A Melifluous Morning….Well, almost!

Its 6:15 AM in the morning. I am standing in my balcony with my cup of tea, biscuits and a good book. The weather is just perfect. Its gloomy, not warm, not cold, the right amount of chill in the breeze and the gentle breeze that touches you every few seconds and makes the skin feel Goosebumps.

The crickets or whatever insects are hissing like kinder garden kids in the last bench whispering to each other in the presence of a teacher. The birds have starting tuning up and are slowly starting their orchestra. Each bird has a unique sound. One whistling, one cooing, one crowing, one sounding like a flute. A couple of women are going for a walk. The sound of their heals going “churk” “churk”. At a distance, I thought I could faintly hear Skanda Shashit Kavasam, a tamil religious song. I am not sure if the song was my imagination. But, in all, the sounds were slowly coming together to make a perfect symphony.

My mind waking up slowly enjoying the morning raga. Ah! the freshness of a beautiful morning.

The dogs started barking at a distance and then it happened. A van that came in to the EMPTY street but the fricking driver blaring the darn horn putting a full stop to the crickets, birds and every sound of nature. The peace in me vanished and my mind started foul mouthing that Ba*****. It just took a couple of seconds for that fool to spoil the happiness of so many souls.

Damn the dogs and God Damn the stupid, brainless human beings that cannot, for a moment, enjoy the beauty that is all around them. As Calvin says “The surest sign that intelligent life exists outside earth, is that they never tried to contact us”. True! I guess all the intelligent life exists outside the earth. Mother Earth! you are an unfortunate soul!

Hindi films come off age

Finally, I am beginning to see some sensible cinema in Bollywood. From the same old boring, illogical crap that has dominated the Bollywood movie scene, there has been some refreshing change.

Thanks to the young minds in bollywood that have decided not to follow the "Super Stars" crap with Sharukh, Amitabh, Abhishek etc. and doing some sensible stuff. It was so good to watch

1) Mumbai Meri Jaan

2) A Wednesday

Neither movies with the so called super stars and extremely sensible. I hope the trend continues and films get better and better.

Section 377 - Homosexual Law and Moral Policing

On the 9th of August 2008, Dr Anbumani Ramdoss, the honorable health minister of India had said that Section 377 which makes homosexuality a crime in India should be removed. His intention - AIDS is becoming a big threat for India; suppression seems only to increase the problem. Kudos Mr. Ramdoss, it is a good approach to solve a problem that is gravely threatening the country.

While Mr. Ramdoss has taken in to account the general well being of the nation, he has unfortunately forgotten to think about the plight of people who live their lives on depending on and misinterpreting to convenience, certain laws like this. These people are also known as the Moral Police. Moral police may be policemen or any body else who has the right to hit any body whoever he or she believes is not behaving according the moral/cultural values of the country. Now, you cannot ask me where these laws are written or who governs these. You can decide these laws on your own and beat anybody you feel like. All you need is a group of people who are jobless enough to join your jobless act and there are quite a few in India.

Anyways, this blog is not for me to explain how moral policing works but to help all of you understand the problems that the moral police are going to face just because we were concerned about the general well being of the country as against the specific well being of these people.

So, here is a scene that happens in a public park. There are few benches in the park and enter, the moral police (let us say a group of 5). Few benches where couples (man and woman) are sitting and talking. The others has 2 or more people of the same gender sitting and talking.

As of today i.e. with the law being there, the people who entered would go and harass the man and woman couples for misbehaving in a public place, beat them up and curse them till either the police intervene and take them away or the group (moral police) have had enough fun for the day.

When the law is repealed, the same park, same people. The group naturally suspects the man and woman couples.

• But the couple say that they should not harass only them since the 2 guys sitting in the next bench could be homosexuals since they are sitting as close as this couple are. So the moral police has to act against them too.
  


• The guys in the bench say that the 3 women sitting in the next bench could be homosexuals and the group has to harass them too.
  


• The women in the next bench get upset and ask the moral police to prove that they are not a group of homosexuals since they have all come together into the park.
  

Did anybody think of the gravity of this problem before thinking of repealing this section. We are creating a circular reference problem here just by correcting a law for the common good of people. Even the policemen cannot come together and harass a couple (man-woman or man-man or woman-woman) since if the policemen come together they have to prove that they are not a couple who came to the park to misbehave.

