monday, March 29, 2004 Goli SodaThe road through which I walk to my office everyday has an array of antique shops. I have seen many common items like tea cups, china mugs etc in these shops and I have always doubted their age to be categorised and sold as antique. Yesterday, I saw quite a few people looking at awe at something inside the shop, which prompted me to look as well. By the look of it, I could see that one is relatively new and it was very, very expensive at a price tag of £12.50. Guess what.. its our good, old SODA bottle that has a marble as a stopper - the one popularly known as 'goli soda' in Tamil. Surprise on the price tag apart, I am wondering whether I could take advantage of the ignorance of the people over here and bring a suitcase load of clay dolls (those navarathiri golu dolls) that are lying idle at our home in Chennai. Think there is a way to make money. Seriously thinking about trying that out. Posted at 3/29/2004 04:05:29 PM Link Friday, March 26, 2004 Appeal for HelpUdhavum Ullangal (translates to 'Helping Minds'), a free home for orphans and helpless aged citizens at Chennai is functioning at a rented premises in one of the city suburbs. Recently, they have been asked to vacate, as the landlord wants to repossess the property. One kind-hearted person has donated a piece of land near Chennai, but the orphanage is short of cash to raise a building there. Apart from the need to raise a building, they need to find a place to move in immediately. They appeal for help for the above cause. Their coordinates are, as below if you would like to reach them. Udhavum Ullangal No.9, West Karikalan II Street Adambakkam ( Near St. Thomas Mount Rly. Stn ) Chennai - 600 088 INDIA Phone: 91-44-22321236 / 22348338. E-mail: udhavumullangal@Yahoo.com Cheques: Cheques to be drawn in favour of UDHAVUM ULLANGAL Posted at 3/26/2004 02:16:00 PM Link Tuesday, March 23, 2004 Generation NextAnother dynasty scion is making his electoral debut in the forthcoming Indian polls. Rahul Gandhi is to transmogrify into Rajiv Gandhi in real life and contest the coming Lok Sabha elections from Amethi, a seat his father won four times and his mother, once. I thought that it would be Priyanka Vadhra who would be launching her political career this time. Given the history of Congress in the post-independence era, this is hardly a surprise as it had to happen someday or other. But now, the Congress has been pushed to a situation that it has to drag an unwilling youngster (ahem.. 34 years is very young in Indian politics) in to the big, bad world of politics. Of course, some lot might think that such consolidation of power within a family can be regarded as profoundly anti-democratic, but ironically, the appeal of such families continue to stand up to democracy's ultimate test - the election. You are not going to bet on Rahul losing Amethi, would you? Posted at 3/23/2004 10:20:12 AM Link Problem with Internet Explorer For the last few days, IE in my home machine (XP/IE6) is misbehaving. For some reason, it is not opening any popup window - the comment window of this blog for instance. Even the normal links (non-Javascript) are not opening in the new window. However, if I try to open them in the same window, it is fine. I tried to set different levels of security, tried reinstalling IE6, but nothing works. I reckon that it is some minor problem that is causing dismay, but couldn't figure out what. Could anyone reading this, help? Many thanks in advance. Posted at 3/23/2004 10:19:47 AM Link Friday, March 19, 2004 Two mutually exclusive matters of non-significance1. I (nay, the winds) broke my umpteenth umbrella today. I have lost count of how many I have lost/broken in the last four years of my stay in UK. 2. I have cleared all the four papers of my MBA that I wrote in December. After the bad pre-exam experience I had, I was really scared about the result. The grades aren't good enough to trumpet, so I better not. 4 more papers and a dissertation to go. Posted at 3/19/2004 03:26:23 PM Link Thursday, March 18, 2004 Mail on PakistanThought I could propagate something, which is on the positive side. This might be as a result of the initial excitement, but still feels nice. This is an e-mail from one Sai Nagesh, who is the Director- Mktg & Corporate Affairs at Group M Media, Mumbai, India. He visited Karachi, Pakistan for the 1st ODI match between the neighbours last Saturday and the below e-mail is about that. Let me hope that the current euphoria doesn't go down the Lahore & Agra way. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. -- Folks, I just wanted to share certain very overwhelming experiences. Had been to Karachi for the 1st one dayer on Saturday. 