Bye Bye again

Some time back I had written a post regarding Farewell Emails. That post seems to have become very popular. Not that I received a whole lot of responses, but then it seems to a page which has the highest number of hits. This is the case even today quite some time after I have written the post.

The main reason seems to be the search engines seem to lead people to this page when they search for "Farewell emails". Then the fact is that so many people are searching for "Farewell emails" which most probably means that they are all writing farewell emails and searching for some inspirations, formats etc.

Looks like quite a few people are leaving from wherever they are working and they more and more want to nice farewell emails so they go around searching for ideas. Also the hits do come from all over the world. By method of induction, it can be inferred that market's are opening up all over the world providing on opportunity to people to jump jobs ;-)

Happy job hopping :-)

Running for elections

I am going to run for the next parliament elections. It is official.

I am going to start my own political party. I have not zeroed in on the name yet. But a probable name is "Janata Jagaran Party (JJP)". Since I am the founder of the party, I shall be the President of the party for the first year, which will later follow a democratic process of elections. Posts of Secretary, treasurer and followers are still empty. Inviting nominations and applications for these posts.

If people are wondering why this sudden transformation and what I think I have in me to run for the elections, I am a true citizen of this country.. and I have one other great qualification in me. I have been judged as a "Politician" by the famous "Ultimate Personality Test" by Tickle. :-)

You're a Politician!


The Ultimate Personality Test

Brought to you by Tickle

This gives me an automatic qualification. I have come to know that this is one of the qualifications which Election Commission is insisting upon while filing for elections. So all people who are interested in joining my party are advised to take the "Ultimate Personality Test" by Tickle and approach me only if they are judged as a "Politician".

:-) :-)

The New Anthem

This is the latest offering of Rahman and BharatBala to the spririt of the nation. This has been released on the 60th Anniversary of Indian Independence. These guys manage to make great music and videos celebrating the unity of India.

Video Courtesy usthadh007

Rahman as always rendered another version of our anthem, albeit the score has not changed much, it is the arrangement etc. which has done the magic.

His earlier video, a version of "Vande Mataram" was a runaway success, where the both lyrics and the music score was different from the original one. But that too was superb. It gave patriotism a youthful shade to it and made Vande Mataram hummable by one and all giving it a "cool" feeling. 

Video Courtesy arrahmanfans

Hope to get more of such ones from Rahman..

Enjoy..

Cool ad..

Advertising is such a creative field... This ad talks about a bank but uses a seemingly different prop and models to convey the message. Pity not all ads are so good...

Cool ad..

Video courtesy subhasisbeura

New mungaaru male

Found this new version of the hit song from Munagaru Male.. in churmuri...


hilarious...

Faceless Banking

Faceless
Originally uploaded by museum of dirt

Tring...

[Automated Message]
Welcome to XXX Bank
Enter your Credit Card or Debit Card number
787988799366313308
Thank you, enter your PIN
6532
Sorry, that is an invalid entry.. Please enter ur pin
6523
Sorry that is an invalid entry.... Transferring you to a customer service executive.
[beep] [beep] [beep]

All our Customer Service Executives are busy.. Your call is important to us.. Please hold the line, a customer service executive will be with you shortly..
.
.
.
.
.
All our Customer Service Executives are busy.. Your call is important to us.. Please hold the line, a customer service executive will be with you shortly..
.
.
.
.
All our Customer Service Executives are busy.. Your call is important to us.. Please hold the line, a customer service executive will be with you shortly..
.
.

[Executive]
Welcome to XXX Bank, this is YYY speaking, how may I help you?

[Customer]
Hi,
My account number is 28284239.
I would like to know my balance

[Executive]
Surely, before that can I verify credentials

[Customer]
Yes..

[Executive]
Your date of birth?

[Customer]
mm-dd-yyyy

[Executive]
Your address?

[Customer]
343, aaa road,
BBBB

[Executive]
How often do you get statements?

[Customer]
That is the problem, I don't get statements. So I am calling for the balance

[Executive]
Sir, as part of verification, you will have to tell what is the frequency?

[Customer]
[Angry] Nil...

[Executive]
But sir, that does not match with our records.. please tell how often you get statement for us to verify you..

[Customer]
[At the edge] I DONT GET STATEMENTS.. I WOULD LIKE TO LODGE A COMPLAINT

[Executive]
Sir, I would have to transfer you to a different department which handles complaint. Can I put you on hold while I transfer..

[Customer]
[Sighs].. Ok..

[Executive]
Thanx, have a nice day...

[beep][beep][beep]

[Executive]
Welcome to XXX Bank, this is YYY speaking, how may I help you?

[Customer]
I would like to lodge a complaint regarding non receipt of statements.

[Executive]
Surely sir, before that I would like to know some details? What is your account number?

[Customer]
I already gave it.. anyway... it is 28284239

[Executive]
Thank you, Your Date of Birth?

[Customer].... Not again...

.........

-----------------------------------------------------------

How many times have we not gone through these kind of calls.... Banking today or for that matter many of the services have become faceless. There is no more personal rapport involved in most of these services. It is almost like one is just talking to some other machine everytime as we go through the same drill as above..

