Happy New Year!

Wish You All A Happy New Year!

Wish you all a wonderful blast on new year eve! I am yet to plan my new year eve; may be roaming out with my dear friend, having dinner outside and shouting till midnight. Lets see if I get a truly different experience during this new year!

[+] It's our dear Visi's birthday today!

Go there to wish our dear inspirational bloggie, kutti-ponnu, dear girl of all bloggie buddies,
a pro photographer girl and home of different talents.

Have a great year ahead dear!

[+] Happy New Year to all folks!

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Demotivation!

What I am witnessing here is a slow death of a company. Really frustrating and demotivating!

The founders of this company had written a success story before. Lot of things went wrong in this venture, though it is not yet discarded as closed chapter. People are trying their best to secure the venture funding for the new business. I am recording here the learnings from what I felt as wrong things happened to this company and their wrong decisions.

Without clear product vision, the company should not expand operations. The past business success is definitely not a guarantee for the future success!

Managing multiple centers for research and development shouldn't be followed at the earlier stages of a company. Because it needs enormous management bandwidth. That wastage of resource can be utilised for other constructive busines development purposes.

Top end management should work from same office of engineers. That keeps the team motivated enough to achieve.

Teams shouldn't be scaled up unless revenues allow it. Services business needs swift team scaling up, which can be avoided in the earlier stages.

Don't bite the pie which you can't swallow; don't enter the market which you can't manage.

The nature of work/product should be unique. If it is not a blue ocean, clearly mark the product differentiation strategy and stick to it.

The earlier resources should work with similar idealogues. Running a viable business model should be their sole concentration for the formative years.

The perfect team should have a visionary, a manager, a finance guy, a business development manager, a technical architect with clear product engineering knowledge. It is definitely a team work, rather than individual contribution.

Explore all business oppurtunities like 'your competitor can be your client also'

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Why me?

One wild moment, I thought it was SHE! Not always what we wish happens right?! But anyway have fun while reading this sms conversation between me and some unknown mobile number in India. It is very similar to the spam attack on me before.

X: Hai ma how r u ? Take care
Me: Who is this? I dont have your number in my address book. I am so-and-so
X: Its hard to act as loving, to one whom you really do not love. But its harder to act as not loving the one, whom you really love...
Me: ohh man, thats a good philosphy. but I stil dunno who you are. can you tell me that first? I am sorry i dont have ur number in my address book.

X: Every sunset gives us one day less to live! But every sunrise give us, one day more to hope! So, hope for the best. Gud eve
Me: super thathuvam! thayavu senchu neenga yarunu sollirangala? en per nirek....I dont encourage wrong addressed sms-es. may be u r sending to wrong one:-]
X: Good friends are like pc program they enter ur life scan ur problem edit ur tension download solutions delete ur worries and save u
Me: thanks man! that shows u r a techie...are you listening or getting my sms-es. I dunno who are you? lemme first know that before sending next forward sms

X: I know tat u r Nirek working in so-and-so company wat ma
Me: then who are you?
X: Its 2 gud 2 me 2 bad and 2 bad 2me 2 gud &my silence doesn't mean i 4get u my disappearance doesn't mean i don't care abt u b'coz u always in my heart as friend
Me: yeah. u dont pick up the call and not telling who are you. I am sorry. I am not interested in chatting with anonymous guys....thanks

X: Heart receive luv mind receive wisdom hand receive gifts and only spl people receive my sms but u forget me and hurt
Me: oh my goodness. I dunno who are you and then how can i forget you. :-] you shd be kidding when you say i hurt you...comeon...
X: New yr new plans new effort i pray god to give a success ful 4 u my swt friend
Me: thanks dear. happy xmas and new year for you too...whats ur new year plans? but I shd tell you this- i didnt get a heck of it when u said new yr,new plans;-)

X: Gud friends r those who care without hesitations who luv without limitations and who remember even without communication bye hurt me but remember me adv (...)
Me: I know a dear :-]fren to whom i dont speak now, or rather she stopped talking to me now. is that you?
X: Little is wat i know abt u lot is wat i like abt u success is wat i wish to u remembrance is wat i expect from u
Me: chance illey. you shd be poet for sure. semma thathuvama poyiringa...kalakkals!

X: Hey i know abt her but i don't want to be
Me: onnum puriyilley. is it she?
X: No i am not her
Me: Enna nadakkuthu ingey. if you are not her, then i am not interested in talking to you anonymously. why can't u pickup the call??

X: Feel gud wen somebody mis u feel better wen somebody luvs u but feel best wen somebody never 4gets u but very bad and sad wen someone who is very dear 4get u
Me: ohh my goodness. I dunno you for heaven sake. enough of teasing...if you dont tell me ur name, I dont reply ur next sms

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Merry X-Mas!

Merry Christmas dear folks!

[+] It's our dear Arun's birthday today. Go there to wish him too!

[+] Few photos taken during our Christmas celebration with Ananya kids during our Dream A Dream computer program.

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Frustration!

Are you getting bogged down by something?
Is everything irritates you?
Are you frustrated to the core?

The best thing to do now is to listen to ROCK songs. The rock genre is characterised by loud noises, bass guitar and lyrics full of negativity. I liked this two songs from Linkin Park gang. Thank god! I have a better life than those hero/heroines in the songs :)

Here is the first one for you, 'Somewhere I belong'

When this began
I had nothing to say
And I'd get lost in the nothingness inside of me
I was confused
And I'd let it all out to find
That I'm not the only person with these things in mind
Inside of me
When all the vacancy the words revealed
Is the only real thing that I've got left to feel
Nothing to loose
Just stuck, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own and the fault is my own

I wanna heal, I wanna feel, What I thought was never real
I want to let go of the pain I felt so long
Erase all the pain till its gone
I wanna heal, I wanna feel, Like Im close to something real
I want to find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

And I've got nothing to say
I can't believe I didnt fall right down on my face
I was confused
Looking everwhere only to find
That it's not the way I had imagined it all in my mind
So what am I
What do I have but negativity
Cause I cant justify the way everyone is looking at me
Nothing to loose
Nothing to gain, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own and the fault is my own

I will never know
Myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel
Anything else, until my wounds are healed
I will never be anything
till I break away from me
I will break away
I'll find myself today

Then second song is with much more aggression than the first, 'Crawling'

crawling in my skin
these wounds they will not heal
fear is how I fall
confusing what is real
there's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
consuming/confusing
this lack of self-control I fear is never ending
controlling/I can't seem
to find myself again
my walls are closing in
(without a sense of confidence and I'm convinced that there's just too much pressure to take)
I've felt this way before
so insecure

discomfort, endlessly has pulled itself upon me
distracting/reacting
against my will I stand beside my own reflection
it's haunting how I can't seem...
to find myself again
my walls are closing in
(without a sense of confidence and I'm convinced that there's just too much pressure to take)
I've felt this way before
so insecure

Go ahead! keep your speakers in full volume when you play this! Having a sadistic relaxation! Sadism is what comes out evident in rock songs, I hate it though!

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Media World!

Where the multimedia business worlds make their green bucks?

Don't just skip it as one more lengthy posts! Do critique my analysis on the media world.

First the end customer in mind of everyone is clear – the common man. Almost all people are equipped with Television. The TV is in itself a big success which gave inroads for media world to enter the common man with so much ease. The media houses took its genesis after the invention of TV. The second best push came from Personal Computers. Big corporation rise with this like Intel, Microsoft, IBM… Next, Communication moguls invented, discovered, then reinvented and rediscovered themselves to put the mobile phone on the common man’s hand. That’s the next big success story in the media world. Then came the second wave of media houses in the name of communication service providers.

In the other side of the world, in deep forests of Silicon Valley university forests, some geeks came up with invention of media era –Internet. Internet has been readily accepted by the different people, as I would say. Emails and information burst made the internet the people friendly. As more and more people adapt to internet, now internet has become immortal and eternal entity in all people’s life.Having seen the two ends of big business empire – People with TV, PC , mobile phones and Internet- now is the time to analyze deeply the different media business models exists in the world which revolves around them.

Internet through fixed cables:
The demand for more bandwidth to access internet fuels this business model. The universities research crew suggests lot of alternatives to copper cables like fiber- to-home, which had been already laid and arguably the cheapest way to push internet to each home.Corporations like Conexant, Broadcom… make the innovative products based on DSL technology. They sell the hardware like modem to people. Companies on fiber-to-home products ?

