Jillinu Oru Kathal

AR Rahman absence was felt for long time in Tamil Tinselworld. Hurray. He is back with bang in Jillinu oru kathal. Listen to it. Newyork song by ARR is my favorite. Thanks to vali - lyrics came out in a great way with strong words portraying the feeling of the hero who misses his love.

 

"Newyork Nagaram  Urangam Neram

 Thanimai Adaranthathu,  Paniyum Padaranthathu

 Kapal irunkiye, Kattrum karaiyal adaranthathu

 

 Naangu kanadi suvargalukul

 Naanum mezhugu varthiyum

 Thanimai, thanimai-yooo! Kodamai, kodamaiyooo!!"

 

Translated verse will sound like this. In a dusk in Newyork, loneliness hugs me like mist. Poignant wind fills the breadth, fresh from sea. Me and a lonely candle were drowning in a glass palace in loneliness....

 

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Mergers & Acquisitions Season!

After a relaxed long weekend, I was greeted with a surprise news today morning in my office . My company is getting acquired by another giant. There was a lot of discussions along with management. The acquisition got thums up from wall street as both companies have complementary product line and geographical presence. The deal is expected to go through on Q4 2006. More hot news to follow in coming days. Will keep this blogpost a sticky one to update.

From Baystreet

My company share prices surges on this news

Official press release

 

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suttum vizhi

Youtube is filled with lot of copyrighted stuffs. Like this.

 

• It is bad, because anybody can sue the author for the publishing copyrighted stuffs.
• It is good, because, we are archiving a lot of quality contents from movies in the internet. Internet is supposed to be one-stop shop for any of your search, right?
• Anyway this song has got everything called lovely. Have fun, Enjoy
• Can somebody tell me how can we download the coded video from youtube. I want to take this video to my mobile phone which can play video at QCIF, 3GP format

Sticky entry:
After 2-3 hours of research, I have found way to take videos from youtube to my mobile. Give it a try.
[+] Using streaming recording software, record the video from youtube. Link. The file downloaded will be in flash video player format. *.flv
[+] Use flv converter to convert the video to mpeg1 format. Link. Now we have a mpeg video file
[+] Use mpeg to 3gp converter software next. Link. Now the file you want is in 3gp format.
[+] Using data cable, move the media file to your mobile phone or personal media player
Enjoy!

 

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This year Magsaysay Award goes to...

Ashoka fellow Arvind Kejriwal is honored with Ramon Magsaysay award for this year. Have you ever wondered what keeps the social entrepreneurs like him motivated? It's honors like this and recogonition of the changes they brought into the society. The usual suspect, Arvind is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology. What he did? He used Right to Information act to empower a change among the lifes of poor slum dwellers of delhi. Started his career in Indian Revenue Service. Worst practise and bribery prevalent in tax departement baffled him. He dreamt about bringing reforms in tax department. He started Parivartan, submitted a five point agenda to Tax department to bring in more transparency. Ofcourse people reacted badly against it, later he resorted to Gandhi style satyagraha infront of the tax department. His first success came when the department accepted to implement his reforms. Wow! Later he worked to "stop bribery" in state Electricity department. The Emergent leadership award from Ramon Magsaysay foundation has been awarded to him for his work on taking RTI act to grass root level. RTI act empowers people to see any government records. He used RTI to help people conduct social audit on the government's projects for the upliftment of their area. In the audit in Sundernagari, people have found out corruption to the tune of INR 7 Million by the officials. Thats worst truth to hear.

 

[+] Congrats Arvind, We are proud of you. Link

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Dump the trains!

My tête-à-tête with Indian Railways is always funny. Never am I lucky enough to get a reserved berth in sleeper class ;) This time too, I and my friend tried to book our sleeper class tickets two weeks in advance and still ended up in most coveted sitting and sleeping seat. Our seats went into RAC list in that dumb jam-packed train. Was tag-tailing the TTE for a whole one hour to find out that that not even one berth got cancelled in the last moment. We reached Bangalore today morning with red eyes and fully drained out. I am wondering how to work actively even with this tiredness. Earlier, I was lazily sleeping for the whole day in Chennai. That is my usual weekend schedule in my brother’s home there. After light breakfast, I doze off for 2 hours in morning. Wake up for heavy lunch and again doze off in afternoon. In midst of this tight schedule, try to find some time to play with my niece and keep her entertained.  It’s rather other way around, she keeps me occupied with some work for the day.

Traveling in reserved class in Andhra Pradesh is a unique experience. Even if you reserve you berths, people simply hop into your berth and demand their share. Earlier, during my one vacation, we boarded the train to Delhi. Slept happily in the night in our berths, woke up in morning in Andhra to find three monkeys sitting in the upper berth with us, one relaxing with legs over that special fans of Indian railways, another trying to build bridge between two upper berths and third analyzing what’s the red chain used for. Those are not real monkeys, just people who throng into reserved coupes too and take their comfortable seats. Trains are afterall common man’s chariot in this democratic country!

