Sorry i am late.. just slept offff

We indians have the habit of turning up late at every occassion. except for the occassion when there is free feast in the offerring - here we are bang on time. We indians do have some competition from mexicans and some south americans who tend to arrive late. but where ever you go you will end up finding one indian who happens to beat even mexicans and the others - torch bearers huh?

In my case , ex 2 in a group of 9 every one turns up late. and the fact is i can predict to 99% accuracy how long each of them will be late. and in all there is one person who always turns up at the end.. and when i say late is LAAAATTTEEEEEEE... to give a picture of the extent ..yesterday we were all called for a lunch get together @ 1:00 .. this gentleman, lets call him X turns up at 3:10.  others were not bad either . turning up between 2:15 and 2:30. but turning up @ 3:10 and making a group fo 35 people wait was disgusting.

now X has had this habbit of being late at all times... call him at times and he turns up 1.5 hours to 2 hours late. not because he was held up at work or was given last minute intimation. and he turns up shamelesslly 2 hars later and doesn't even have an aorta of apologetic feeling. jaise ki aakar use koi apne par ehsaan kiya ho..

I get really really furious when someone turns up late .. that too this late. thats the respect you have for someone's time. All the while someone hs been waiting for you and you give a damn for the other person's time. and this is not a cultural thing. i would called it heights of arrogance.  the worst is when he calls , he expects people to be on time. now i dont get this logic. why cant you give the same respect and appreciate some other person's time when you expect others to respect yours.

Coming late might be inconsequential , but in the grand scheme of things , we send out such a bad perception and message to others ,, other cultures... and it really hurts when people from other nationalities redicule you for this aspect.

btw this guy turned up exactly at the momment lunch was served :-)

Facebooooooked!!!!

Is The worst biggest time wasting medium making people more disconnected? Are we losing our personal touch.. Are we Indians losing what we once considered ‘ such aur dukh ko apas mein baatke jeene wale ek Samudai’?
The world is increasingly turning towards facebook for each and everything. Sometimes I feel has facebook made people forget simple things in Life.
Ya FB has been of help on many occasions .. Information has reached fast when needed. But at the same time comes with its unnecessary baggage. Its so irritating sometime when people end up putting every step of their life in FB. Jaise ki ek life story banarahe ho... Whats the big deal if you had vada pav or sarson ka sag or had 2 pints of beer or meet some crazy idiot in some party..and add on top of this people liking it or commenting on whatever nonsense that has been done. Some times vadivelu sollarthu right thaaan.. – ‘ippiddi usuppu ethi usuppu ethiye nammala loosu paya aakittanga pola’ ...
But coming back to loss of basics.. simple things.... People has started using FB for every life movement. Somewhere in this I see there is a loss of personalisation.. Anything in life FB pe dalo. Birthday party , celebration for promotion, engagement invite... some people send wedding invites through FB. Create an Event on FB and invite all on ur friends list... arrey its such a momentous occasion give ur friends a call and hand them a nice invite . make it personal so that ur friend also feel special ...
nahi karini humko aise FB hai na comes the answer ..
IMHO its making people more individualistic and self cantered and disconnected. I categorically said to some geeks in my friends – I WILL never create an FB invite... Ok this all is fine. Some point of time I can accept..
But it really got disgusting and made me super angry when I saw people posting condolence messages on the FB wall.. Heights!!!
So I recently came to know that one of my juniors’ had lost one of her loved ones. I went into her FB page to pick up her phone number if it was there and to my shock I found people posting condolence messages on her FB wall. Now folks there should be a sense of what you use FB for.. If you really are concerned then why don’t you give a call to that person and give her some support. I would consider rushing down and meeting them when time permits. Ok leave call or meeting atleast write a personal e mail to them . I found this act of people putting condolence on FB irritating beyond limits. Do we just have so much respect for a person’s life and emotions?
It sometimes feels like ‘ naanum dhukkam visarichu support kooduthen statement vidara mathiri irukku’.
People there should be some place where you draw a line on how to use / for what to use Social networking. Its social – doing something collectively. Not for some of the personal things in Life. Its kind of become a fad to say I put it on FB and this is found out. Come on folks there is a limit.
I am seriously concerned and worried now to what level will people take this.

My experiments with my cam

I long wanted to shoot the St Pauls cathedral @ night. finally one friday evening I decided to head out and shoot.

from the tate modern and then from teh millenium bridge... but finally this snap came well.

i missed my tripod , but the bag helped..

my complete exploits :-) . https://picasaweb.google.com/112559285718105028455/Experiments29thJuly?authkey=Gv1sRgCOCMupzBirWGKA

i shoudl come back with more night shots

College Nicknames

REC days were fun with nicknames. if you dint have a nickname in , then it was sort of ' you are aloof ' not part of a close group. And once your nickname gets set, you are known only by that name even many years after you pass out. People can recognize you only by nickname sometimes and u end up saying their real names they might not recognize who this was..