1. Imagine 39,990 Pakistanis & 50 of us Indians cheering lustily 'for' each other, throwing chocolates at us !! Quite a few were carrying the flags of both countries imaginatively stitched together. Then they all stood to give a standing ovation to the Indian cricket team ! 2. Guy on the street selling 'bhuttas' refused to accept money saying that we were 'mehmaan' in their country !! 3. people rushing to shake our hands on the streets & asking us to come to their home for dinner 4. Restaurant owners refusing to accept the bill payment after coming to know that we were from India. 5. Everybody we met & we met quite a few, had some relative staying in India. 6. Star plus is the most favourite channel in Karachi. 7. There was a TV star called Heena ?? who was sitting in the stadium, one Pakistani put up a impromptu banner saying "heena, will u marry me ?"!! 8. Shops gave us 40 to 50% discount ...........India again 9. Taxis, autos, army guys......the list is endless.......everywhere loads of courtesy, respect - more than we would get in our own country !!!!! It is really sad that we have an impression of that country that is so negative. This experience teaches one that......"Perception is not reality". Thank u for sparing your time. Have a lovely day. Warm Regards Sai Nagesh. Posted at 3/18/2004 11:05:38 AM Link Wednesday, March 17, 2004 Bombay @ TrichyA mention about Bharathidasan University in my previous post reminded me of an incident during my college days.. This post got a bit too long. It was one of those boring English hours one hot afternoon at National College, Trichy. The weather was so hot that day, there was a power cut as well and as a result everyone in the class were sweating like a pig. S, who was sitting next to me probably had a heavy lunch went into slumber as soon as the class started. S was fast asleep that every 2-3 minutes, he would droop down to rest his head on my shoulders, before I pushed him back. Like many other colleges, it is quite normal for students in our college to fall asleep during the class and it is also normal for professors to spot the same, make them stand up and ask some question on what they were teaching moments before. Though nothing worse would happen if the guy fails to answer (which would normally be the case), it gives the professors a sadistic pleasure of having caught someone 'red-handed' or rather 'red-eyed'. In those situations, normally the desk neighbours of the victim, if they were awake would help the guy with the answer to the question, the professor has asked. We used to derive the same kind of pleasure and would sport a "Trying to catch us..eh?" look at his eyes, which would definitely make the professor think several times before waking up another guy. Our guys used to enjoy this luxury very well - so much so that many a times, guys would be fast asleep that their friends would have to wake them up quickly - immediately after which he would stand up and answer (& embarass) the professor - you can bet he would have no idea about the question for which he is answering. Back to that eventful day, the professor, probably he had a fight with his wife earlier that day was more boring than usual. It was then we guys planned to play a game on S and as you might have guessed it, I woke him up and said in a hushed tone, 'dei.. Bombay da'. To our luck and to S's dismay, the timing was so perfect that the professor had just paused for something. S woke up from sleep and quite naturally, thought that he had been asked some question, the answer for which is 'Bombay'. Within seconds he stood up and without any hesitation screamed at the top of his voice, "Sir, B O M B A Y, sir". With his red-eyes and tired look, S left no doubt to anyone that he has just woken up after a long sleep. Our professor was no exception either. Yet, he was a bit taken aback by his loudness and asked in a mellowed tone, "ennapa?" (What??). S was so proud about his ability to answer that he completely ignored the other student's laughter and once again declared "B O M B A Y, sir", a bit more louder than the earlier one. As expected the professor went into his usual mode "Trichy la ukkarndhuttu ennaya Bombay? ennaya kanava kaanra?" (roughly translates to 'Sitting at Trichy, are you dreaming about Bombay?'). As one could imagine the entire class was rolling on the floor laughing which infuriated the professor further and he continued with his blessings. S was put on a spot, but that didn't deter him from using his choicest few words at us, though he took it in a sportive way. From that day on 'Bombay' became the prefix of his name. Also, there was another noticeable change in the attitude of our guys - people preferred to get caught sleeping rather than face the situation by shouting 'Delhi' or 'Calcutta'. :) PS: Last year, S got married - on the same day as