Many times it is so frustrating that one has to relate a certain problem to each of the executives and god forbid, if the call gets cut in between or the call gets transferred to a different department.. One has to repeat the same problem 'n' number of times to 'n' different executives.

But even though it is sometimes irritating.. It gives the ultimate convenience of being able to achieve most of the things just over the phone instead of actually visiting a bank which is a great achievement in itself compared to the olden days when one would have to go to the bank talk to the counter clerk, or the manager to get the work done.


But the present 'call center' based services though is a great thing, it has become so error prone either due to lack of commitment just from the fact that customer and employee are not face to face or lack of proper information furnished that many transactions invariably needs follow up either due to the delay in processing or due to some error in the processing.

How many times have you faced this?

Over Cautious

Found this post in the blog of my blogger friend Keerthi. Very interesting capture.. Translating for non Tamil audience


Munjagirthai Muthanna (Over cautious Muthanna)

This guy seems to have all the following on his cycle
2 Rearview mirrors,
2 Bells
1 Horn in the middle
1 Baggage Container in the front
1 Baggage hold at the back

To top it all a "helmet"

:-)

Smack that..

Hooked onto this song..

Get this widget | Share | Track details

Farewell Emails

Now that we have been seeing quite a few farewell emails at work, how about this one.

I always used to think when people write farewell emails, do they really mean it? All the nice goody goody words. Do we really tell what we want to tell?

Having said that, being optimisitic, I can also assume that may be the guys who write goody goody farewell emails really felt only goody and moved only for better career prospects or for other priorities in life. But is it always true. The above post and also an attached comment show how it may not be and how somebody has written what they wanted to tell.

As a matter of fact, I have written only one farewell email till date, and I must confess I wrote something similar to the posts I have sent link too but not really that harsh and not with names etc. It was not goody for sure. I tried to ensure that I communicated to the management and the "stratosphere" (this is my friend's usage for senior management), what I felt and why I was leaving the company. And guess what, there was immediate action on my email which I learnt later from my colleagues whom I had left there and also from a phone call from the top HR of the company. It is a pity that I don't have a copy of that email. I seem to have lost it.

But the posts above are carrying it a bit too far.

To end this how about this song for saying bye..

Get this widget | Share | Track details

Enjoy..

Multiple Intelligence Tests

I have been a fan of the Tickle tests and have taken many of their tests.. Now they have new thing call post results... so trying it out..

Tickle Tests.. - Multiple Intelligence Test




You're a Logical/Mathematical Intelligence!


The Multiple Intelligences Test

Brought to you by Tickle

Whats UP?

Amazing forward I received.. Read on and enjoy

Lovers of the English language might enjoy this.....There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any othertwo-letter word, and that is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP thesilver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing:A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets UP the earth.When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP,for now my time is UP, so.............Time to shut UP.....!

Of Spirits and Liquors

Indian Government bans the ads of the spirits, liquors and cigarettes on the television and radio channels. This I guess is a measure of trying not to promote the usage of these products by the people in general.

But then, if that was the noble reason of the government, why would not just ban these items of the market and production. A large portion of the revenue to the government's exchequer are from the production and sale of these products. So they cannot do away with them.

But then that is how it is. Coming back to the ads, these companies come up with outrageous coverups for actually advertising their products. Just because they cannot show ads of a brand of liquor or cigarette, they advertise some other products which have nothing to do with their main business, but only the brand name stays.. Some examples, Wills Lifestyle Clothes, Bacardi Blast Audio CDs, Master Stroke Audio CDs and what not. A spirit company making Audio CDs ;-) funny indeed..

So how are these going to be policed..

Brotherhood

I just saw a video on National Geographic "Amazing Videos" about how a gorilla saved a child.

Apparently, in the Brookfield zoo in Chicago, a boy once fell into the Gorilla enclosure. The boy was only 3 year old. Even as the rescuers tried to rescue the boy, who had fell 20 feet and become unconscious, an 8 year old female Gorilla, actually extricates the child and takes him to safe place where the zoo rescuers can be come and take him away to safety.

The Gorilla, Binti Jua, was celebrated as a hero for saving the child from other gorillas.

An amazing incident of love and care shown by an animal to a human in the times of when man does not do something similar to his brethren.

Winning and Losing

Yesterday as I was watching the Formula 1 race, at the end of the race during the podium ceremony, the commentators were talking about winning and losing. A comment was made about what Mario Andretti, a legendary car racer said. Mario, by the way, is such a great driver that he has driven almost all types of competitive car racing from Formula1, NASCAR, Indycar, Touring Cars, ChampCars etc. and even the 24hr Lemans endurance race. And the greatness is that he has been world champion in all the above disciplines.

Now coming back to what he said, "Second place is nothing but first among losers". Though the commentators made this as a passing comment, to me it is a very profound statement. This just gives a completely different perspective of winning and losing. Many people would have different perspectives like "Winning is not important, how we play or participate is" and so on.. But, I am more inclined to what Mario said. I believe, it is just the attitude of the person when he approaches a problem, a situation or life in general. The "fire" of winning or excelling governs our execution to a large extent.