Wireless Data access:
The mobile internet access is kind of innovative idea on its own. If you are one of people who gets daunted by computers and internet, then it is one more nightmare for you, it’s like internet tag-tailing you wherever you go. People had been offered with different ways to access internet on the go. WiMax, WiFi a.k.a Hotspots: It is the wireless counterpart to DSL. The maximum bandwidth with which you can access the data is still and will always be less than wireline modems. This business has two faces, the hardware makers and the hotspots provider for the people; this is where ISP jumps in to eat their pie. Mobile phone based internet: The mobile phone spectrum available is very less to provide broadband data access. Then researchers spent a lot of time in inventing different ways to reach the broadband data rate. The GSM people evolve with different generations viz 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G… CDMA counterparts also push more data with CDMA, CDMA 2000…With the infrastructure ready to supply the enough data access to the people, the hardware OEMs came up with different versions of computer laptops, palm tops, simputers, tablet PC, blackberry devices. We can see green bucks flowing in the each direction.

Media content providers to Internet:
The people who had tasted the conventional media entertainment with TVs, are now baffled with neo-media entertainment source –Internet. The people need for more entertainment in Internet in the form of music, videos, news… in turns fuels the broadband hardware and supply business. And we can see when more bandwidth is provided to people, the demand of more entertainment in Internet also rises which in turn fuels the media content provider businesses. The media content providers for the internet evolved in the time. YouTube is the corporate face for video streaming business model. iTunes, Napster, Windows media player, Real Player… have become the audio and other media content providers for internet.The recent (rags to riches story overnight) innovative player is video streaming is Sling Media. The content from conventional television are digitized and sent via Internet to people through streaming servers.

Media content providers to Mobile phones:
The video streaming through internet can cater to this market segment too. But it eats up the mobile spectrum, which is a big resource not to be wasted for entertainment purposes. That need gave birth to direct digital broadcast to the mobile phones. The mobile phones are becoming freakier and techie these days. The mobile TV is one more added feature to your cute handset. To receive the broadcasted signals, your phone needs a tuner and the hardware to understand the digital signal and play it on your mobile phone screen. The single chip solution for tuner and decoder has a big potential. This market is expected to mature by 2008. This business pie is estimated to be around 27 billions US$ by 2008. The revenue here is shared between the broadcasters (essentially the media houses that do conventional broadcasting and/or communication service providers) and the mobile phone makers. The software makers are also vying to share this pie. It is already a crowded market and everyone wants to jump in here. A big consolidation wave is waiting in the corner.

Satellite Media to people:
Satellite radio operators in US of A are expecting to break even in 2007. The infrastructure requires huge costs than any media providers in this case. WorldSpace is a well known player in satellite radio provider. Direct-to-Home TV broadcasts are already exists in the world. In India, Dish TV, Tata Sky… are few service providers. The DTH receivers can be used to access data from Internet. That means the internet is going to enter your drawing room through one more channel- Satellites. I am not sure any corporate aiming at this pie.

In midst of different business models evolved in the time, we had seen many flop shows too like: Internet through TV. It never picked up because of basic difference in their mode of communication. TV is essentially a broadcast receiver. But for internet, we need to do one-to-one communication, which means we need the feedback channel from the end equipment. TV in PC. People clearly want to have separate devices for entertainment and internet. Satellite mobile phones – Iridium project collapse is the biggest failure ever in communication world.

Lot of allied business thrived in the sidelines of these big bucks.
Multimedia codec supply business. More the digitization of the analog speech, audio, image and video happen and more the need for the digitization arises, these companies can survive. But there is a need for them to rise in the value chain to supply end-to-end products. Small players can compete here. Electronic devices ODMs and OEMs. Whatever be the product, these guys help are necessary to see them in store shelf. Highly competitive field, clearly ear marked as Red oceans. VLSI and ASIC design. Again these are need of the hours. Same as codecs business, small players are competing here. Of course big sharks take away a lot of revenue here. Customizable processors like DSPs are necessary to reach the market fast. Might not be the final and best solution for all problems, but it saves lot of research time.

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Where did my money go?

Indian equity market is very volatile these days. FIIs and Mutual funds are playing high number game in markets. The sensex and Nifty fluctuates in high percentages daily. There are still very little room left for small investors in equity market now. I had a virtual investments for one lakh INR on few sensex large market capitalisation companies from April 2006.

Wanna see their returns now?

(click on the image to see the details). All are in red and negative returns except for few banks and Reliance Industries stock!
Man....where did my money go?

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Winter!

The chill breeze;
the shivering bike rides;
the comfy airconditioned office cubes;
the heavenly warmth of bed linen;
the early morning fogs;
sans lovely girl's warm kiss;
Miss you!

Winter is season of pleasant surprises. Indian winters are never as cold as northern world. There is no snow, no shovelling of roads, no blinding fogs and no heavy sized jackets. It is pleasantly cold. Bangalore at times surprises me beyond my imagination. Winter in Bangalore is slowly catching up. I hail from a place with hot climate all year around; so never want to wear a jacket even if cold wind chills down to the spine; want to roam around and catch this cold breeze ever inside my heart and soul.

Life takes roller coaster ride all over the time; hope keeps me going and kicking alive. I hope this winter brings much more surprises to all our life!

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Why do we fall in love?

I had a love break recently. Then it was my friend's turn. I doubt whether anyone left in this world who didn't undergo this pain of missing his/her love. Love and girl is always mystery for a guy. right?! There were always mixed feelings coming from english pop world. Here are few reactions:

Robbie Williams in 'Something Stupid' claims it a stupidity to say 'I love you'

I know I stand in line
Until you think you have the time
To spend an evening with me
And if we go someplace to dance
I know that there's a chance
You won't be leaving with me

Then afterwards we drop into a quiet little place
And have a drink or two
And then I go and spoil it all
By saying something stupid
Like I love you

Ofcourse the famous pathos from Bryan Adams in 'Please Forgive me'. I know a friend of mine (gal) who hates Bryan adams for singing this song. This song may sound great, but I felt sorry for him.

It still feels like our first night together
Feels like the first kiss and
It's gettin' better baby
No one can better this
I'm still hold on and you're still the one
The first time our eyes met it's the same feelin' I get
Only feels much stronger and I wanna love ya longer
You still turn the fire on

So If you're feelin' lonely.. don't
You're the only one I'd ever want
I only wanna make it good
So if I love ya a little more than I should

Please forgive me I know not what I do
Please forgive me I can't stop lovin' you
Don't deny me

Next, it is a pure aggression from NSync in 'Bye Bye Bye'

Hi, I'm doin' this tonight,
You're probably gonna start a fight.
I know this can't be right.
Hey baby come on,
I loved you endlessly,
When you weren't there for me.
So now it's time to leave and make it alone
I know that I can't take no more
It ain't no lie
I wanna see you out that door
Baby, bye, bye, bye...


Bye Bye
Don't wanna be a fool for you
Just another player in your game for two
You may hate me but it ain't no lie,
Baby, bye, bye, bye...
Bye Bye
Don't really wanna make it tough,
I just wanna tell you that I had enough.
It might sound crazy,
But it ain't no lie,
Baby, bye, bye, bye

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Guntur!

It was my best friend's marriage in Guntur on Thursday. We felt odd before going to Guntur for travelling without knowing their language. I thought it will be one more under-developed Andhra village as seen in Telegu movies. Now I had to change my idea. Guntur is a well developed municipal corporation. It was looking more like tier 2 cities (salem, Trichy...) in Tamilnadu.

All big retailer groups like Future group, Subhisikasha, Trinethra have chain of stores around the town

Guntur is famous for red chillies and Tobacco. The cigars here aren't looking like our poor-breed-indian-cigars 'Beedi'. It was more like cuban cigars, long and big, could not be even held in mouth. Later I learnt that Guntur's virginia tobacco is of world standard. Wow!

Delhi public school has a branch in Guntur. Man! DPS is like one big happening in education sector, they have 100 odd branches in 17 nations all around the world. I doubt whether I have seen enough DPS in Tamilnadu before!

The town is surrounded by villages based on agrarian economy- Paddy, chillies, tobacco....

Except for telegu name boards, I could see similarities to my native place in the city. It was more like travelling back again to my town and native village.