And recently i met a couple of my seniors and was chatting with them and got so used to talking in nicknames that , accidentally i wrote to one of my juniors ask her to get in touch with some one - saying 'get in touch with loco' . she was bamboozled and called back to ask whose nick name is it and thats when i realised that in the flow , i had actually told my senior's nickname. Being a rectian , i know even he wont mind.

So that got me to this topic of nicknames. during my batch we had a lot of wonderful nick names espcially in my gang.. And your's truly happened to be the creator or populariser of amny of these names.. All these were formed accidentally.. and true to its history of nicknames, some that stayed with people even after 2003. even now some people are confused if i say the name

so here goes some of my nicknames - its my gang so they wond mind

the one that takes the cake , My roomie for 2 years and benchmate for 4 years Ganesh - K Mani which got formatted into Mani. the story behind the K cant be shared in a public forum.. even now he curses me for the name and all the 300 odd folks in Lapis pearl and ruby knew him as Mani

Next one is my other bench mate - Karadi - yes we had a kind of a mini zoo ... his thick beard earned him the name karadi

next one my roomie - marudu - Puli Pandi - Puli thank usha devi our first year physics teacher for yoru name. the person behind this name was Viritha - Vijay.. he came from virudhachalam to Virutha... on similar lines Kumba for Imaya as imaya came from kumbakonam. same stayed with murali - mannar coz he came from mannargudi.

ramesh - he was authoritative so Natttamai - got shortened to nats. one day a very active kumbas asks nats - nattamai un unmaiyana peru enna da.. thats was it.. incidentally ramesh elder brother studied with us , so by rule he became periya nattamai. his younger brother - Kutti Nattamai :D..

then came the man roopesh - Ooty beggar - got shortened to Ooty -- why ?? he used to walk around with a torn jean..

then comes ram - Bonda - he apparently got a proxy rose on 14th feb from opal - so became Bonda

Karthi was short - so chitra kullan , vivek - Bholla why- in the movie 5* there is a fat guy whose name is bholla, Seethu was called Andavayan. paulraj was known palrani ... mohan - chiyan

some other meorable names include Dollar , Boiler , Funda, deisel , baba.. these names stay even till date.

but we dint stay quiet we had nicknames for some staff and that was the best..

we were the notorious people from chem .. we could keep names :D. one of my profs was called mayandi , another thee chatti thalayan all these are courtesy raja.. the best was for one of the lab assistants - pambu Vayan( you all know who it is :D). the best was for a mech prof - he used to be called pura koottu thalaiyan.. a comp sci guy was called C mandaiyan ...

So embeded are these names in my brain as well as others that any day we sit round a table for a coffee we call all these names once.. these names are just from a gang of 20 people... there were 450 names... opening the REM book will remind me of those wonderful names and days..

So waiting for the next time i meet a big bunch of rec folks to call out those wonderful nicknames....

Some interesting facts !

Thought for a change let me present some stupid facts . esp about companies which i found interesting . looking at the way most companies have diversified in completely unrelated products. Sometimes companies do diversify into radically unrelated areas in contrast to the brand and product line they are famous for. There are a lot of such brands but these are some of the ones i came across .

First of All – Durex – yeah the largest condom and sex toys company has one product in a completely unrelated segment to its core products – any Guesses – its the company which manufactures woodwords gripewater – yeah the gripewater which babies have.
McD – Again i found this interesting. McD has earned the reputation on utter unhealthy food thro burgers and Chips and soft drink has another brand in its portfolio which sells again food in a radically different segment - Pret A Manger. Pret has earned the reputation for fresh and healthy food. And its not fast food. In corporate circles Pret food is considered a proper lunch.
Again Burgers – Burger king was once for a loooong time owned by Diageo – the largest spirit maker – think of the brands Guinness , Smirnoff, gordon’s Gin

Now over to chocolates – Mars – the manufacturer of snickers, mars, bounty and numerous other confectioneries – which are enjoyed my people from All age groups, has a couple of products in again a radically different category. Mars in the manufacturer of Pedigree – Dog food. It has a brand in cat food as well. ( now don’t ask how this is manufactured)

Talking about diversification – like the Nano Jaguar – Another brand . Selfridges – the luxury store in comparison to Harrods is owned by the Weston Family. The family also owns another huge chain of shops thro its company ABF – Primark. The low cost retailer.