But then it is also a paradox. Can everybody be winners? No.. because for every winner there is a second place and a third place and so on. But I feel that one cannot be the winner or even come close to it without the constant urge to be one. It is the continuous motivation which is fanned by this urge helps one to be.

Yesterday's Wimbledon Final was another example. Roger Federer, the champion, had to dig deep to be able to defeat the ever improving and powerful Rafael Nadal. If he had not believed that he had it in him and he should be the number one, I don't think he could have withstood the onslaught of Nadal, who by himself is a great fighter.

This attitude is I guess very much what is called as "killer instinct" when it comes to sports and especially talked about with regards to the Indian team for the lack of it. In stark contrast, the Australian team, always fight to the last moment.

What say you?

Auto-parking

I guess one of the most difficult things of driving a car is parking and that too parallel parking. I am sure many of the drivers find it extremely difficult to do it. How about this for parking help? 

Watch this..

The technology is amazing. I am sure we will one day have "auto-driver" cars. 

Squirrels - Chip and Dale

Have always wondered how cartoons like Mickey, Donald, Tom and Jerry etc. actually were actually thought of. As the story goes, Walt Disney came up with the character of Mickey after watching a mouse nibble on some food. I bet this would have been quite an inspiration.

Coming to think I can very clearly see Chip and Dale have come from. I have these group of squirrels in my garden which seem to be well fed by the left overs which our maid leaves for them every morning. I guess they have become so used to it that they do not go in search of food else where. They have a ready made breakfast served on the table everyday. Some days I have even seen them eating their breakfast with Lays chips to go with :-).

The squirrels are amazingly quick and I just love the way they nibble away in their perched squat on their hind legs. It is a treat to watch them. And they are so timid creatures that a small movement or noise scares them away. They scamper away as quickly as they can into the trees and bushes. 

I clicked quite a few snaps these fellas. For that,  I had to do lure them with the bait at the middle of the garden and quite a long wait to get them come and pose for the snaps. :-)

Some of Disney's Chip and Dale goody's..

Recycling

Some ads are really innovative especially when they try to tell a message. Have a look at this.

Safety in Formula 1 cars

Gone are the days when car racing as a sport was dangerous. I guess they are much more safer than the driving on the present day roads in India. Have a look at these videos. This was an accident which happened to Robert Kubica in a  Formula 1 car in the Canadian Grand Prix.  The accident is so spectacular and one would assume the accident would have been fatal or the driver would have been injured seriously. But guess what, Kubica just walks away with a sprain in the ankle.

Shows the safety of today's Formula 1 cars. :-)

This is the official explanation of why Kubica survived the crash.

Color Conscious

The other day we were having a discussion regarding the skin colors of people. Nature has not made all human beings to have same skin tone. We have people in some parts of the world, with the deepest of the deep browns bordering on black, to some people who are so fair that one could even see the blood through the veins near the skin. And in between these there are people of various color tones.

Are these skin tones just the color or do they signify more in our socio-economic structure and more so in the attitude of the people? It is not rocket science to conclude that they are more than just colors. These color of the skin has created histories and also have altered the outlook of the people in general over the thousands of years of our civilization. Biologically, there seems to be no difference between one human to another which can be addressed to the color of the skin, but socially it is much different.

We all know the most (in)famous fall out of the color discrimination - apartheid. It has been one of the most despicable, events in history of mankind where the color of the skin has been used to segregate the people and more so the natives of the land. Also closer home, it was similar but though it was not named so. I am not sure how this kind of social order crept in... was it just the power held by people with a certain color of skin which caused this or is it more. But I think this started much before apartheid actually was practiced at least with that name. I feel this kind of social order has crept in to mankind, where this kind of racism has been ingrained into our genes.

Has it really been eliminated? I don't think so. They still are very evident albeit in a more subtler way. The subtlety can be seen in the way we choose our housing neighborhoods, the way we interact with people with a different color and so on and so forth. In many cases in India, even though as a race, the skin tones range from fair to dark, there can be many instances of this preferential status to people with fairer skin. It is funny to see people advertise oneself to be on the fairer side in matrimonial ads even though one is not. For example, a person with brown complexion, would advertise himself/herself as fair and a real dark person would advertise himself as brown. On the lighter note, the matrimonial ads should have an entry, just like ones age, a quantifiable measure of ones complexion.. may be in wavelength of these colors.. LOL !! BTW, people have invented a word called "wheatish" complexion, to signify a color similar to wheat.

Even surprising still is the reaction of a person on the street, to another person who is fairer.. I am talking of people, say a roadside peddler may show a slightly higher amount of respect to a fair person, on first sight until he/she has conversed for sometime when the perspective could change. But the initial reaction is something which is to be noted.