Thayir sadam and morru mulagai rocks dude! (Curd rice in combination with chilly)

In lighter sense, the place is full of cinemas dude. All tamil movies are running here, but dubbed version. The movies which fared poor in tamilnadu are all sensational hits here dude (atleast they claim so in their posters). Kovai brothers has become pokkiri brothers, vallavan has become vallava. I saw posters of Thimiru, Alai, Em-mahan.... the kollywood fellows has found a convinent market in Andhra for all masala and crappy tamil movies :)

Marriage went very well, well organised. There was a live webcast through yahoo messenger for this function(Dunno how many seen it!). Marriage hall was air-conditioned centrally (That saves the poor bride and bride groom from sweating and souring hot climate outside). Few photos here

I saw this art work in our guest house there. Liked it! This picture depicts some celestial girl rambha or menaka seducing the saint vishwamitra!

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What's there in Wine?

Yep, I tasted wine today - my first ever stint with alcoholic drinks. My friend and I had a great three course meal with wine in Mughalai restaurant here. I had a special crush towards wine for long time. Recently I got inspiration to taste wines after reading an article in 'Business Today' supplement about wine tasting experiences and different wines available in India. Tasted Grover wineyards 'La Reserve' red wine; this product has won many accolades and fans worldwide and considered as 'the best new world's red wine'.

"Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy." Benjamin Franklin.
"God created wine and women, so that man could atleast own one" Anonymous

My first experience with tasting wine isn't that great. I had wine with chicken tikka, Tikka tasted better than wine!
It was tasting more like 'Listerine' the popular mouth wash.
Do you guys remember the volumetrics analysis we did during our school days in chemistry labs? Have you ever had experience of tasting the chemical liquids accidentaly while sucking through the pipette? The wine was tasting like that dude.
I was complaining about the taste to my fren all the while, poor soul!
I took more than two hours to drink a cup of wine. Good we didn't buy one bottle! I would have taken ages to finish it off!

One good thing: I understood the philosphy in the lyrics of Hotel California song for the first time today. May be wine made me a philospher ;)
I love this song. Lyrics are here.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
’relax,’ said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave!

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A Vagabond Strolls On - 5

We went with lot of expectations for this movie; but ended up with frustration. The movie has an appropriate sub-title 'the pain'; it is really painful to see such movies with so much pathos. My friend and I walked out in the half of the movie. It started out well, the first song 'veyilodu villayadi' gave a great start. The song kindled all old memories of my childhood. Though I haven't had such a colorful childhood, I could relate to lot of scenes in the song; showing movie in home with lens, mirror, old and waste films which we had picked up from old shops in market. There were not much science involved in that kiddies film projection, but we were so much enthused to show off to friends. Period. The film story revolves around the life of two brothers; the elder one's life running into chaos was shown in detail throughout the movie. Pasupathi indeed has a great role to perform.

We were in madurai yesterday to attend my friend's marriage. We had done with the function in the morning, we couldn't find better way to spend the afternoon other than seeing the movie. We had a lengthy debate on what to look for: whether good cinema theatre with good AC or some theatre which shows good movie. Madurai isn't that hot yesterday, but we ended up choosing good theatre. The cinema hall isn't that bad, but the above boring movie made us feel our decisions are always wrong. Moral: choose good movie pal if you want to have good time.

In last week, my office was still not out of layoff hangovers. No motivation to work hard. Me and my friends gang here were trying our best to engage us with some entertainment. We went to sequel of Dhoom. My requirement from a movie has come down these days; the movie has to be light and entertaining, good songs, no pathos, no sentiments and no need for complex logics. Dhoom fits perfectly in that requirement. The movie plot isn't that complex, predictable. Hrithik has a good role, he undoubtedly steals the limelight from Abhishek. I didn't go with much expectation for this movie. It scores well in entertainment factor. The best thing about this movie is: It attracts lot of crowds in INOX, bangalore. The reasons may be: PVR cinemas are not showing this movie, there may be lot of jobless people like us in Bangalore now to see movies even on weekday afternoon. Yeah I mean it, Dhoom was shown on two screens on INOX for afternoon show that day, both halls was full!

On another day, we went for bowling in 'The Megabowl' in airport road, bangalore. The place was perfect, they even serve drinks to attract more people. It wasn't crowded that much. We weren't great snow bowling players; still we managed to have fun. I even won one game, beating my other two friends in the last throw. I was in second place before the throw, lagging behind the first friend by 13 points. In the first shot, I got nine pins, that left with one pin in the middle. Luckily I got it bowled out in the second shot. Hurray!! that gave a spare throw, I scored 8 points in the spare throw, which marked my win. It was very much like our Indian cricket team entry to semifinals in the last matches; they would have had a bad tournament till then, but Indian cricket team always win those do-or-die matches. Booh!

The other movie 'The Guardian' was also great. The story is about the coast guards, a legend and his student. The love plot added to the main story line gives out a different tinge for the movie. I hadn't seen the previous movies of this hero before, dunno whether he acted earlier or not. The training school scenes are scintillating. We couldn't avoid relating those motivational training scenes to software industry. The softies here too need a kind of training we motivates them about their job. The actions in the sea are inspiring. But more efforts could have been put forth in those night action scenes in rough sea. The climax was very much predictable. These days Hollywood movies are becoming more and more lengthy; this movie is running for three hours.

Wow! I could able to write about all the movies I had seen in the last week. I am warning that these are not professional movie reviews, it is my personal view about these. May be spoilers too. Before ending I am inserting the video of Green Day's song - Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The lyrics are here.

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You are The Star!

This is tarot card prediction for me! Found this test from Visi's.

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.
The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

To take the test, go here

[+] I am happy because blogger has decided (atlast!) to upgrade my blog to beta.blogger with all yummy features. You can find those futures soon in my blog!

[+] Had a great weekend. Didn't have enough time to put those in words in blog. will write about it soon. Saw bunch of movies Veyil, The Guardian and Dhoom-2.

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The Ghost of You!

Here is the short story that I submitted for the GP's competition. Details are here and here.

A black Aston Martin babe skids past the flyover like a pro Ice skater waltzes on the ballroom. Ashwin gazes at his rear view mirror with a cruel killer instinct. There are red light spots in his mirror; the sleuths are chasing him for the past ten minutes. His gaze lands on the face of the girl, who lay lifeless in his rear seat. Her face is frozen like a pale ice brick; her black eyes are popping out like Chinese candies. The white dress is tainted with dark red blood bleeding near her heart. A gun fire at close range should have killed her. Her dress shows that she was a beautiful damsel in her life before death. Period. His babe speeds past 120 Kmph with onboard cruise control. Ashwin manages to smile suppressing the sublime depression. When he brings his attention back to front side, he barely notices a speeding cross country truck coming towards him. He scrambles, cuts the cruise control, and tries to switch on the collision avoidance system. The blue cockpit screen turns on, the microprocessor pukes out words. “System Failure, Target is too close. Please apply the master break. The button is at the right end of...” Screeeeeeeeeech.

The scene widens to a beautiful beach stretch. There on the white sand, a beautiful couple hugs each other crazily as if they gonna eat each other. That looks like they are in a vacation in Easter Islands. Ashwin is a well built, six feet personality. The yellow Lamborghini parked near them tells that our hero is crazy about cars. “Honey, I love you. Love you madly you know. You were looking like an angel, you see, an angel from heaven in my birthday party yesterday night. Half the eyes in the party hall were looking at you, when we danced. And you know what…My dad had gifted me a new Aston Martin yesterday. I can’t forget this birthday dear. Undoubtedly this is the best birthday ever in my life. Thanks Honey. I Love you sweeto!” The beautiful girl on his cuddle is Lara, the Icy cool girl of this generation. She is a contender for Ms. Earth competition, which is going on in Easter Islands this year. “You are my sweet heart, honey. I will do anything to make your life bliss. Your love makes me feel like a blessed girl, you know”.

Sun is racing past the mountains in horizon, spews out the bright orange rays to color the sky at dusk. Ashwin cell phones kicks up indicating the call from his sweet heart. “Honey, when are you reaching the venue? I am getting tensed. I wanna see your smiling face before entering the stage. It’s the D-day and I am dressed to clinch the title. You should see me and I will wait for you dear. Coooooommmmmmme soon”. Ashwin mind goes blank; all he wants to do is to reach the hall as early as possible. He zips pasts the ongoing traffic in the highway, rushes to the venue like a mad man. He curses himself for leaving Lara alone in the venue and for coming to airport at the wee hours to pick up his new babe. His cockpit screen throws out a beautiful icon with music; it says a new message; he touches the new mail icon. Mail reads as “Son, I am flying to New York with your mom tonight. We will be there with you in Easter Islands day after tomorrow right on the dot for your engagement. Hope you are having fun with your new babe too. Love you dear”.