mine. Our college mates who attended the wedding were laughing out aloud in the marriage hall remembering the above. Posted at 3/17/2004 02:02:46 PM Link Monday, March 15, 2004 Vice Chancellor's musingsI don't understand how my website gives an impression that I am an Education Counsellor or someone to do with Bharathidasan University. Every week, I get number of mails, supposedly from students (mostly from Hyderabad & Chennai) describing their current education, dilemmas and requesting me to recommend appropriate course and also send the relevant application forms and brochures. Apart from the mails, people even seem to search for words like "courses", "art related courses", "post graduation", "exam results" etc. from the text box available at the top left corner of the site. The only thing that could probably lead them to think that way is the micro-site for our MCA classmates, I have hosted alongside this website. Poor guys, they are little aware of the fact that I maintain a reasonable distance between education & myself by pursuing my postgraduation in Distance Education mode. Perhaps, I should put a disclaimer saying that I have got nothing to do with the univeristy. Coming to the point that prompted me to write this post, today I got an usual e-mail asking me about some stupid course in the university. The sender had typed the "From" & "To" addresses like it used to be typed in hard copy snail mails. That gentleman has dutifully addressed me as "Mr. Chakkarapani Sampath, Vice Chancellor, Bharathidasan University". I am curious to know what Mr. Muthiah Mariappan would think of if he ever gets to read this. :) PS: Dr. Muthiah Mariappan is the "real" vice chancellor of the said university. Posted at 3/15/2004 02:02:41 PM Link Friday, March 12, 2004 Quote of the Day"I tried to wipe as much as I can, but mine is not getting as clean as hers" - a female colleague pointing to another person at work. Before the evil minds think about anything, let me clarify that she was refering to the monitor of her computer. Posted at 3/12/2004 10:22:35 AM Link Thursday, March 11, 2004 I did something that I wanted to do for a long time - I cancelled my Reader's Digest subscription. Ever since I subscribed to it last year, I have been getting awful spam posts saying that quarter of a million pounds is waiting for me as prize money somewhere. No more such annoying shit. I am sure Anand would appreciate my decision.Posted at 3/11/2004 10:44:11 AM Link Monday, March 08, 2004 Queen's Language?Not sure how many have noticed the name engraving in concrete at the public libary near Victoria Coach Station in London. It has been spelt as PVBLIC LIBRARY. From the look of the building, I guess it has been this way for so many years, which makes me wonder how they have left this glaring spelling mistake uncorrected. Or is it meant to be that way? Whatever be it, ever since I noticed that it makes me look up that engraving every time I cross that place. :) Posted at 3/8/2004 10:21:17 AM Link Friday, March 05, 2004 The company I work for decided to give a facelift to our office furniture and one fine day brought in brand new ergonomically designed chairs. To do away with the old ones, which are still in good condition, we were asked to take them home if we so desired. I happily took home one yesterday. The only discomfort was the stares of the passers by, who were curious at the sight of a man clad in formal attire pushing a chair down the road. :)My colleague had a different experience in a similar situation few months back. He desperately wanted to record a programme in TV (he appeared in that programme) that was about to get telecasted. He went to his friend's place 2 blocks away, borrowed his VCR and was running towards his home. A Police patrol car that was going past at that time saw him - a guy with VCR in hand (without any cover or any kind of wrapper) running somewhere. As expected, they got suspicious and questioned him on what he was up to. Just to cross check his story, they asked him the brand of the VCR he was carrying. To his bad luck he told some name, which turned out to be wrong. Those English Uncles got even more suspicious and they didn't leave the matter to rest until his friend was called, proved his identity and confirmed the story. Luckily, no patrol car stopped me yesterday! Posted at 3/5/2004 10:49:09 AM Link Thursday, March 04, 2004 What goes out, comes in.. albeit a bit later. Months after swallowing my hard-earned 40p, our office vending machine decided to reward my patience, when it dispensed an extra bar of Snickers today.Posted at 3/4/2004 02:30:42 PM Link Wednesday, March 03, 2004 Driving LessonsI started my driving lessons yesterday and have signed up for few more sessions in the coming weeks. Unlike in India, where