The more interesting part is the constant craving of "becoming" fair. The youth especially see that being fair instantly adds a charm in the eyes of the opposite sex and they stand a better chance of landing a date or friendship. And actually in many cases I guess it is true as the opposite sex is also from the same culture and thinks the same way. The cosmetics and marketing industry are one of the other bunch of people who cash in on this notion of the people especially the youth. Each company boasts of creams and gels and what not which can make one fairer. Some even talk about 100% satisfaction in 30 days etc. One other company markets a product only to the men folk. The ad says "Don't use creams which are meant for women, use this.. This is meant for men" LOL !!! This is a huge industry.

The ads for these products removes any subtlety I talked about earlier. They depict very clearly, how being fair was advantageous and hence their product needs to be used. There was this add for one such cream, where a girl was going to audition for the role of a commentator for cricket matches. The add shows that she was selected just because she used their cream and became fair and hence was selected. I never knew one had to be fair to be able to comment on a cricket match where the commentator is hardly shown on the television screens. :-) Such is the message which is told by the industry.

While a country like India, manufactures tons of creams to make oneself fair, there are all these people in the "fairer" part of the world, who want to become dark :-). People in Europe and America's wait for the summer and go and lie by the pool or on the beach next to being naked, wanting to get tanned. And in winter or if they cannot access a pool or a beach, they get hold of the ultraviolet or whatever based indoor tanners, where one lies down in a box with a weird light all around him/her. This supposedly gives an even tan to the whole body. This is hilarious. All of us are never satisfied with whatever skin color we have. The fair wants to become dark whilst the dark wants to become fair.

To end the post, another funny dialogue from a movie.

Son : Mother, why did you give birth to me dark?
Mother : So that you will not become dirty.

ROTFL !!!!

Big Picture

People in the present day corporate are always told of one thing.. "See the big picture". While it might be a very good thing to do.. not sure how many would have really seen this big a picture :-)

Muscle Power over Electric Power

Heard about this.. Muscle power over electrical power. We have heard that cars or road vehicles need a push sometimes when they are low on battery or some such things... but ever heard that a train had to be pushed. This bizarre incident happened in Bihar.

Apparently a passenger train was stopped by pulling the emergency brakes. When the train came to a halt, it stopped in the neutral zone between two electric poles. When the train was being resumed, the engine would not fire up. Ooops. Irate passengers started making noise.. The driver then instead of facing the wrath of the passengers, requested them to give the train a "push". The train apparently needed a push for 4 meters.

The passengers heaved and hoed to finally move the train by 4 meters in half an hour. This is really hilarious... never heard of something like this.

Now just one thing is left, the captain of a flight comes on air just before take off, while welcoming the passengers on board.. also says "Welcome aboard XXX Airways, Today we are embarking on a flight from A to B. BTW we request passengers to lend us a hand in starting this journey by giving a push" !!LoL!!

Yellow Fellow

Flowers are great subjects to be photographed. I am fond of flowering plants, and have a small garden though just in pots. How about this yellow hibiscus blooming away?

Missed by a Whisker

Well this is another of those posts which most of Bangalore bloggers would write about.. No cookies for guessing.. Traffic. Actually I will not talk about traffic per se but more on how I was surprised. My drive to work in the morning is, like most of us, in the peak hours that is 9ish. My usual drive time on a normal day (non holidays) is an average of 45-50 minutes. The fastest I have ever driven from work to home or vice versa is in 17 minutes, that was one day in the wee hours of the morning.

The drive time from home is an amazing leveller. It always happens that if I get through some part of my drive relatively jam free and make good progress, that means that I would most probably be caught in a jam in a different part of the drive. So some how or the other, the drive time comes to the 45-50 minute range. I have always wondered, whether there is communication between motorists in one part of the town to the other, where they tell that I have gotten through here, slow me down elsewhere :-).

There have been a few days where I have been slow all through and my drive time has been near the 1 hr time band. These days are not that often neither are they so far in between. Actually the evening drives back home more are less tend to be longish. I always wondered why. People who did come to work in the morning are the ones who are going to go back, then I should see a similar time in the evening too. But that is not the case, the drive takes atleast 20% more time. I presume the evenings also include people who do not venture out in the morning but venture out in the evening for shopping !!

But today was a different day. From the time I started from home today, it just happened that I never got caught in any of the jams. More so, I even did not stop in the signals where I am more than 95% sure to be caught in the red. I could not believe what was happening. Since I passed through the initial part relatively quickly, I was more or less sure that I would be slowed down later during the drive, just as any other day. But voila that did not happen. I was moving from one traffic junction to another in all greens. Yes !!! I thought I will make it this time, the sub 30 minute drive during peak hours. Myself, being a great fan of motor racing, tend to talk a lot of race lingo, so the "sub-30" minute thing. Actually I am so much into racing, that when I am driving behind a slow moving car in front, I increasingly start feeling that I am driving behind a "safety car" just like in the races :-P.

So coming back to my drive, I was like 1 Km from work, just when I thought I had the best peak hour "lap" in my bag, the jinx did set in. The traffic slowed and came to a standstill. It had taken me 27 minutes to reach there. I just needed a 3 minute drive in the last kilometer. The traffic started moving again slowly, but too slow for what I needed. I moved on and I had 30 seconds more to go and another 500 meters. But then the dreaded thing happened. The signal turned red, the second red signal in all of the 16 kilometer drive I had today. There it goes, I will not be able to make it. The count down clock on the signal was ticking by 20, 15, 10, 5 and 0. Then finally I made through the last 500 meters. So the total time I took was 31 minutes.