Gosh! I can keep writing on the impact of removing this article, on the entire society. It is natural in India for friends to put hands around the shoulders and talk. Women to hold each others hands and talk. Now all these have to be eyed with suspicion by the moral police and police. Maintaining Indian culture anywhere in public will be very difficult and now, the tables turn to the moral police to prove themselves innocent too.

Boy, oh boy!!! what are we getting ourselves in to?. Should we really eradicate AIDS by creating such a difficulty to all the guardian angels of the country's cultural values. Well, I guess some smart person in the moral police would have the answer. Any thoughts, anybody?

Real Madness!!!

Today, the name of my blog site made a very uneasy sense to me. I named the blog site thinking i am crazy but it is more than that. The entire world is so darn crazy!!!

So, i go in to office on Friday afternoon after lunching with some friends. I had heard some rumour that there had been bomb blasts in Bangalore. Once i get in to office, i come to know that there have been 5 explosions around Bangalore and 2 of them in less than 3 kms radius from my office. The first thing that was said was "Man, where do they get these bombs..in the petty shop outside??". There were jokes flying in the air and little bit of tension.

It made me feel very uneasy that instead of shock and panic, there was little fear and jokes flying around about the bomb blasts. The only reason is that we hear about so many of them every day that we have come to accept these as a normal occurrence. We have come to accept all of these madness!!!

The other thought that struck me
1) What is that these guys who plant these bombs hope to achieve?
2) What do these politicians and public (police/intelligence) achieve by being lax in their anti-terroris operations.

Do these people even know that all that they are doing is putting an end to this planet called earth? Do they even understand that their actions affect their own families which they dont seem to stop producing. We are killing planet earth in so many different ways everyday. Why do we need bombs and wars? To end the world faster. One tsunami and one earth quake killed thousands of people in a few minutes. As if that is not enough, these guys go around throwing bombs. Does any of these officials/politicians understand that these idiots who run around with bombs are going to kill their own families soon and they have to take an action to control these idiots soon?

Do such questions every get into the minds of the guys who run around with bombs or run the country? I wonder if i am too dumb and i am the only one asking such questions. Can i do something to put some sense in to the heads of any of these guys??

Hmmm.....may be i will write another blog when the whole country is dying in bomb blasts!...By gosh, this is darn real madness!!! I am sure we will succeed in putting an end to this planet soon and then, PEACE WILL PREVAIL!!!

The Cricket Blog -1

Its always interesting to see almost everybody in India being hyper active when it comes to cricket.

The audience cannot take anything peacefully be it a victory or defeat. Victory  and immediately some cricketers become demigods. Defeat and immediately the demigod is reduced to a useless weasel.The amount of hype a media gives some cricketers has spelled the players' doom. In spite of a number of doomed cricketers the experts (who probably have never played cricket) commenting on strategy, analyzing a player's mind and capabilities.

The current captain of Indian cricket team, i think, is the result of one such hype. The poor chap seems to be a nice guy but the way the media is treating him, chasing him and writing him, it would be a time for him to worry about his career in cricket. A couple of failures everybody will write him off.

And finally, it is the team by itself. I wonder if it is the public and media pressure, they keep trying to do something new to win a game and end up in disasters. The current series with Australia proved this.

a) There was verbal aggression which ended up looking silly and childish when it was not backed by substance. Suddenly, when they realized there is no substance, the aggression ended abruptly.But there was no display of aggression in what mattered the most, the game.

b) There were desperate changes in the batting order without allowing any batsman to settle down in one slot. This was also pointed out by a senior player in the opponent team. The surprise in this was that a batsman who had proven himself for over 10 years in a particular slot being shoved around in the order and finally even dropped for one game.

c) The team's thoughtless use of bowlers in not using the bowlers who have been the best on the day to bowl their full quota of overs.

All this proves one thing, the team is run by a bunch of unprofessional people who also lack common sense. Can someone take their brains back from their home and start using it please. The need of the hour, from a common-sense perspective, seems to be professionalism, confidence and mental strength which should automatically increase the aggression in the field.