May be he should not have left her alone. He didn’t know at that time that he never gonna see her lively smile again. When he manages to reach the hall, there is a huge round of applause. “Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome to this grand finale. We have six beauty queens here and the judges for the occasion are….” Ashwin runs like a madman to her personal room at backstage. As he opens the door and steps in; a gunshot; she falls in his hands lifeless; a guy with black jacket runs past him. That guy, our villain, jumps into his car and vanishes in the highway. Ashwin in Aston Martin with his girl is on fire behind that car.

Huge noise; people are pouring in the highway to see that twin crash. Both cars had collided into that mammoth truck. As clock ticks fast, Ashwin gets back his consciousness; manages to come out of his car. With all the depression and aggressiveness in his eyes, he runs towards the other car. That is also badly damaged. People had pulled out the driver. Ashwin runs to see the killer. He couldn’t believe his eyes, “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaddddddddd! Is that you?”

“Shit! Look at Ashwin. He had bed wetted again. Wake him up and take him to the rest room please” Ashwin papa is shouting at his peak to his wife in that wee hours of night. “Don’t worry dear. He is still an eight year old kid. He should be learning to sleep like a guy soon. May be he had a bad nightmare!”

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Vijay!

I am a diehard fan of Actor Vijay. I never had an affinity towards gold chain till I saw him wearing one in Kushi movie. In my subsequent vacation in home, I was nagging my mom to gift me one gold chain like that. I was wearing it for long time, but never could sustain my love for it. Now it should be happily sleeping in some bank locker ;) He didn't have a magical start in his film career, and never got my attention till 4-5 movies. Later, there were some magical hits which added more fans to him Viz Kathalaku Mariyathai, poove unakaga... He dances with ease which won him many accolades, once Farah Khan wondered about his dancing style. His dressing sense is quite different, sobre dresses, yet will have a style element embedded in them. Till now, my wardrobe has some inspiration cues taken from him.

Though a great fan of him, I am not crazy to see his stupid boring movies. I am not the first-day-first-show style fan. I will go with review from friends. Tamil tinseltown always needs two polarities to keep its business brimming. Earlier it was MGR-Sivaji, Rajini-Kamal, now Vijay- ?. If you take a look at the user messages displayed at bottom of screen in Sun Music telecast, there is always war of words between Vijay's and Ajith's fans. Can't stop laughing on seeing some sms-es like this:

"Thalai Ajith, Good Morning"
"Ajith than tamil movie-nu thalai"
"Vijay is next super star"
"Ajith than adutha kamal"......

Here are two classical melodies from Vijay:

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A Vagabond Strolls On - 4

After blood bath, the headcount in my company came down drastically. You know what the problem is- the motivation for the rest of the guys to work is lacking badly. Hope things improve in forthcoming days here. I am happy that I am part of our new spinoff company which will work on embedded markets with much more vigour. On last friday, most of my colleagues were out to attend a conference. Me and my fren decided to show our presence in that conference and then scoot off for movie. We watched 'Casino Royale' on friday in Inox.

You would have heard enough people cribbing about the new bond movie that this is not like regular bond movies. My feedback is not cribbing, but go-green signal for it. I love the movie and James bond is more humane and real life guy in this movie. The new bond Daniel Craig has down to earth personality, more macho than Pierce Brosnan. Pierce did a fair deal for James Bond role in bedroom smooches and while giving poses for photographs. The stunts in this movie are more macho than any other before (though I have a grudge that there are not enough fights, thats the other side). I was very happy when Bond had a love break in the movie. Wow! thats fantastic story line you see. Bond shouting at Ms.M that 'She had left me' and then cooling down and understand her love for him was true. Wow! I love the movie for this story line. Bond girl is not sexy, but lovely. The next best thing about the movie is- the bond style of proposing his girl. He takes her out on a vacation in Bahamas, have a cold bath in beaches and takes rest under shining sun. While relaxing, Bond proposes in Ishytle...
"What I am left over is for you. I love you. Do you like to accept me with whatever I am left with?"
The funny part is -whatever movie it is, whenever they show casino, Hero ends up winning in the climax beating the villain even if he is expert in the game.The new bond movie also has this plot over the villain. The Austin Martin car would have felt disappointed for not getting used at all in the movie- it had a car chase, but ended up in flames after a freaky rollover.

Just started with Dream A Dream's new computer programmer for kids this weekend. These guys in DaD always start their session with some game, it is embarassing at times. But finally gives out a satisfaction that you had crossed some inhibitions of yours. Yesterday game was to write down 'what do you think about yourself. What did others thought about you in the first meet? From that what did you learn new about you today?'. We had been give a piece of paper to write down what we thought about ourselves and for others views. Here is mine:

I am reading the book 'The second sex' by Simon De Beauvoir now. It is one of legendary works on human psychology. My fren gave a good review for the book, which made me buy this. But the sad thing is it is much more bulkier than I expected. Can't avoid dozing off while reading this book :) Will write a review for this book If i could ever able to finish reading this.

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Marketenomics!

I was taking part in a Multimedia Forum for past two days. It was organised by our partner Processor manufacturing company and basically a business development meet. Me and my managers represented our company. The tutorial session in the starting session of forum were very much sales talks, you know. Then followed by one-on-one ragging(!) of us by those marketing guys. We had nearly five sessions with different business unit heads, some meetings were technical, some were typical marketing. My business directors from Fremont were supposed to attend this forum. As all the acqusition business came up in company, We had to represent the company. (Pooh, it was more fill-gap arrangement). Neverthless, I loved it because it is my first business development meet and oppurtunity.

There were quite few insights about the business model we are running in:
The software billing for mobile handsets run at sub 1$. Which basically means more the volume, more will be the revenue generated for the company. The kind of competition we face in marketing the product is scary. The solace is that my company has past history of giving competitions a run for their money. The past success aren't guarantee for future business growth (sounds like mutual funds investments, right? but thats true). The kind of application we are talking about in the company here are yet to see it market's genesis, looks like we are working in air at times.

I spoke about the business model of PC division before.The PC business model is much more sane, scalable and has enough ammunitions than the embedded business. We have core competency in codecs development. We are looking at the full system development in DTV space. DTV inturn can jump into multiple verticals like mobile TV, DVB-H, 1seg DTV, in-car entertainment. We work with competitive processor development companies too. But all these yet to see a green bucks rain till now. Sounds depressing! but can't help it either.

In conclusion, I have a confusion over the future of embedded market as such all over the world. Are all our folks working in to build some castle out of nowhere? With this confusion, I was browsing in my google reader, got struck by this post of Guy Kawasaki. I take his words as is "My theory is that when you’re young, you should work eighty hours a week to create a product or service that changes the world". It's better to sit back and concentrate on my work now. Leave all this business deals and worries to my business development managers. Eventually this will come to me, till then I am active listener!

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Songs, songs and more songs....

This post is all about songs. My comments are embedded along with those videos. If you have bandwdith limitation while accessing internet, please skip this post :)

The 'yakkai thiri' song from Ayutha Ezuthu is a peppy one. This song is there in my new walkman, ever since I bought it. Never got cloyed with this. Lyrics are too poetical and occasionally songs come with poetical tamil lyrics like this. Yet, I could never able to understand the lyrics of the piece sung by the chorus group. It goes like this 'Thodava padava....' but don't know what are those words and what it's meaning..

The 'mathi yosi' song from Boys.
I love this song for peppy rhythm & music and for my favorite actors Siddharth and Harini.
I didn't like the accent of singers. I couldn't understand the lyrics in the past because of the crazy accent. I thought the first line of the song is 'What do you say?'. Later only I realised that they are singing about 'Mathi Yosi' (think differently). Booo!

The 'Pehla Nasha' song.
I love this song for potraying the ecstastic feeling of those who fall in love. Lyrics are great, take a look at it here.
Pehla Nasha Pehla khumaar
Naya Pyar hai, Naya Intezzar...

The 'chup chup ke' song from Bunty Aur Bubli. I am looking for english translation of this song's lyrics. Curious to know its meaning. Kiss and romance in this song are too hot ;) Hindi Lyrics is here.