**Sigh** I missed my "sub-30 minute" lap by a whisker. I am not sure whether I will ever do it again. This was one of those rare occasions where I even came close to it.

Renewed Hobby

After a long time I tried something which I was fond of before - painting. It was something which I was fairly good at during my primary and high school days but never got around to paint anything after that. I has been nearly 17 years. So yesterday I did roll over the inertia and tried my hand at it. It was definitely hard thing to start of with as I was completely out of touch. But then was able to complete the painting. I chose a rather easy subject to start of with.

I made some mistakes on the way and was not happy that I made them. But when I finished the painting it was not the best of my paintings but it was better than I expected it to turn out when I started. I relived my school days when I would paint and try to mix colors to get the right hue. It was enjoyable. The very fact that I could start painting again itself is immensely satisfying. Now that I have crossed the first hurdle, I plan to paint more. So expect more..

Here is the one I painted

Spin your web

In one of my earlier posts I had talked about man made and natural, and actually I had talked about birds weaving their nests etc. Today I saw one such act of nature live.

There was a spider which had decided to make its home in my garden. So it had begun its construction activities. Spider Webs comes in different types. So this one in my garden, I guess, belongs to Aranaidae family which spins spiral orb webs.

The striking factor of this whole "construction" activity was the speed. This guy was amazingly fast. He/she spun the web which had a diameter of about a foot and a half in just around 10 mins, that too with amazing precision. It is a pity I did not record it on video.

It was too dark at that time, but I managed to get a good picture of the construction. Looks like he did not take a day off on May Day/Labor Day (Read my earlier post) :-P

May Day

Today is May Day, the first of May. May day is celebrated by many communist and socialist nations as the workers day. But actually it has spread to many countries which are not communist or socialist too and they celebrate it as a Worker's Day.

Today I too have a day off at work on account of May Day. I work in the software industry where there is no such concept as unions or the like. Even we were awarded a day off for the "Worker's Day or Labour Day". But then I found that the actual people who do the more intensive labour were really not given a day off. There was a huge construction going on near my house and the construction continued as any other day. I had an electrician come to my house for some work and he was working too. So did I see many other people working as usual even on "Labour Day".

Should they not be the people who should get the day of first before us?

Sky wars

The sky wars are raging... Indian skies have opened up for the various airlines and now there are many airlines offering services both to the premium customers and low cost customers. Now there are so many airlines to choose from to fly. Now that options are high, so is the marketing to woo the public.

This was one of the set of hoardings seen in Mumbai, depicting the sky wars. Superb.. marketing

India's world cup cricket debacle

India exited out of the Cricket World Cup 2007 early.. too early than the whole world expected. Anyway.. I am an ardent cricket fan and a great supporter of the Indian team, so naturally I am too upset about the whole episode. I was so upset the next day after the debacle that I hardly found anything interesting to do. So I don't want to ramble on further about this.

But I found something very funny. This piece is making rounds on the radio stations and I found it hilarious, not sure whether the cricketers will, but what the heck.

Enjoy..

The Ubiquitous Airtel Jingle

Way back in 2002 when we first saw this ad on TV, it blew the Indians of their feet. I think no other ad jingle was ever so popular.

It was and is still so popular that various morphs of this basic tune is still making the rounds in the ads.
It is the single most popular downloaded mobile ringtone.
Lots and lots of cars use this tune as their backup alarm.
I have even seen house bell ringers with this tune.. and many more.

A truly amazing piece of music from Rahman as usual. What is more surprising is that this is just an ad jingle, not even a movie OST or an album, and it is so popular.


Also I found so many user reproductions of this tune on the net. Enjoy some of them.

See the original one ad where it all started




Some later versions

airtel blackberry ...

Some user reproductions

Weekend Blues

Another of the long weekends whizzed past me. Every time I come close to a weekend I plan to do some of my long pending, or let me say, long planned activities, but many times they do not materialize. This weekend was a rather hectic sprinkled with some periods of illness.So in effect another weekend which went by without a lot of my "long pending" activities. The weekend had social visits and also some mandatory activities which needed to be done.

But again, I did not do what I had planned to do. Now that it is Sunday night, I am feeling bad that I lost another of the weekend.

Have you guys felt the same?

Gladiator

I have always liked many kinds of music except hard rock and anything harder than that :-) . I like Indian Classical Carnatic music and also many of the other non conventional music which is normally classified as "new age" or "world music" genres. I just wanted to share some of such music which I like. So let me start with one.

Gladiator Main The...

This is the OST of the blockbuster "Gladiator". I like the movie a lot and of course the theme music too. It has varied emotions in it of both pain and calmness. I don't understand the language, not sure what is being sung, but I can just feel the emotions from the music itself. Another of the great pieces from Hans Zimmer.

Listen to it..