It is not a big deal to lose a match or a series as long as a professional outfit displays their competitive capabilities and gives the opponent a run for their money. Neither is it a big deal to have one or two bad days at work but it is important that people get to see a consistent good effort.

Wow!!! another long blog that nobody but me is going to read :)

The Search Scare

I read an article in Reuters which talks about what are top search topics by country. This article is based on statistics published by Google. This has increased my recent fear about Internet and privacy. The more you search in some search engine, the more the search engine, the more they know about you. It is possible for the search engines to know more about yourselves that you yourself do.

One of my friends called me and told me that he tried to use windows xp's "Find" feature and one of his monitoring software reported that the search is trying to reach some IP which belonged to Microsoft. Strange, I thought!!

With the increasing use of Internet in almost every walk of life like shopping, banking, food and searching information, it is inevitable that our privacy will be completely compromised.

As in everything there are both good and bad in Internet but it is possible for any of these popular search engines to compromise your private information. Even if they put in a small program in your machine which tracks your daily work and reports it to their database, most of us casual users are not even going to be aware of this.

Scary!! But I guess we will probably have to live with this unless we take some small steps like not using the same search engine over and over (at least scatter the information till the search engines merge and share data), using some security tools to know which software is trying to send what information outside your computer etc.

Gotta go now..i have a to google up some information :(

Insha Allah

I am in Dubai on work now. I had a conversation with one of our vendors regarding some work that he had to help me finish. Just to give the readers (if in the unlikely scenario of someone reading my blog) the context, there was a part of my work that depended on he completing his part. So, the conversation was simply about when he would be able to come and complete the work.

Literally in every sentence he spoke, he goes like "Insha Allah, i would be able to do this", "Insha Allah, i would be able to come there tomorrow". It is not just this gentleman but also a few other people who I spoke to spoke the same way. Two things stuck me on this, one on a serious note and the other a funny part.

Let me write the funny part first. Btw, if you are a Muslim and you are reading this blog, let me first assure you I am NOT making fun of the religion nor am I making fun of Allah-The God.

So, here goes the funny part. If someone was incompetent at work but always said "Insha Allah, i will be able to do it"; I wonder if the person would be blamed for his incompetence and removed from his job or would that be, Allah did not so desire and hence the work was not done. I would probably say "Insha Allah, you are fired" and close the story.

On a serious note, it was amazing to see how he believes in that supreme power. If not for HIM, nothing would happen. If HE so desires everything would happen. The consistent stress on the fact that anything he does is because Allah makes him do it. I am simply amazed by the belief these people have in God and their respect to God. Awesome, truly awesome.

HappIness

It was fun watching the celebrations of India's victory over England in the cricket test series. It was really nice to see the happy faces of the poor cricketers who have been bashed so much by every Tom, Dick and Harry. I have noticed, in my career in the IT industry, how a team's victory brings joy to everybody. In that moment of victory, people forget all their interpersonal issues and just savour and enjoy the moment. Some victories also end long standing animosities.

A team's victory is a great feeling overall and the happiness is clearly reflected and while relishing the team's happiness I forgot some Indian cricket bashing questions myself, which is a good thing.

To me, it was another realization how someone's happiness, even if it was on a stupid TV screen, made me happy. I like being around people who are happy. I want to be happy so that other people around me can feel my happiness and become happy themselves.

The goal, finally, is to try and be happy as much as possible and keep everybody around me happy. Most of the times it is in hind sight we realize mistakes or inevitable circumstances which create unhappiness. But the only way I think is to move ahead just seeing what positives you can take out of it. This Indian team seems to have managed to do it after an almost certain defeat in Lord's.

As the script writer aptly points out in the movie "In Pursuit of Happyness", there is only an I in happiness, there is no "Y".

The Simpsons

I watched this movie "The Simpsons, the movie" yesterday. Outrageously hilarious movie is the only way i can describe it. My incompetency in English vocabulary limits my capabilities to explain it better.

The movie starts with making fun of the viewers, calling them idiots for watching something in a theatre that they can watch in TV everyday and that is the start of the Homer Simpson's outrageous antics.

From there on it takes us on a laughter filed 1.5 hours. Simple comedy and with good message. And, be careful, watch every scene and listen to every dialogue carefully lest you miss some of the wonderful subtle comedy.