The 'Tere Bin' song by Atif Aslam. Couldn't understand the lyrics either, but liked it somehow. May be melancholy in the song attracts me. Dunno!? This has the distinct touch of Himesh Reshamaiya (And I hate this indi rock star and his cap! boooh) ;) Lyrics here

'It must have been love' by Roxette.

Lay a whisper on my pillow,
leave the winter on the ground.
I wake up lonely,
there's air of silence in the bedroom
and all around
Touch me now, I close my eyes and dream away.

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A Vagabond Strolls On - 3

There is nothing wrong in this Hutch sms Advertisement.
"Hutch launches limited period offer. Get 1yr validity on 299 RC. Local calls @ 30p to Hutch, 50p to other mobiles, 99p to landline. All STD@1.50/min."
The irony: This sms advertisement came on my Airtel mobile connection. Wow :)

I saw Alaipayuthey movie yesterday (may be nth time, lost track of count). The movie is awesome, it has all freshness of any latesht movie.Classic movies like this can be made only once, and magic can be given only by genius like Maniratnam. All characters are sweet darlings, the cast of best human beings. Even the fights between the couple are downplayed to a greater extent than what happens in real life (Are those fights also come under jurisdiction of new Domestic violence law?) . Mani had shown the necessary limits in expressing emotions in all scenes viz. depression of the couple when they seprate for first time, the fights between the couple, her father's death, the accident scene, fun with friends, the emotion of ideal couple (Mrs & Mr Ram)... All scenes would have crossed the thin border between interesting emotions to boredom, but the limits played by director saved them. The usage of silence in dialogues is much pronounced in Mani's movies. Silence observed by the couple in teasing times keeps the relationship going. Most of ugly fights are averted by that meaningful silence between the couples. The movie is a lesson for wannbe directors and wouldbe couples too. Classic song from the movie...

As heard from Radio Indigo
"Life will become more peaceful if you start accepting whatever your girl does is always right"

Ogden Nash's Aphorism with similar logic
"To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up."

I have a big doubt. Are all advertisement guys ran out of their mind? Why do they have to feature a beautiful girl with/without dress in some cool product advertisement? For ex...this is advt for copper tiles.

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Weird Me...

For long time, I wanted to write on this weird tag from Visi's blog . Just now, I found time to jot it down. I am supposed to say 4-5 weird things about me. Here it goes....

I love having cold Tropical Iceberg (coffee with icecream from Cafe Coffee day) on chill nights ;)

Blog visitors. The statcounters attract anyone who owns a blog. The statcounter gives you the details of the visitors of your blog, their location, their referral website and some more details. The frequency at which I visit the statcounter page is really odd (May be 10-12 times within a working day). When I get bored, I visit the statcounter page of my blog and take a look at the visitors. Started as curiosity to know my readers, but now become an addiction.
The statcounter gives some jokes to laugh at. For ex, some people got referred to my blog, when they googled for
"Fantasy on Actress Sneha" (Come on, I am not running a po*n site to write about fant*sy stories!)
"new stylish t shirts available in saravana stores" (Doesn't it sound like an oxymoron. Stylish Shirts wont come from Saravana stores. Isn't it?)
"bangalore ajith fans" (Ajith-ku fan tamilnadu-ila irukerathu athigam. ithella bangalore fans venuma??)

Subject of blog: I started this blog to write on my vision and dreams of life. And to blog about the guys who succeeded in the business world and their inspirational success stories. But now my blog has become a diary on my random thoughts. Yet I stick to tagline 'Nurturing Entrepreneurship Dreams' as title of this blog. (Weird ;))

My office is in blood bath now, there is some tense situation here because of planned man power reduction and cost cutting (euphemism for layoffs). But my team and I are working in full swing and full motivation. Looks like we want to finish of this project, as if there are no days left in the world. (weird workaholics!)

I never had big pot belly, but my famous nick name is "Thoppai" (tamil word for it) ;)

For last 4 years, I was trying(!) to be a veggie. Now no more trying, I had become a perfect non-vegeterain. While being veggie,
I had chicken pizza once without having meat pieces( Eating meat is nonveg, but the pizza cooked with chicken is veg. Right??!)
I had mutton soup once without taking the meat pieces (Even though we consider fish as non-veg, but the water in which it stays is still considered to be veggie, right?! I borrowed the same logic for mutton soup also. I even extended this logic for chicken gravy and mutton gravy too)

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Ghosts!?

There were instances in my life when I felt the inhuman powers (like ESPs, ghosts ...) exist in this world.

For the first time, I heard about ghost story in one vacation in my granny's house. He was constructing a new house in native village. I went there for summer vacation (as usual a big family get-together). One day night, we were sleeping in kayathu kattil (couch made of ropes) in garden outside the house. Some construction work was going on in the top floor. There were few construction workers continuing work on the night. One worker went to the kinnaru (well)to fetch water. The well was at end of the garden. While he was fetching water, his wandering eyes landed on some moving white object (may be ghost!) on the top of the building. He got scared to death on seeing that. As he was all alone in end of the garden, he started to run for cover. He could barely reach the place where my family was sleeping before collapsing down. Next day morning, my granny were out in investigation to bring him back to normal state and was curious to know what had happened.
That guy: "Aiya, madi mela naan peiya parthen, athu nalla vellaiya irunthathu. medhuva nandhu pochu, looks like calling me"
The moment he said he saw ghost in top of the building, everyone bursted out laughing. May be people decided to laugh out to bring him back to normal, we didn't disbelieve it fully.

I had spent lot of summer vacations in my native place. We (me and my cousins) would go there after school finals. In one such vacation, we were chatting in top floor. We were having nila soru (food in moonlight) with patti. It was a huge gang of children and patti kept us engaged by narrating interesting stories. The servant maid came up with a scary story in the mid. Hero of the story was ellai kadavul (god who guards the village border) like Aiyanar. The servant maid was staying with her daughter near our paddy field. One day night, her daughter woke up in midnight
That gal: "Amma, ennaku thanni thagama irukku. Naan poi thanni kudichitu varen ma"
"Mom,I want to have water"
Maid: "seri ma, ana pathu po....ore irruta irukku da"
"Ok dear. But be careful. It is dark inside"
Five minutes down the timeline, there was a mysterious silence and then a loud noise from kitchen. Maid got shocked, ran to the kitchen to see what had happened. Her daughter was lying down on the floor in almost unconscious state.
That gal: "Amma, vellai ore satham. Kollai gate-a thiraka ponne ma, yaro kannathala payangara adi vittutanga amma. Enna nadathuthane theriyulle". "I heard some noise in garden outside. As soon i opened the back entrance, someone slapped me hard. The blow was very powerful that I couldn't get up to see who did that".
The servant maid concluded the story with her guess "Aiyanar was travelling on that side then, He only slapped the girl to protect her from bad evils. I could see some white man on horse when I went inside the kitchen". May be it just a story, may be the girl is affected with some paranoia, but it was bad enough to get us a bad dreams then.

Later, when me and my cousin were chatting
My Cousin:" I don't care much for Ghost movies"
Me: "Appadiya??!" (with awe)
My cousin: "I can see Evil Dead movie in midnight"
Me: "Ohh man, lemme also give it a try. We will watch this weekend"
Yep, we indeed rented out Evil Dead movie on that weekend. There were no one in the house then. We chose to watch in night. I was bold enough to see first few scenes. Thats it. I run away from that room once the real scary scenes started. I haven't seen that movie till now. Not just that I still don't prefer seeing those ghost movies. Sick!

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Laugh out dude!

We (me, anna and Harini) went out for shopping in evening. Just when we were busy buying out the groceries for home, Harini was yelling at her loud voice
Harini: Apppppppppppaaaaaa...... (at her Peak voice)
My Anna: Ennada chellam?? (thinking she got something important to ask him)
Harini: Nalla irukiyaaaa? (in her childish's voice)
Ohh Man, You should have seen my anna's face then!

My other niece Sakthi started going to play school from july this year. She is a popular star in her school now for her naughty remarks and questions.
Teacher: Sakthi, stop crying. I will call your mom.
S: Mam. I stopped crying. Prrr(giggles)... Where is my mom? (she starts crying again)

My dad took out Harini for walking. Walking for Harini means she will sit in your hands pretilly, you gotto walk around! Yeah, its walking for you guys, but pleasure funny ride for her. My dad never got used to this idea....He took out her for small distance and quizzes her
Dad: Walking nalla irunthicha??!!
Harini: Enna thatha, ingeye irukkom. Sithappa suthi suthi povanga.....Neeyum thokkitu po
Dad: Ennala mudiyathuda....
H: Nee seriyilla thatha, Appo veetikooo po!