Saying the right thing

A forwarded joke..

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A guy woke up at home with a huge hangover. He forced himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he saw is a couple of aspirins and a glass of water on the side table. He sat down and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed.

Rohit looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotless, clean. So is the rest of the house. He takes the aspirins and notices a note on the table.
"Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to go shopping. Love You!"

So he goes to the kitchen and sure enough there is a hot breakfast and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating. Rohit asks, "Son, what happened last night?"

His son says, "Well, you came home around 3 AM, drunk and delirious. Broke some furniture, puked in the hallway, and gave yourself a black eye when you stumbled into the door".

Confused, Rohit asks, "So, why is everything in order and so clean, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me? I should expect a big quarrel with her!"

His son replies, "Oh, that! Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your clothes n shoes off, you said , "hey !!!!!!! leave me alone! I'm married!"

Moral
Breakfast -- Rs. 100.00
Self-induced hangover -- Rs. 2000.00
Broken furniture -- Rs. 20,000.00
Saying The Right Thing While Drunk - "PRICELESS" !!!!!!!!!!!!

Blind Spiders !!

What do you think a spider can do that too a blind one? It has actually stopped the progress of setting up a mine worth $10 Billion. This is in Western Australia where a new iron ore mine was being setup. As part of the excavations they found few species of this spider and they were deemed as endangered species. Hence the mining has been put on hold. So what is so special about this spider?

These species of spider are a form of animals called troglobites. These animals apparently live only in pitch darkness, i.e. total darkness. They live underground in caves mainly. These animals cannot survive the normal sunlight even for minutes as they are affected by the ultra violet rays. They have adapted themselves so much to this kind of environment, that many of such troglobites do not have functioning eyes anymore. Many of them also seem to have lost pigmentation, i.e they do not have colors and are translucent. These animals feed upon few organic material found in the crevices and cracks in the rocks and also from left overs of food of other animals which frequent the caves. So these animals seem to be very much dependent on their local ecosystem that any kind of tampering with it could cause them to be killed.

This fragile ecosystem of these creatures has led to the holding of mining as it would destroy their ecosystem and hence the species itself.

What I find very interesting in this itself, is the nature of these creatures. They seem to thrive only in darkness. These guys have developed other senses like strong sense of smell, vibration sensors etc. which are needed in the dark environs over their eyes. Nature has so many different types of creations.

AT & T and Cingular

Cingular, one of the largest Mobile Service provider in USA is going to be renamed as AT & T. In this age of mergers and acquisitions, these name changes have seem to become common. But the history of this is pretty hilarious.

Watch this.. :-)

Cold Water Showers

Another of the trivia I heard the other day on the drive back home,

"Cold Water Showers gives better character to a person"

Wow !!! I am sure this is a joke. :-). But then I did some research on this.

We know that in India, yoga advocates cold water showers (at least normal temperature) showers in warmer climates. Basically it rejuvenates the body and makes the blood circulation better. But then it does not talk about character :-). Also there was a Bavarian monk, Father Sebastian Kniepp, who professed the positive effects of cold water bath. He apparently used to jump into ice water to cure his lung infection.

There was a study/experiment which was conducted in the Hannover Medical School, which tried to find the effect of cold water bath. The results in fact emphasized Father Kniepp's theory.

None of these talk about character. I guess the person on the radio meant that Cold Water Bath gives a person a "kool" character. :-)

Women Talking !!

Today on my drive back from work, I heard a trivia on the radio. The topic was about why women complain that the men do not talk to them as much they want. It has been and I guess will be an universal grouse which women will have against men.

On an average, a woman speaks 20000 words per day while the man speaks 7000 words per day. Ooops thats lot of difference.

But lets face it, it is a scientific fact. According to Dr. Louann Brizendine, in her book "The Female Brain", says that this starts from womb. Apparently the effects of testosterones on the brain to start with plays part in this behaviour of men and women.

So let us not blame it on the men for talking less, it is scientific. :-)

Freakonomics

I am not a great book reader. I somehow "lack the patience", you might say, for reading books. I feel it is a rather slow process. It is not that I read slowly, I read pretty fast. I did quantify it too the other day :-). But then it still seems slow compared to watching visually. The data transfer I feel is much faster in case of video. Even if I read books, I don't go near fiction, movies are better :-).

But offlate I have started reading much to my own surprise. I still read only non-fiction though. One of the recent books I read was "Freakonmics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.

As one can guess from the title, it talks about "Freak Economics". But actually it is a real eye opening kind of look at various things which we take for granted and assume the common knowledge about it. The book emphasizes on one thing, "numbers speak more than just plain words". The author(s) say how a look at the data of a certain aspect of life or society can tell a different story than the way we know it. They call what we know generally as "conventional wisdom". It brings out the fact that how this "conventional wisdom" is so wrong when we just get to the bottom of the thing with data and numbers.

The book at the outset is structured more like a blog. And as rightly claimed by the authors it does not have a central theme. I guess, the earlier paragraph in this topic is the closest to the central theme we can get of this book. This might not be liked by some purist readers but then that is how it is. I did not mind. :-0

The authors have asked completely non related questions on different topics and showed how they are actually linked, that too by hard data. The topics range like the similarity between school teachers of the public schooling system in USA and Sumo wrestlers in Japan. It talks about parenting myths etc.