Coming back to the topic, I love bus travel rather than this dumb trains. See you all after gooooooooooooood sleep. Awwwwwhhhh!

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Na Tum Jano Na Hum

Why is there music in the air?
why is there music in the skies?
why is there music in my heart?
you don't know, nor i
you don't know, nor i

Why this change of season?
why this change of heart?
why does one fall in love?
you don't know, nor i

you don't know, nor i

This ecstasy, this loneliness,
who clouds my imagination?
the wet wet season,
the desires of youth
where is love leading me?
why dont I see anything?
why am I intoxicated?
why do i love this feeling?
you don't know, nor i
you don't know, nor i

 

The new feeling hurts
sometimes it burns my heart
A new fragrant desire
at heart, I am faithful
why do your eyes hold each other.
why is this happening to us
why are we together
you don't know, nor i
you don't know, nor i

 

[+] Original songs hindi  lyrics is here

[+] Song picturisation is too cute. Enjoy it here

[-]  Discliamer: I am not the author of original hindi version or its english translation.

[+] I loooove this song. Hearing it continously for nth time from morning. Not at all cloyed by its sweetness. Now become evangelist to spread the magic of this song. Entertainment guaranteed. Enjoy

[+] Lucky Ali voice, Music, or Lyrics. Don't know which is best? Jadoo

 

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Life full of Inspirations!

Corporate world - We never know what is the other side of the person who is sitting next to us. As mentioned before, we get inspired by them more and more. Money becomes just a part of life when we see these. As we grow older these thoughts are more frequent. Thats true. Am also growing up. This blogpost is after my visit to Ananya trust, in Bangalore. Inspirational idols as perceived by me: [+] Dr.Shashi Rao. Veteran in non-formal education. Started Ananya trust in 1999 for children from economically under privileged children. Now on its 8th year, Ananya trains 60+ kids. These kids stay with them during weekdays and return back home on weekends to their parents. The kids come from varied backgrounds but experienced similar unfortunate experiences like pathetic childhood, poor family, drunken or irresponsible father, disintegrated family, disdained and hated by the formal education system. Ananya trains them in life skills. The way of their teach is quite different- fun filled and experience driven learning. Based on age and inclination to academics, Ananya groups them and train them in basic education. Science, Maths, Social Science, English, Hindi, Kannada are introduced to them in a fun-filled way. Kids can choose the subjects they want to learn. During our schoolhood, we would have loved few subjects, liked few more and hated a host of subjects. But here scenario is quite different. All kids undoubtedly love all subjects! Because of hours of hardwork, the faculties in ananya put in preparing for the best way to drive home the basics. [+] Mr.Uddhav (dunno his second name). He is an IIT gradaute who chose to work with Ananya as a permanent faculty after his MTech. Surprised to see people who throw away their high paying jobs to work for life's beautiful challenges like this. [+] The Great Govindraju. Ananya's first student. Its brand ambassador who has influential network to spread word about Ananya among kids of his same background. His nature as explained by Dr.Shashi is highly inspirational. Natural leader, and captain of students' union of Ananya. Plays hockey extremely well, has lots of energy and creativity. Got host of fan followers too in the school. Earlier, he had made a battery operated fan from rags that he picked up and had designed his own FM radio. During their Honnemardu trip, a group of kids travelled in a coracle to reach the Island in the middle. After hours of rowing, they reached nowhere. Coracle is a circular boat where rowing has to be in uniform to move forward or backward. Otherwise coracle will go on revolving itself. Few kids got panicked and that worsened the situation further. Our hero Govindraju tried his best to cheer up kids to row in unison. Atlast, he thrown away his row and said " I am not going to help you all. We will stop rowing". That anger from their leader triggered the kids and all suddenly started rowing in unison afterwards. Later he cheered and guided them to the island. [+] Vishal Talreja. Founder Director of Dream A Dream. He and his group of friends dedicated their entire life for the noble cause of serving back the society. Had written enough about DaD before too. Some more new information: when started DaD had plans to work with terminally ill children, started programs with Freedom Foundation. Later they diversified to cater needs of economically under privileged kids too. Now DaD is a big organisation running a lot of parallel programs throughout the year. Vishal is an Ashoka Fellowship holder. Apt word will be social entrepreneur. Recently he had been selected to attend a Waldzell Meeting at the Melk Abbey in Austria. Its a meeting the dwells into the subject of "The challenge of change - Can the individual change the world?". 12 young people from across the world are selected every year to be the Architects of the Future and this year, he has been selected as one of the participants. The most interesting thing about the meeting is that it has speakers of the likes of Paulo Coelho (The author of The Alchemist) and Isabel Alende (Author of The House of The Spirits). [+] More photos taken in Ananya trip. [+] Few more video clips too. Football game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfuXMPtDUKA Art work of kids. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUYiNpYWJxk Dance by Jayanth.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OmnEFlR2oM

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Don't misuse media power!