I recommend it highly for a 2 hours of stress free time, the last 30 minutes to recollect the movie and laugh again :)

A sad state

I visited a temple in TamilNadu last week. This is a very old temple. I went on a Friday and there were number of visitors. The sad part was that the temple was so dirty and very poorly maintained. And what was worse? All the people who came there did not even seem to be bothered. This was my biggest disappointment. We seem to have accepted anything and everything as a way of life.

I think i should do something about it. There were a number of people asking for alms. I wonder if it would be a good idea to make them clean the temple and give them a pay and allow them to stay there. That might be a win win for everybody. Need to see if i can implement this plan.

He Goes, He Sees, SHE Conquers

A friend of mine told me this morning that he would be getting married soon and his life partner has been chosen. This blog is a result of our conversation this morning.

This is an arranged marriage. Well..all marriages are arranged in some way or the other but this is an Indian Arranged Marriage. For those who do not know...its a very simple process

Parents decide who their kids should marry... The boy or the girl, henceforth referred to as the victim, goes through the following process

Step 1: Horoscopes are exchanged between families (only in the same cast, creed etc). Nobody knows where all in the world the horoscopes have travelled. When matching horoscopes are found...the victims are shortlisted.

Step 2: The photos of the guy and the girl (victims) are exchanged by the families.

Step 3: Parents, Siblings, Grand old men and close relatives do the next round shortlisting by looking at the photos.

Step 4: One evening parents of the victim calls the victim with a huge smile on their face and present him/her with a white envelope. The entire family will now be looking at the victim, while the embarassed and shy victim skims through the photos and shortilists his/her prospective partner victim. In some cases, the victim may be lucky and may get an email with a zip file attachment containing the photographs and BioData (note: NOT CV or Resume) of prospective victims.This is an optional step and some families skip this.

Step 5: The male victim is invited to the house of the female victim or to a neutral venue (primarily to negate any advantage the female victim or her family may get) where the victims gets a chance to interview each other.

Step 6: After this the victims talk to their parents to give their consent to accept the other victim as their life partner...if one of them does not agree the process repeats either from step 4 if there are more prospective victims shortlisted or else it will repeat from step 1.

There is more to an arranged marriage ...but we have seen the process initation here and this blog is all about step 5.

This is where it happens ..He goes, He sees, SHE conquers. Some people say that SHE conquers his heart and some may say SHE conquers his life. I do not want to say what she conquers but "He Goes, He Sees, SHE Conquers" still holds good. What say, eh??

Note: This process is known to be working for straight (man and woman) relationships but there has been no recorded evidence of this process working for same sex marriages. Though i do not see any reason why it should not work :)

Acknowledgements: Mr.Saurabh Agrawal

OM Coffee

There is this small food joint called Food Days near my house. I go there for my breakfast occassionaly. The first time i went to this place i ordered my breakfast and a coffee. There is a gentleman by name Krishna who makes you your coffee. I requested him to make a cup of coffee and make it strong for me. He had an instant smile and he made my coffee. Finally signed it off with an "OM" . I hesitated to drink the coffee for a moment. I thought it was a nice art and i did not want to disturb the "OM". Bright smile, good coffee ...i think there are a number of small things that can make my day good. This surely is one of them. There are surely some nice people in this world and thank god for it.

Eighty-Sixing

One afternoon in Arizona, I had gone out for lunch with my friend. We gave our respective orders. My order was a one of those vegetarian sandwiches and i asked the guys to avoid mushrooms in my order. When the check was given to us my friend pointed out something interesting to me . My order was marked as "Garden - 86 Mushrooms". He explained that it was one of the common terms for excluding something. This term is used more often than not in restaurants. There are many stories about what is the background of using Eighty-Six. For details, please visit
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-eig1.htm

Another interesting usage in the restaurants which you may hear could be "A lonely boy on the raft".This means that someone has ordered for an egg with bread.

This takes the cake(?#$%#%%#) and the icing (#$%$#^$%#&^$&^%**&^*&^) and whatever. Imagine yourself at the breakfast table and asking someone "What is for breakfast" and the reply is "Shit on the Shingle". I am not joking "Shit on the single" means that you will get gravy with hamburger and bread, that is if you are still on the breakfast table after hearing what the name of your breakfast.