Sakthi's teacher was complaining to my cousin (her dad) about her naughtiness in school.
Teacher: Next week there is fancy dress competition in our school. I gave butterfly role to your daughter
Cousin: Wow! thats wonderful role. Mmmm....
Teacher: But you see, She is not standing in one place. She is very much active (she is complaining with intention that parents will force sakthi to be calm in show)
Cousin: Ohh, thats your problem You see. Which butterfly in this world will stay in one place?
Now you know...he is one more freak. She got bugged up with that answer, left that place and started complaining to her mom now.

I am laughing at loudly in office today, it's because of this Russel Peters videos. Wow man! He is crazy, he got his head filled up with all parodies to tease all races in this world dude! Lovely show!

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Live life like a kid!

Kid's world revolves around simple logic, he/she wants to do whatever interests her. You can see big guys cribbing over a boring job, but continue to do that job. But you can never force a kid to do whatever she don't like, not even for a minute. I found babysitting with my nieces Harini and Sakthi always interesting. Thats what I did for past 3 days in chennai. Lovely Kids, lovely weekend too! :) I have few photos here.

Wish you all a great week ahead! Have a good day!
Start you work with Bebot song from Black Eyed Peas!

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Latesht!

I found this weekly brand equity quiz from the hindu business line always interesting. Eight out of ten questions can be answered if you are good in google up for answers ;) There are always two questions that I can't answer: one is identifying the personality in photograph and another is jumbled words. I could never able to answer those questions till today. Wish image searching research improve much more like when I submit a photograph, that should list down all references for this photo in web. Dunno whether such an image search engine exist in this world!?

Do you know? There are few palindromes in Tamil. Courtesy- My dad (I am not typing in Tamil font, these are transliteration of those words in English) Moru porumo (Appr english translation is: Had enough of buttermilk?) Theru varuthey (Appr english translation is: The chariot is coming on) Write those words in tamil, then you can understand the palindrome nature of these words. Do you know any more like this?

Some more playing with words. In a recent saravana stores advt getting aired in Sun TV, actress sneha uses the word 'Ekkachakachakachekkama' to mean the large volume of goods available in the store. It reminds me of my good ole days when I used to say 'Superindent of Police' as 'Superindendendent' and 'Tutorial college' as 'Tutitorial college' ;) Just playing with accent to make comedy in lighter sense. Even the title of this post is one word like that, seen this word usage in MTV. This list is big like 'Englibish', 'Tanglish', 'Tamilinglish'....

Hakuna Matata. Thanks to one of my fren, I got to know about this word. This word has become popular after the Lion King movie. Liked this song.

And Happy weekend folks! I am leaving to chennai tonight for my weekend. Looking forward for a refreshing weekend with my niece in chennai.And to all my dear chennai buddies: if you happen to see this post, you can call me to say a hiiiiiiiiii.

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The art of survival of Softies in Industry today

Disclaimer:This act is performed by experts. Don't try to practise it in your office and get fired.

If you are an engineer,

When your boss calls for a meeting about important projects ahead and deadlines, Try to make proper sounds. Show your enthusiasm as go-getter or atleast pretend to be so.

When you skip some initial deadline on unimportant tasks, go and speak to your boss that you care a lot for his deadline and say that you couldn't meet this, but you will try to finish it within tonight.

Say to your boss that your work week is 7 days including saturday and sunday. Even if you don't work on weekends, those words will keep your boss happy. Isn't it?

If you don't know how to attack the problem, write a big mail to your boss listing down lot of points (in different colors) and say that you need this guy's support and that guy's support. When your boss running around to arrange for this meeting, you may get some idea to solve the problem.

When your boss assigns you some problem with working setup, try to invent and add new problems to the working project which you can fix. Tell him that you spend 10 hours in fixing this issue. Your boss will be happy and your original problem also remains untouched.

If you are working onsite, send big status reports mails to your boss. Try to quote the timeline of work schedule also like at 8, I came to office, at 9 I had coffee, at 10 I fixed this bug....Even if your boss didn't get good idea on status of the project, he will very happy.

If you are a manager,

When you assign a project to your team, speak like everyone of your team mates are big experts and this project will give them a big break in career.

Once you kickstart your project, try to convene more meetings that engineers get bored up and goof up their schedules.

Once engineers skips a deadline, call for more meeting, try to speak in more motivating way.

Treat team member with lavish dinners even if they meet simple deadlines. Never mind that final project result is still hanging in the air.

When client fires you for not meeting the deadline in project, write a poignant mail without letting down your team and send it to all team members too.

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More Reviews!

Bangalore's cosmopolitan people attract more restaurants. Most restaurants comes up with unique theme and/or unique cuisine. My friends gang here have a flavor for tasting different cuisines. Because of that interest, We ended up in two truly different restaurants. First one is authentic Korean restaurant and the second one is authentic middle east (jewish) restaurant here in Koramangala. The ambiance in both restaurants are set unique to the places that they hail from. Korean has wood in majority of interiors and middle east hotel has bright colors that symbolizes Jewish assertiveness. The food served here gave us an out of the world experience, thought not in good spirit ;) In Korean restaurant, the chef suggested us a special rice food with remarks "This is world famous Korean food, if you can eat this, you can eat any food in the world". True to her words, we couldn't even go near the food. It was smelling badly. Another dish we ordered was fish curry rice that also turned out to be an bad experiment. The fish was raw and was smelling. In the second restaurant, none of the food was good except French fries. Pita bread is their main course and is similar to unbaked pizza crust. Falafel is some food item similar to our 'Masala vadai'. One commonality in both restaurants are the side dishes are much more tastier than main course. The middle east restaurant comes with tag 'more than veggie'. I doubt how those guys in middle east survive with this food and my similar sympathies for Korean friends too :)

I saw this movie on sunday with my friends. I went with minimum expectations for this movie, as all movies released during diwali turned out to be flops. The story plot is as old as me. Yet I liked this movie. It is an ok-ok movie, though I couldn't avoid dozing off in few scenes. Shahrukh tried his best to impersonate the legendary don. But most of the time, his actions ended up as a comedy track. All female stars Isha, Priyanka, Kareens don't have much role to play, other than adding glamour to the movie. I still prefer seeing this type of movies from Bollywood as it comes with minimum entertainment guarantee with known story plot. Shankar mahadevan could have given some good flicks for this movie. 'The Symphoney' cinema hall had the worst acoustics too to add to our woes.

I saw this movie yesterday with my friend. Wow. The story plot is quite simple but enough for three hours movie. The heroine selection could have been done in better way, I didn't like her at all:) The dialogues has F**King problem, true, everyone has used this four letter word many times. We had hearty laugh on over hearing comments in cinema "Why the f**king hell we didn't see this movie before?" "What that f**king a**h*le doing in the screen?". It is good to go for hollywood movies these days as compared to Indian movies for two reasons 1) Most of the hollywood movies getting released here are no nonsense movies 2) they have a decent story plot or I don't understand the story at all, I don't get bored in either ways. The dialogues and accents of people are simple to understand in this movie. I couldn't even laugh at most of the jokes :)

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Shivanasamudram Trip

I went to Shivansamudram and Talakad on the saturday with Dream A Dream friends. It is a trip arranged by DaD for computer team members. It was a fun trip and the falls in shivanasamudram is awesome. We had coracle ride and bath in mighty cauvery river in Talakad. Photos here.

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The History Of The Paddy Field Boy(s)

Got tagged by GP. I like this tag for giving me an occasion to fly back to good-ole childhood days. The tag is to
Write 8-10 things about your childhood ( 1-12 years) that you miss.
Write 8-10 things that you disliked about your childhood.