Media has enormous power over people. But this is clear case of media blowing up a stupid issue. NDTV correspondent stationed at PM's residence reported at 8:45 PM on 27th July, that there was "A security breach in PM's house". NDTV started airing the related developments till people got pissed off with whole episode and shutdown the TV. Initially, me and my fren got enthused on hearing those catchy headlines at 9 PM news. The news was: Two girls and a guy drove in till second gate of PM's residence without prior appointment. The reporter argued that no one should be allowed to enter that zone without prior appointment or ID card. If SPG frisks and pisses off these reporters daily with their detailed secuiruty checks, even if media persons carry a valid ID card from the government, "How can they allow those guys in sonata?"

Yeah, there was a lapse in security, but definitely it is not a big issue to blow up and sensitise. They have wasted a helluva lot of airtime in broadcasting the video clips and interview with the girl on the car repeatedly. Later, some retired SPG person came on air in NDTV to confirm that this is a secuirty breach. Bargha datt was sent to place of incident in that late night to collect more info. Some more reporters put in action to contact PMO. Besides the whole 10 PM news time, was wasted in speaking about this issue again and again. NDTV tried to track those youngsters later in that midnight. What not? All sort of idiotic coverage over an useless issue. Isn't it a height of stupidity?? Folks, stop misusing media power.

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Corporate Competition and A Product Launch!

Apple computers reinvented itself through i-pod. From sagging revenue, Steve jobs showed a remarkable turnaround in Apple computers. I-pod symbolises a gadget can create it's own market. Nobody would have thought about the market of personal media players till then. Now everybody jumps in to say I want a pie in it. After I-pod' phenomenal success, samsung came with Yep, Flextronics has Hip and host of electronics giants has their PMP. The best i-pod can cost me more dosh than buying a great television set for home. Besides I-pod comes with a tiny display, plays only audio and can't receive any broadcasted audio or video signal. Don't you think it is dumb gadget? But it is selling like a hot fudge. Believe me, its USP stand on simple belief, that it is my own media player.

Apple's I-pod success envy Samsung a lot. Samsung last year publicly vowed to take away Apple's top spot in music players by 2007. This year, the South Korea-based company will kick off that effort with a slew of products and large ad campaigns, Peter Weedfald, senior vice president of consumer electronics for Samsung's North American division, said during an interview last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. "What's the difference between how they have gone to market and how we have gone to market? It's real simple. They spent $165 million last year to advertise Apple MP3 products. We spent $1 million," Weedfald said. "We are going to break the code. In 2006, we are going to over-invest in advertising and marketing around these really hot, new digital video and digital audio products, and we will spend tens of millions of dollars."

 

Internet moguls spoke about Video-On-Demand for long time. Now technlogy become matured enough to cater to this market. Google announced video store in CES 2006, which is a convergene of entertainment media like sony, CBS, NBA with Google. Watch the video of Larry page explaining what is google video store all about here.  You can understand how casual a product launch can go. Their business tagline is: 'You have the show "Desperate Housewives," and you spend maybe a million to produce one episode. That thing is going to sit on a shelf for a year or two until it goes into syndication or DVD. What if the next day, Mr. ABC, after you've made money on advertising, I could take the fresh lettuce of content and sell it the next day for $1.99 and give you back $1.50?' And someone at ABC says...'That's a good idea."

 

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101 - Not just kids, We too got graduated!

With 3 sessions and endless hours of emails and homework, our workshop on teaching basics of computer to kids got completed today. We trained 10 kids from Ananya, a NGO in Bangalore. In three sessions (101) we covered computer basics, Ms paint usage, file, folders, Ms Word usage and basics of ever-attractive Internet. With this training, those kids got gradauted to next level. These sessions drained us both physically and emotionally. Now "We can sleep for lifetime", as quoted by my friend. Worked with a lovely team, Tanu, Bhavya, Ranganath, Jason and Devendra (You can see them in action in the photos in my flickr album). Vishal and Shwetha are our team leaders for the whole workshop and our saviors too when we faced trouble in explaining difficult computer concepts to kids. In retrospective (even though all sessions were tiring) we all are emotionally satisfied that we could help a bit in Dream A Dream's grand vision of imparting life skills to these special kids. A word about those kids, they all hated and run away formal style of education at some point of time in their life or devoid of that. Ananya trains them in life skills in a more informal way. DaD works with Ananya in computer training. Manjunath, Shekar, Priya, Charanraj, Murali, Dinesh, Suresh, Bannapa, Shobana and Jayanth. (Wow, I could able to recollect all their names!) We won't forget these little friends for life time. These kids are very shrewd and intelligent. One instance, during last session, Vishal gave a difficult challenge to Murali to get back his attention from games. Vishal typed few words, decorated them with wordarts, added bullets and numbering, changed the font color and sizes and asked Murali to do the same in a different word document. Murali selected the line from this document, copied it and pasted it in his document, said "Uncle, give me a tough question, this is very easy!".

Got few video clips of kids. Fun, frolic and banterings...

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