Being a veggie , i escape this superbly named breakfast while non-vegetarians you can enjoy your Shit on the Shingle :)

The Grand Canyon Railways

So, I decide to spend the weekend by paying a visit to “the Grand Hole” or the “big hole”, as the Arizonians would call it or the Grand Canyon as the rest of the world might know it. I had to drive to a little town called Williams and take a train from there to the south rim of the big hole. Williams was about 180 miles from Tempe, AZ. Without too many driving misadventures, I reached Williams at 9:15 AM. I had planned to visit the Grand Canyon and spend the night there and return the next day by Train to Williams. The Grand Canyon railways is almost 100 years old. They have these little trains which take you from Williams to the south rim of the canyon. Every coach has these coach executives who are very nice people and screamed funny instructions like “Gentlemen, make sure you use ONLY the men’s restroom which is at the rear end of the coach and also make sure you take the 2 extra seconds to flush.” They also talk to each passenger about what they should be doing after they get off the train...what activities they can do. The tell you a lot of trivia about the railways and the canyon etc..The GC railways also has singers who come to every coach and perform..which I thought was really good and each singer specializes in one kind of music. I got a chance to hear some old English songs and on my return another artist sang some folk songs of the native Indians.

And the lady, Victoria was talking for 2 hours 14 minutes and 57 seconds during the travel time of 2 hours and 15 minutes. I slept. When I got out, she politely said it was a pleasure having me in the train. Well, I am sure it was!!!

I rented a car. I am driving alone in the US for the first time. I had the support of google maps and yahoo maps. So, I drove from the airport to my hotel. All is well and I reached my hotel.

The next day I had to get to my office. So, checked the google map, wrote the directions down and started driving. I drove, drove and drove on. The 48th street seemed to have vanished. I see the 40th, the 44th but I can’t see the 48th. The cars were whizzing past me. Some drivers giving me a odd look and a few of them honking. Well…jet lag and all that stuff, it did not occur to me that when someone honks that it means that I have made a mistake. Twice around, I realized after about 15 minutes of driving that I have been driving around the same roads and streets. The tension was mounting since I had to follow rules of the new country and also get to my office. Finally, with the help of 3 kind souls I managed to reach the office. My client greeted my with a big smile when I told him that I was driving for about 2 hours. It was quite "interesting" to know that the office was just about 2 miles away from the hotel I was in.

Anyways, things started improving as I started driving more. I still kept missing streets and exits. But the improvement was that I knew that I have missed one in less than five minutes and I knew how to find my way back.

It was hilarious when I had to go to Grand Canyon. With the new found skill of mine to take the wrong exits or turns, I realized that I am on the wrong road. Again, this also with my special competency to that when I am on the wrong road, in about 15 minutes. Only that I had driven a fairly long distance since the speed limit was 75 miles an hour and as usual I was doing more than the speed limit (85 miles). So, I start working towards finding my way back. After 25 minutes, I reached my hotel and without realizing that I have reached my hotel before I saw the board. I lost an hour in that and I had a train to catch at 10 AM. I started all over and managed to reached the station at a fairly reasonable time and catch the train.

I came to Houston from Arizona. Houston did not seem to have as many signage like in Arizona which made it difficult. I was searching for a sign that talks about the speed limits while people were whizzing past me. So, I started driving faster too. I had to drive through the Sam Houston toll way. I did not realize initially that I am reaching the toll station and I was in the left most lane of the road and that is only for people who had exact change. So, with great difficulty I managed to reach the right most lane (had to cut 4 lanes) and paid the toll. As I happily started cruising, to my great irritation, comes another toll station. There we go. But there were only 4 cars ahead of me and I had exact change this time. So, I took the “Exact change only lane”. As I reached the machine which would eat my money and open the gate, the darned thing said “COINS ONLY”. God damn it, all I had was a dollar bill and 25 cents. To the irritation of the other car drivers I ran to the manned toll gate and got some change from the gentle man there and managed to get out. Oooof.. boy, frickin stooopid machines, I tell ya.