First, I will start with 'What I love about my childhood that I miss today'

Love the moment I got a heavenly sum of Rs.5 as packet money from my dad for my first school tour. The best part is I saved Rs.3 in that. Future MBA?! :)
Worry free life with not even a day longed for someone's love ;) Dunno when did I lost that character!
Playful-yet-serious fights with my brother for all things-under-the-sky. He is bully, you see! :)

Playful summer vacations with all my cousins. It's been long time since I met all of them in one place.
Cribbing-and-not-yet-given-up kind of school. I love those school days but hate those monday morning blues for not finishing homeworks.
Paddy field tank's baths, tender coconuts, eating-fresh-sugarcanes-from-Grani's-own-lands.
Situations when I used my brain (athanga lied!) to bunk boring tution classes after schools. Now I can't run away from my responsibilites. Huhhhh
Street cricket days. Still managed to get chancse to live this. Never missed it;)
Days when I was young kid in my entire family. Young kids are unannounced kings in receiving choclates, gifts and unlimited love. Isn't it?
All those crushes and childhood sweet hearts!
Drinking glasses (enga-pakkam tumblers-innu solvanga) with straw attached and Kuzhi thatu (Plates with different levels for variety of foods)
Sunday movies (one in afternoon and another in evening) on DD(DoorDarshan), the National TV channel of Govt. of India.

Second list is about 'the things which I didnt like in my childhood'.

Missed school tours many a times. Though most are pilgrimage-style-boring-kids-tour, how could they go without me?! Bad Bad.
Never picked up any one game properly. Jack of all trades ;)
Missed many 'Oliyum Oliyum' shows in DD while sitting-cribbing-and-reading in tution classes.
Hurted a kid while bowling (rather throwing) in a street cricket. The ball hit in his eyes. Didn't know his whereabouts after that. Hope he is finel. I throwed up my street cricket interests after that incident.
Some cried-moments-after-serious-fights with my brother. He made me cry badly many a times. I love him but hate those weaker moments.
Hate all those teachers who broke my hand by making me write big homeworks. In next birth, I wish to be their high school master. Revenge Time. :)
Didn't had much time with both Grani's. They died before I grown up to understand their love. Miss you Grani's!
Didn't have lot of photographs to kindle my childhood memories. I have grudged on Electronics giant corporations for not inventing cellphone-with-cameras then? They are real stupids yaar :)

P.S: This is a good song! Totally unrelated to the title of this post. Song from Akon, titled "Mr.Lonely". And ROTFL on seeing someone polambying ;)

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You had a bad day!

I love this song! Someday I wake up with a feeling that it gonna be bad day. Unless something happens dramatically, my feeling always proved me right. Always felt like go back to bed again and sleep over the whole day. Monday blues...

If you want to take a look at the lyrics, click on the below read more link.

Where is the moment when you need it the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
Tell me your blue sky's fade to grey
Tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on

You're standin' in line just to hit a new low
You're fakin' a smile with the coffee to go
Tell me your life's been way off line
You're fallin' to pieces every time
And I don't need no carryin' on

'Cause you had a bad day, you're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know, you tell me don't lie
You work on a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day, the camera don't lie
You're comin' back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day... you had a bad day

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on

Sometimes the system goes on the blink and the whole thing it turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know that you could be well all that strong
And I'm not wrong... (Yeahh!!)

So where is the passion when you need it the most
(oh, when you're down)
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

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I am a rolling stone!

My boss called me a 'rolling stone'. This tag marks my character of worry free. Rolling stone gathers no moss, Isn't it? It is true to an extent. I wish I could settle down in a place, but could never able to do that. I want to settle down in chennai forever, but don't know when I would be able to go back there. Time alone can answer this.

Yesterday, I was re-reading the book 'Who moved my cheese?'. It is a small story about four rats and how they adapt to the changes. Sniff and Scurry are rats with less thinking ability. They live by their instincts. Haw and Hem are more like humans. They try to reason out the happenings around them. All four rats found out a cheese station in a maze. All were living happily because of unlimited cheese with no hardwork attached with them. One day, the cheese gets completed. Sniff and Scurry pack their bags in search of a new place for their food. But Haw and Hem refused to accept the fact that cheese got over. They started believing that someone had stolen their cheese. And they were in no mood to look for it. Rest of the story is about their feelings and thoughts in the scenario. I love the story because of the simple and very much relevant story plot. People become lethargic after tasting success in life. They forget the past struggles which brought them to the current position. We should be always ready to face the change. The story goes like this apothegm : 'The only unchanging thing in this world is CHANGE'. I could associate myself with Haw rat. Whatever I blabbered all along when I was in depression of love break is similar to Haw's thoughts in the story ;)

Lighter topics:
The songs used while introuducing heroines in movies are always very cute. I love them and have a big list of those songs. The happiness in a guy's mind when he meets his girl for first time is unlimited. Almost all these songs market on this fact and try to project the girl as beautiful angel.

She is a fantasy
sweet as a harmony
now you know she is a mystery
fills your heart with ecstasy

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The weekend that was

On friday night, We were in the Bengalooru (!) airport to send off our friend. One of my roommate had left for HongKong on that day. He is an embedded system techie. He had accepted a job offer and going there on long term work permit. Is it some kind of precursor to this trend? The china story is becoming more prominent in embedded industry now. Indians are losing in competition with chinese engineers in embedded field.

On a lighter sense, we had a quite entertaining time while waiting for his early morning flight in airport. Two of his girl friends were also there. They were sweet chatterboxes. We didn't have to do much action, they would start with some topic and kept on dragging my friend's legs. Driving (ooturuthu..ikku english translation nalla irukka??) is fun for me as long as I am not in the hot seat. :) Had a cold, ice-clad, Tropical Iceberg coffee on that cold night in aiport coffee day outlet. I love having cold drink in cold climate (Is it some weird habit of mine??!)

My college days was very interesting, thanks to 20 odd clubs there. We had a big Dramatix club, those guys are wholesome entertainers. They perform dance, ad-mad, adapt theme and adapt theme in lighter sense too. Here are few video clips from one of their comedy show. It was performed by my juniors batch. All credits goes to Balamurali (98-02 CIT) for uploading the videos to youtube.

On saturday night, I saw 'varalaru' movie with my friends. It was ok-ok movie, could have become more interesting if music was good. AR Rahman had done a lousy job for this movie. The story line kept people fixed in seats for the whole three hours. I had an interesting dialogues with a fanatic fan of Ajith after the movie

Some Ajith Fan Mr.X: "Super movie-ila da". He was clapping for long time after the show
Me: "Ada pavi, intha kadi padathu poi oruthen superb movie-ina sollaran da" (i was passing comments with my friends)
Another Ajith Fan Mr. Y: "Sir, intha movie-ku enna korachal?" "It gathered three crores in the first week in tamilnadu itself, theriyumma??" "And you know what, this movie is going to Japan for a release"
Me: "Aiyo, nanga kashtapatathu pothatha??! japan makkale vere Ajith torture pannunuma??" :)
Mr.Y: "Enna sir, ippadi sollintingo? Intha padam nalla illaney sollaru muthal allu neenga than sir"
Me: "Ithellam too much boss" :)

We left the conversation then itself, but it would have hurted his sentiments on Ajith. He was morachifying (staring at) me for the remaining time, when we were coming down from PVR. ;)

The culinary experience of eating sea foods is taken to new heights in 'The Kudla' restaurant. I was dining in this restaurant with my cousins and his friends on sunday night. Had a memorable time with crab, fish and all sea living creatures ;) I would definitely recommend this restaurant for all my friends. It can boast itself for serving best sea foods in the city. Note for all those whom I promised a treat in the city: I will host you a dinner in this restaurant if you are a non-veggie.

Koncham 'polambals' time:
Depression has become a vicious addiction for me. I was (atleast trying desperately) free from depression of love break for quite a while now. But few incidents put me back in the depression cycle once in a while. My pillow might have had count on number of nights I slept with wet eyes. I am happy that I didn't torture any of my friend by narrating my feelings to him during this time. My independent attitude kept me silent now. One of my best buddies in US of A has recently scrapped me in orkut asking me,
She: "Nirek, How's life? What's happening in her end? Any updates"
Me: "Hey, I am just sticking to your words. I am waiting for her to speak to me. so no talks and no hurts till now. Life is sailing on"
She: "Thats good for you, Enjoy"
But, I got back into depression cycle yesterday because of my trip towards Malleshwaram in bike. I went there to meet my cousin yesterday. I was travelling in same roads which had a beautiful past memories about my love. For a split second, I thought I will drop plan of going in the road and go back to home. Then somehow managed to go to my cousin's house in sadashiv nagar. I was silent for the whole day and slowly depression thoughts has creeped in. First love and first love break are not definitely a good memories to live with. I wish I move out of this city as soon as possible. There are some developments in that side. Will keep you posted guys.