Now then I guess I liked this book simply because I am myself like that. I generally fish for numbers before making decisions. I feel calculated decisions based on data or for that matter analysis of certain event/topic based on data rather than just gut feelings and "conventional wisdom" are more accurate.

I can recall one such incident long back in my career where I felt how the data makes a difference. We had tried to emphasize on our management against a certain decision in our project. We had met the managment umpteen number of times had many meetings and brainstorming sessions in trying to convince the management against the decision which had been taken. We were well into the project cycle and we were still unable to reverse the decision.

Then one fine day I hit upon an idea and made some impressive charts based on hard data from many tests and extrapolations from that. The charts immediately showed that the path we were following is not the right one for the project. That was it. The approach was changed by the end of the meeting. We had prevailed; or was it we or the "data". It was surely the data and its presentation. All our earlier meetings were only talks about feelings and common knowledge. But that was not exactly quantifiable. The moment we were able to put it in numbers it hardly took us time to convince the management.

This exactly is emphasized in Freakonmics too. The fallout of reading this book has reiterated by belief in numbers and its use.

Read the book guys. BTW there is a blog too hosted by the authors.

Perspectives !!

Have you ever thought about how each one of us have different perspectives about the same thing?

One such incident.. some more than 10 years ago, Indian currency notes had Mahatma Gandhi only on rupee notes of denominations Rs 500 and more. And one fine day almost all rupee notes right from Rs 5 to all denominations upto Rs 1000 started to have Mahatma Gandhi on them.

In a casual conversation with my friend, I just pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi has now come down to Rs 5 from his Rs 500. But my friend immediately quipped, "Yeah.. but now Mahatma Gandhi is with more people".


What a different perspective? I was surely stumped by it. A much different thought .. and I must add a much more positive one...

Hats off... man !!

Santa jokes

Posting some forwarded Santa Jokes.. Hilarious... :-)

What is Common between : Krishna, Ram, Gandhiji & Jesus..?
Sardarji Replied : All are Born on Government Holidays.
*****

Sardar bought a new mobile. He called everyone from his Phone Book & said
"My Mobile No. has changed .. Earlier it was Nokia 3310 Now it is 6610"
*****

Santa : I am a Proud Sardar, My son is in Medical College
Banta : Really, what is he studing
Santa : No is not studying, they are Studying him.
******

Santa falls in luv with a nurse... After much thinking, he finally writes a

love letter to her: "I luv u sister."

*****


Pappu, while filling up a form: Dad, what should I write against mother
tongue.?
Santa: Very long!
*****

Santa was caught for speeding and went before the judge.
The judge: What'll you take 30 days or Rs 3000.
Santa: I think I'll take the money.


*****

Q: How do you recognize Santa's son, Pappu, in School?
A: He is the one who erases the books when the teacher erases the board.


*****

Santa & Banta got tired of mobile & decide 2 use pigeons.
1day a pigeon reaches Banta without message.
Angry Banta calls Santa!
Santa: Oye, this was a missed call

*****


Q: Why was Santa writing the exam near the door?
A: Because it was an entrance exam.

*****


Santa: My dad was an extremely brave man. He once entered a lion's cage.
Banta: He probably got a lot of applause when he got out.
Santa: I didn't say he got out.

*****

ಮುಂಗಾರು ಮಳೆ

Kannada films are coming of age. Some nice movies coming out and even more nice is the music for some of these films.

"Mungaru Male" (Monsoon Rain) is one such movie. I like this song especially. It is amazing music by Mano Murthy. Sonu Nigam has done an extremely good job in singing a Kannada Song.

Enjoy..

Sou-run Ganguly

Who would have thought Ganguly would be back in the Indian team and that too in the helm of the affairs an year ago? I certainly did not. I did have a thought that he would do a few "try-to-comeback" test matches and then finally hang his boots. But he has proved me wrong. I guess he has proved many of us wrong.

He is back with a bang. At his age and also after all the humiliation and controversies he went through, his comeback that too in such a fashion is really admirable. It is showing the character of the person. He has really applied his will and used all his cricketing skills to be back in the Indian Team. He played quite a few domestic cricket matches and then proved that he still has the mettle.

Let us see his past few matches vis-a-vis his career,

Test Matches
------------         Mat  Runs  HS   BatAv 100  50
                  -----------------------------
Career                91  5435 173   40.86  12  27
ComeBack Matches       3   214  66   42.80   0   2

One Day Internationals
----------------------
                    Mat  Runs  HS   BatAv 100  50
                 -----------------------------
Career              285 10412 183   40.99  22  63
ComeBack Matches      9   380  98   54.29   0   4

Today his batting is back like his olden days when he used to take the bowlers apart. He is generally a good hitter of the ball and it is good to see him back in that mode. He has become one of the more consistent run scorers.