And now, the grand return to Houston IAH airport from my office in Houston. I started well ahead, @ 12:00 noon, to catch my flight @ 3:50 Pm. The distance 33 miles and the travel time about 35 minutes. It’s fairly simple, get on to the I-10, reach Sam Houston toll-way, take Beltway 8 East and you are at the airport. I reach the toll way, all is well and cruising happily. It’s 50 minutes and I have not reached the airport yet. There was some traffic and I am hoping that I would reach the airport soon. 1 hour and 15 mins and I suspect that I am lost. I get to a gas station and ask a gentleman, who was kind enough to confirm that I have missed Beltway 8. He asked me to go back. Airport is about “40 mins” from the there. So, I start going back. I reach a point which says Beltway 8. As soon as I enter, Beltway 8 splits into North and South. I decide to take Beltway south and start driving hoping to get to Beltway East. No luck after 20 minutes. So, I head back and try Beltway North for 15. No luck again. Okay, head back to Houston. Again, get into a restaurant’s parking lot and ask a person there. He goes “Oh! You are a long way away from the Airport, its at least 40 minutes from here. Take 59 and after 15 minutes you will reach the I-10 blah blah blah”. Time 2:15 and 40 minutes to the airport to catch an international flight at 3:50. I could not help laughing at myself. I decide that I should still get to the airport at least to change my travel date to the next day. So, I start again and finally by some magic reach the JFK boulevard and see the sign to the airport. By the time I returned my rented car, it was 3:00 Pm. I took a bus to the airport and reached the ticket counter at 3:10 Pm only to see people checking in still and to be told that the boarding would start in 10 and I should get to the boarding gate quickly. Lady luck had had enough of laugh and decided to be kind to me. The security check did not have a huge queue and I did not have to walk miles to get to my boarding gate. Wow!! Some experience it was. The only thing that I was surprised at the end of this was that i did not panic or feel the pressure instead I just laughed at myself and found the whole thing just too funny. Not bad, eh??

"Fon"due experience

Feeling bored of eating the same variety of food everyday, i suggested to a friend that we go to a reataurant and have something different. The restuarant we decided to grace happened to be a "global cuisine" restaurant where the service executives wear funny clothes. Since i had been to the restaurant before i strongly recommended to my friend that we should have Fondue there. Fondue is a swiss starter which is served for a group of people. A pot full of cheese is set in the middle of the table along with dry and tasteless bread. You are given a special gadget (a thin metal rod with a "v" shape at one end and a wodden handle at the other) to pick the bread, dip it in the hot cheese in the pot and eat it. Legend has it that the first person who drops the bread in the cheese would pay the bill (check -for people who speak only US english).

We look at the menu card and find the following
a) the Fondue is the costliest dish (Rs. 450/)
b) it is a starter
c) one portion would serve 4-6 people

After a serious thought process we decide that we would have the Fondue. He is 83 and i am 90 (i mean, in Kgs) and we firmly beleived that the Fondue cannot make a big difference to us. The service executive tried his best to control his chuckle and explain that it is a starter and it would be all that we could have if we ordered that. We said with a very straight face that it is okay and that is what we would have.

We were served our Fondue. The etiquette haters that we are ...we did not wait for the service guy to get our Fondue gadget and start eating the Fondue with a fork. My friend...takes the bread with the fork and dips it in the Fondue cheese and takes the fork out. Lo!!! we only see a cheese dipped fork and the bread goes missing!!! Ha! i thought "i dont need to pay today". My friend tries again think time with a bread and jalapeno dipped into the cheese pot..there we go the bread with cheese comes out while the jalapeno goes missing.The fondue is turning out to be a bermuda triangle for my friend. Now, the service guy brings the "Fondue Gadget" and we take it with a sheepish smile. The service executive vanished just unable to control his laughter.

My friend beams "I dont need to pay the bill since i did not have the right gadget to eat the Fondue" Now, there is another attempt by my friend to take a bread and another palatable item in the Fondue gadget and dips them in the cheese and there we go again.. the palatable item apart from the bread goes missing!!!

Slowly, he managed to win over the bermuda triangle. We managed to finish the bread. Our man does not want to get let the service guys clean the table until he solved the mystery of bermuda cheese. He gets up from his chair, uses his fondue gadget, fishes out (like a trained fisherman using his spear to catch the fish in a river) all the food that were swallowed by the cheese and swallows them himself along with the dripping cheese. Once he is satisfied that he got back all his property from the cheese he announced to me that "the Fondue experience has been a reasonable success". I looked at him and agreed quitely. The service executive convinced us that we should try the new desserts since they have a dessert festival and manages to convince us to spend more money. We eat a dark chocolate dessert and felt satisfied that we have done enought justice to the money we paid and also had a satisfying "Fon"due experience. I am fairly certain that the service exectives did not have any fun due after our visit.