we pay the D-School a fixed amount to learn & get the driving licence, here we need to pay for each session. So, faster you learn, lesser you spend. I was told that on an average it takes about 30-35 sessions (of 1 hr each) for a fresher to become an expert. Lemme see what it takes for me. While on this, I couldn't help remember my previous attempt to learn driving when I went to India about 2 years back. I was on a 3 week holiday then (July 2002) and I thought that it would be a good idea to pick up my driving lessons at Chennai, obtain the DL and fine tune the skills in UK so that the number of lessons I would have to take in UK could be cut down to bare minimum. I approached the D-School near my home and was asked to come at 6 in the morning every day. I turned up at the appointed hour and there was an Ambassador waiting with the instructor. The senior guy of all (who started his lessons 2-3 days earlier) took the driver's seat while 'others' - numbering around 4 or 5, were asked to occupy the rear seat. Thanks to the law of averages, there were 2 lean guys for as many fat guys so that we didn't need to sit on each other's lap (damn!). If you think this is bad, hold on! Worst is yet to come. To rise early and come to the neighbourhood D School at 6 in the morning is too much for those guys it seems. Most of them didn't find time even to brush their tooth let alone take bath or freshen themselves up. Thanks to Chennai's weather in July, people were sweating in buckets even at that time in the morning. Why can't these guys use the damned Deo? The stench used to take me as much closer to the hell possible. I used to long for those 15 minutes of fame.. err.. of driving, not for the pleasure of learning something new but to escape from the sweat stench of those around. Not that I am a person who doesn't want to mingle with the crowds, but early in the morning, every day this was turning out to be more unbearable for me. I asked the D-School guy if I could have exclusive instruction sessions (probably, for a premium fee). He looked me up & down with a "Are you a Lord Labakhudass or what?" kind of look before replying in negative. My packed schedule - while in India gave me enough opportunities to skip the driving sessions, which I grabbed it with glee. As a result, I still haven't got an Indian Driving Licence to drive a car. I underwent the above just for 3-4 days, but that experience was enough to remember a lifetime about that. :) P.S: Well, if you wonder what took me two long years to sign up for driving in UK after my attempts in India, it is sheer laziness. Had my wifey dear not been driving (pun unintended) me to learn/do something constructive, I would still have been in the same position and the blogworld might have missed this post! :) Posted at 3/3/2004 09:02:06 AM Link Monday, March 01, 2004 Birmingham BluesI visited Birmingham on Friday last and was reminded of my previous visit to the city more than two years ago. That time, we were living in London and a group of 7-8 guys decided to visit Lord Venkateswara Temple at Birmingham. After reaching the city, we promptly got into the local bus and I flashed a 20-pound note and asked for 7 tickets to Tividale (the place where the temple is). The driver asked me to place the 20-pound note in to a transparent slot fitted in the bus that would then go down into a piggy bank kind of box. I obliged and stood there collecting the tickets that cost a total of 7 quid, waiting for him to give me the change, while he asked me to move into the bus and make way for the other passengers. I insisted on the balance amount for which he told me that he didn't have any change. We decided that we can get it while getting down and continued the journey. While getting down, I reminded the driver about the 13 quid balance he owed and that guy still said he couldn’t give. He had a heavy accent and we couldn't understand what exactly he was saying, but it was clear that he is not going to give the balance. We were creating a scene there when an elderly gentleman, who appeared to be a local person approached us and said that the drivers don't have access to the money and one need to have exact fare while boarding the buses in Birmingham. He said that this system is to save time. Whatever be the reason, I found it quite stupid. Think about people who get stranded at odd hours without the exact fare. I would say that this is nothing but fleecing. Thankfully, I didn't have to whine much as the loss was shared among the guys in the group. I found the same system in operation at Edinburgh as well, when I visited that city last month. This time around, I remembered to take enough coins with me. Posted at 3/1/2004 02:03:01 PM Link |
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