I just have to hand it to his courage. After all what he had gone through, whether he was the cause for it, may be he was, but he has come out of that rut and he is in full flow again.

Every person seems to have bad patches at some point or the other and the true character of the person is shown when he can weather the storm and come out of it stronger than before. And Sou-run Ganguly has done it. Kudos Sourav...


P.S. I found this expreession "Sou-run Ganguly" in one of the placards in the Visakhapatnam match. Apt for this..

Anbe Sivam - Movie Review

I saw this Tamil movie Anbe Sivam (Love is God) starring Kamal Hassan and Madhavan again on TV. This movie is a 2003er directed by Sundar C. The movie is loosely based on Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This must be the 4th or 5th time I have seen this.

This movie is about how two guys Nallasivam (Kamal Hassan) and Anbarasu (Madhavan) who were supposed to come from Bhubaneshwar to Chennai by plane get stuck due at the airport due to a storm and then try other modes of transport. They are unable to take the train and then try taking the bus and then train to reach Chennai. This is where the similarity between Anbe Sivam and Planes, Trains and Automobiles ends.

The movie is more about the clash of the characters of Nallasivam and Anbarasu. Nallasivam is an idealist/communist while Anbarasu is brought up in a capitalist environment and talks about money, credit cards and the like. The movie is more about how these two get along or forced to rather to reach their main goal of reaching Chennai on time.

I dont want to sound like another normal movie review, but I just wanted to talk about a few things which were striking in the movie.


Kamal Hassan's acting. About 80% of the movie he plays a victim of an accident. The accident has left him with one leg shorter than the other, bad looking scars on his face and a continuous twitch on his cheek. All through this part of the movie he has this limping walk and the twitch which he generates once every 30 seconds on his face. It is a stellar performance just to keep this kind of thing going all through the movie. He also has an ugly looking spectacles on him. It makes him look so ugly. I always used to wonder, very few heroes, let themselves be portrayed in such an ugly manner. But Kamal does not care I guess. He lets his acting speak. Surely it has spoken volumes in this movie.


The other thing I want to talk about is the dialogues in the movie. The dialogues all through the movie has both the element of comedy and constant conflict between the two protagonists. The timing of the dialogues is another hallmark. Both Kamal and Madhavan have done very well in this aspect. There many instances which is worthy of quoting. Lot of them makes sense only when it is told in Tamil but then some can be told. One of them is after Madhavan would have tried to save the life of a child by donating blood, but then the child dies.

Madhavan : Not sure whether you beleive in God, but I am sure why God would do this and kill the boy. (Then he realises that he is abusing God). But God is great. BTW, you dont believe in God do you?

Kamal: Yes I do.

Madhavan: Oh Really, who is your God?

Kamal : (Gestures in the direction of Madhavan)

Madhavan: (Preplexed)

Kamal: You. You tried to save the child. I see God in your love. You are a good man.

Madhavan: Hmm.. (smiles) You know, you are a good man too.

Kamal: (immediately) I know (smiles)

Madhavan: (chuckles) Ah, You are amazing. You are last word freak.

This expression of Madhavan is towards the end of the movie as all through the movie he has at the receiving end of the such comments where Kamal always ends with the last word. In a seemingly simple sequence of dialog would have normally ended with what Madhavan would have said or may be a "Thank you" from Kamal but "I Know". The movie is strewn all over with such situations.

The other most striking factor of the movie is the screenplay itself. It is very clean knit movie with no pieces of drags in between where we would think of stepping out. All the actors also have underplayed most of their parts as their characters demanded. This makes for a very entertaining and also a soul searching movie.

Acoustic Levitation

I came across this article in "How Stuff Works". I did not know such a thing existed. This is called "Acoustic Levitation", the act of making something float in air with sound :-) . Nice reading.

It uses the property of standing waves caused by interference due to the reflection of sound waves.

Enjoy..

Divine Intervention ??

Sethusamudram project in the southern coast of India is an ambitious project of the Government of India. It is some what like the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, but not really that overwhelming.

The small strip of sea between India and Srilanka near Rameshwaram on the southern coast of India is the site for this project. In this straits passes the legendary Rama's bridge or Adam's Bridge. This bridge is chain of islets and limestone shoals connecting the land masses of India and Sri Lanka. According to Hindu mythology, this bridge was built by the Vanara sena of Rama, en route to Sri Lanka to free Sita from Ravana. It was built by the monkey army, under the architectural guidance of Nala and with the help of Hanuman (the most illustrious from the Vanara Sena) too.



Now the Sethu samudram project aims at deepening this strait at certain points to allow the passing of huge ships so that they do not have to go around Sri Lanka to go from west coast to the east coast of India. This means that Rama's bridge has to be dredged to make it deeper.

After lot of legal battles pertaining to environment and monument protection etc. the project started couple of years ago. As part of the dredging, the spud used broke down at one point. A tug crane called Thangam was sent to remove the sunken spud. But the crane Thangam also broke down while trying to rescue the spud.


Now they are calling even bigger crane for rescue ... Guess what the name of the crane is .. Hanuman :-) Some Divine Intervention from the creator of the bridge himself :-)