Vowels catch a flu when it rains!!!!

This is a story of a friend who went to Goa. On a rainy day, my friend decides to explore Goa. Loads herself on a honda activa and loads another friend in the pillion and they take off. The rain god (is he?) started acting up when they did not want it. So, my dear friend and her dearest mobile were drenched .Now, the interesting part is the vowels in her mobile keypad stopped working. So, if she wants to send u a msg "why dont you come home" it would end up as "why dnt y cm hm" and if ur name is Ananthakrishnan you would end up as nnthkrshnn!! in her mobile. Dont ask me how someone would read that name. I have still not figured out if the vowels in the caught the flu or if it was her gray cells that forgot the vowels, a possibility i would'nt want to rule out. :)

Irrespective of whether the wet weather affected the gray cells of my friend or the vowel buttons in her phone, the point is wt wthr cn ffct th vwls nd vwls wll stp wrkng. S, bwr..

snt tht strng!!!

A!!!

She calls herself the terrible tapioca. She likes doing things her way . She gets along with people very easily. She has the enthusiasm to do things that most people much younger dont have. She taught me a lot of good lessons in my life. Read her blogs an and you will understand what i say. People who know her, know that i am not exaggerating.

Terrible tapioca... as i told you, you make me feel jealous all the time.

http://toconstantlywonderafresh.blogspot.com/

Nooooooos

News 1: Arranged love marriage - A new concept - Times of India

I read the head lines, read the headlines again...hmmm..do they arrange love or do they arrange marriage??? Its rather strange..an arranged love marriage is supposedly the intermediate period between the engagement and marriage of the couple. If the period is treated as a period for arranging love, the engagement should be broken if love does not get arranged...which means engagement is just as good as a contract.. but if the engagement cannot be broken...love is not arranged but just forced...as usual i did not understand "Arranged Love Marriage" :(

News 2: Shewag's technique questioned by an expert - Star News

I dont really know where these experts suddenly crop up to complain from. From the time Sehwag started playing he has never had any technique but just an amazing hand and eye coordination. At some point of time, he had to get into a slump..Now, when that has happened.. there are people analyzing his footwork, technique...and tell us that Sehwag does not have a good technique, does not have footwork etc etc..

Its amazing how a lot of us are happy to complain instead of trying to solve problems. I hear a lot of complaints at my work place and have heard it before..and in majority of the cases problems that can be solved by taking a simple action...i keep cribbing about a lot of things that i probably will never act on. People complain about how nothing changes...but do not get together to change things...not a good trend at all :(

The Idiot Box Stress

Watching television in recent times seems to be very stressful. While most of our careers are quite stressful and the workload takes a toll on us, the television just seems to be adding to it. At home, it has become a practice to switch on one of the news channels in the morning. The first thing you are most likely to hear in the news is bomb explosions in few parts of the world, arms and ammunitions recovered in some parts, a terrorist threatening the entire world sitting in a some desserted land with all the latest gadgets and we, the people get our day started with a feeling that a bomb could explode under our feet any moment.

Come back from a hard day's work and switch on the TV. News channels, there is a one hour debate about how pepsi and coke can be harmful. There are a group of people who are fighting in front of a camera to decide which is worse, pepsi or coke. Personally, i think bombs are ... I don't mind dying while drinking pepsi or coke. Switch to a cartoon channel there are four kids with some funny masks fighting some monsters... whatever happened to those simple funny cartoons like Donald duck, Mowgly etc..switch... movies...a movie you may have seen 250 times in the same channel... switch...nat geo or discovery...animals killing other animals.... well... whats new?? human beings kill other human beings too.....music...not bad but not all songs are good either....

Spend a good one hour trying to find something good to watch...and then just switch it off. The idiot box surely just adds to the stressful lives that we already have.

I find television very educating. Everytime someone turns on the set I go into the other room and read a book. - Groucho Marx