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My Favorite Songs

"Enn epidi hindi paithiyam pudichu alaiyuringa. Pls, podhum."
"Enna sir, tamil songs ellam kekave mattingala?"
"Ippo yellam ore Hindi "smell" adikuthu? Inna vishesham?"
".not enough tamil movies pole??"

Earlier, I spoke about a lot of hindi songs which stole my heart. Few bloggies asked me to take a look at legendary music from Tamil tinseldom also. Infact, my favorite tamil songs list is much more bigger. Here are the collection of few songs. I could get videos of few songs also (courtesy YouTube). If you love these songs, do write back your feedback in comments section.

'Ne partha' from Hey Ram. The BGM of this song gives out a reverberating effect in my heart, mind and soul, whenever I hear this song.

'Illangathu...' from Pithamagan. One more songs from Illayaraja's kitty. Only raja can give a magic like this.

'Punzhai undu, nanjai undu...' from 'Unnal mudiyum thambi'. Love this song for the lyrics. I am fan of MS Udhayamoorthi's thoughts.

'Raja Raja cholan...' song from 'Rettai Val Kuruvi'. Intha song ennodo friend Arumuga Nainar- ku dedicate panren. This is his favorite song and he is a great singer too.

'Enna satham intha neram...' from 'Punnagai Mannan'

'Katril enthan geetham...'

The list is getting big. I will add other songs as sticky entry later. I would love to hear your favorite songs in Tamil!

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Welcome Here!

Dear Frenz,

Welcome Here!

I have changed my blog's URL. Please update your bookmarks, blogrolls and RSS feeds.
My new URL is: http://nirek.blogspot.com
My new RSS Feed link: http://nirek.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Why change in Identity?

Remember me talking about annonymity sometime before? This is an attempt towards that. I don't want to lose all your friendships while going annonymous. That's why put a re-direct post in my old URL. I love you all. Wish to see you all in my new blog address too!

Why Nirek?

Some how I fallen in love with this name. This is name of my ex-project manager's kid. Didn't google up to find out the meaning of this name. If you know the meaning and significance of this name, do write back in the comments section.

Lots of Love

Nirek (Satheesh Ram)

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Jollu club

Naatula azhagu ponnungalluku safety-ey illey!
Bus-la ponna thatha's jolly vidaranga!
Bike-la ponna signal-a pakkathu bike karan jollu vidaran!
School-ikku ponna vidalai pasanga jollu vidaranga!
College-ikku ponna romeo's jollu thanga mudiyillai!

Kodumai, kodumai!

Kodumai thanga mudiyama en blog-ikku vantha?!
Ada ;) ithu en jollu list-inga!

Elloram TV anchors! I love them for the charisma they add to their shows.
Mamati Chari - Vijay TV 'Hello Tamizha'
Sharmili- Yesteryear's anchor, yesteryear's actress too.
Suchi- Radio Mirchi pugazh
Sandhya- Namma sun music diva

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Call It A Day!

The situation when I got to submit resignation letter to boss is too tough for me to handle. I found it tough irrespective of the boss being good or bad. I had faced this situation three times before. No prizes for guessing that I am in the fourth company in my career ;)

 

My first boss was a professor. I never interacted with him much throughout that time frame. He was known for his mood swings. No one dare to touch his rooms for his scolding. That day, I decided to quit. I was waiting for him in his room. After he came, I silently showed him my resignation letter. He looked at me up and down as if some UFO had entered his room.

He: 'where are you going?'
Me: I told him so and so place
He: 'Oh, you are going to a government organization. That's good for me.' Then he started stating his termination conditions and said 'You got to stay with our organization for one more month. Even if it is a day less, I will make sure that your new company will withdraw your offer'
Me: 'Yes sir, Ok sir, yes sir'
I decided to silently work for that notice period, 'who knows he may be so powerful to screw up my career'. After few days, he met me on the way to my lab. That time, he had forgotten what had happened before and the threats he made on that day. He coolly asked me 'What Satheesh? Haven't you joined the new organization yet? What are you waiting for?'. I was standing then dumbstruck, silently laughing at his memory.

 

 

My second boss knew about my resignation before hand itself. He was a friendly boss, so didn't have much trouble to get relieved. I was using his computers all the time. On that day, I went to office early at 8'o clock, typed in my resignation letter, and took printout. Then came out to chat with my friends. He walked into the office at 9'o clock. There was a small hesitation in my mind while entering his cubicle. I prayed for 2 minutes, and then entered.
Me: 'Sir, I got a new job'
He: 'So, at last you got the breakthrough you wanted? Did you decide to quit?'
Me: 'Yes sir'
He: 'Can I know which company you are going to join. It is not necessary for you to say the company name, I just wanted to know out of curiosity'
Me: I told him the company name.
He: 'I never heard this name before. Is it Indian or MNC?'
Me: I told him the stories. Usual blah, blah. I showed my resignation letter.
He: 'Oh...this letter has got lot of errors. Check in the office, they will help you in give you proper formats for resignation letters'
Me: 'Thank you sir'
He is a nice boss. But I had never been a good team member for him, opposed him often in arguments. Yet he gave a good testimonial for me during farewell. Though that resignation talk was an easy one, I couldn't forget those 2 minutes of hesitation before entering his cubicle. All the relationships we built over the years get destroyed when we decided to quit. Isn’t it? I felt guilty and confused then.

 

 

My resignation date with my third boss was filled with all sentimental talks. He is the best boss ever I can get. He is friendly, strict, and clear in his role. He was my mentor throughout my career. I love him for all good things he had done to me. On that day, as per my friend's suggestion, I sent out an email to him
'Sir. I want to talk to you for 5 minutes. Do call me when you are free'. He would have got hint on my resignation with that mail, because that was the customary sentence in pre-resignation mails in my office. He indeed called me before lunch. We spoke for 2 hours. That talk was full of sentiments. I revered him as my mentor. I didn’t want to leave the company or his team.
Me: 'Sir, I know how friendly you are. That’s why I want to talk openly about my career. I got a job offer from so-and-so place. I know I am your best student. Wish you don't stop me from going ahead in my career. You advices made my career and now I am like the bird that learnt good stuffs in your school. Don't clip my wings and allow me to grow in my career':)
It was full of sentiments. But those are not lies. I felt so while talking.  On hindsight, those talks are looking very funny. He would have laughed at my reasoning for resignation ;)
My friends were teasing me then as I was known for tacit character before.
'Ada paavi, unna poi amathiyana paiyaninnu nenchom. Ippo evalo senti talks adichi resign pannirikey. ennomo kalukku'

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The best of me

I found this tag in Arun's blog. Here is his best list.

The best book - Sam Walton 'Made in America'. Very few book inspires you to do jump in action. I love this book for that magic.
The best blog - All blogs in my blogrolling are THE BEST blogs
The best hangout - Cafe coffee day outlets in India. I love the place and I love their drinks.
The best eatout - Undoubtedly home food. Tasting multiple cuisines in different restaurants never came equal to my home food.
The best hobby - Blogging (Best hobby ever i indulged in. Will recommend to all)

The best TV show ever - Coffee with Suchi (Ofcourse anyshow hosted by suchi will get this place in my list)
The best manager - My first boss Mr.Srini Srinivasan. Tough boss is always best teacher. Isn't it?
The best musician - Illayaraja (Not a fashion statement bro!). His life time achievement is impeccable
The best gang - One of my college gang 'HotDogs'. Freaky guys living only for fun. :)
The best drink - Coffee day Frappes (Yummmmmmmmmmy)

The best quote - 'Life is to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy'
The best kid - My niece Harini :)
The best poem - My friend Reddy's
The best dancer - My dance school instructor Mr.Mahesh. He dances all genre of dance with ease and a distinct body language change. Wow!
The best actor - Illaya thalapathi 'Vijay'. I am die hard fan of him.
The best vehicle - In bikes, Bajaj Pulsar. In saloons, Honda Civic. In sedan, BMW 7 series.

The best scene in a movie
From Anbe sivam movie. After a train accident, heros save a kid and were rushing to hospital in ambulance. But the kid succumbed to injury in midway. Madhavan would be breaking down on thinking the life's extremity. Then the dialogues uttered by Kamal explains life's philosphy in laymen terms. Wow!

This one is for fun. Here are celeberity look alikes of me. Thanks visi for the link!

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