Royal bank of Scotland for a matter of fact at a point of time, in its hay days in 2007 owned a fleet of trains – Angel Trains which was later sold off. And more wierd they own 900 pubs across UK which are worth £600 million.

as and when i gather more of such facts.. will write

The green chudi - the first REC Trichy Reminiscence

Saturday morning morning subbu sent me this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky9SatRoyCY&feature=player_embedded

The moment I heard this song and saw the video – in the 10th second my question to him was – ‘Ponnu details irukka’. Iyerathu ponnu pesi pakkalaam. And I got the same response from a few of them to whom I forwarded.

Later in the evening I got chitra kullan online and forwarded the link. The moment he saw the video he replied – "Guru – enakku ivangala paartha, malaikotai la green color chudi potta ponnu gnabagam varudhu:). -- aama. indha paatu, andha ponnu paadnaalum perfect aa synch aagum:)."
Woooow... he had reminded me of one of those moments... rewind 12 years back...........

An October Saturday evening.. I was 5 weeks into REC and for the fear of ragging (yeah I was a bit cautious after I had seen a few cases in the 1st 4 weeks) did not venture out much into the city. Then suddenly some 5 of us decide to get out to see how trichy is. Aavartha pappom da ...
So me , kullan , mani , basha and suresh made our first trip to malaikkottai. There was no special agenda .. Just roam around mela teru and kadaivaasal and come over.
We then decided to get into mela veedhi and get down on the other side of the mountain thro andal veedhi.
It was around 5:30 pm. We entered thro malai vasappadi – and like the locals carried the chappals in the hand and did an ara-pradashanam of pullayar and headed up to mela veedhi. we entered the agraharam.. As usual 5 guys – we were walking like a band of brothers talking loudly.. being an agraharam , all the mami’s were keeping velakku in the madaparais.. and some mamis were venturing out to the sainkala poojai..
The sun was just setting, but there was this evening light in the sky. We turned round the first right corner and walked. We had not walked 10 ft, and we suddenly noticed a beautiful girl walking in the opposite direction. Tall, fair and slim. Should be 20 or max 21. She was wearing a forest green colour chudi..duppatta slightly floating in the evening breeze ( surprising in trichy)thalai pinni poo pottu vachu..- ISI stamped, proper “ Iyer aathu ponnu “. She lifted her right hand to adjust her right earring a bit while walking. (A la last scene of pehla nasha song when ratan’s girl friend comes to see him) all 5 of us just fell silent and walked (obviously looking at her).
The moment she crossed us all 5 of us looked at each other – all at the same moment - gave a smile and walked. Still silent for another 100 mts.
We had not even hear her speak – not even to the agraharam folks. Just passed by.
Back to present - reminiscing the memories , I replied him back-- aamada. indha paatu, andha ponnu paadnaalum perfect aa synch aagum:)
The whole incident lasted probably a minute. But that was one of the first of best college memories. Till this day me and kullan remember her face distinctly. We just know her as green chudi!

Bad luck hii kharaab hai!!!

Murphy’s law works very well with me. Saala har bar had se jyada hota hai. Hard luck!!!!!
In movies when the lead character travels by train, he has a heroine in the bogie or even in the same coupe. And there are other people as well in the compartment.
So when I was in REC I used to go to have a long journey from trichy to Mumbai. A long 32 hr train. Not even one good female in the nearby compartments. All the ladies used to be old paattis or small kids. My bad luck was I always travelled with retired people in my coupe. And this happened all the 8 semesters up and down.
Ok that was bad luck. Things might have changed when I travel abroad. BUT NO. Whenever I do long distance air travel I usually board last once all have settled. I walk through the aisle as mine is usually in the last leg. From the distant I see two seats with good women sitting. Once I go I end up finding my seat in the row in the middle of the 2 seats. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.. This time I would have someone who snores heavily sitting next to.. isshhhhhh this is bad.
Cursing my luck I moved on.
Beech mein I stopped this alaipayum eyes and brain to focus on doing something worthwhile. And since my cash flow was negative I always booked flights that went wierd routes .. some times Germany, turkey and so all airhostesses were out of range for sight adichufy. So all settled now with a hunky dory job , travelled to India this time. And by chance I booked Jet this time. Thought this time round I will do some good round of kadali pottufying with some good air hostesss on the flight – anyways i hate sitting in the flight. So with a lot of energy entered the flight – greeted by a beautiful air hostess. Arrey Sahi Hai!!! So went into my economy cabin and settled and looked around who is incharge of this bay.. dekha THO IT WAS ALL STEWARDS!! WHAT THE HELL!!! %$^&*(^&^%^$^%&* .. same case in return as well!!!
Ise kehte hain mera bad luck bhi kharab hai!!!