Monday, September 27, 2010

The immortals of Meluha


I never claim "reading books" to be one of my hobbies. Its not that I don't read books. I do read but not every other book I lay my hands on. For me the cover page is very important if I have to pick up a book for myself or if someone suggests and gives me a good feedback then I definitely read that.
As I said I never used to say "reading books" as my hobby, but at one instance I did that and thats when I repented :)


This was during my final year at IIT Madras and our campus placements started then, as usual the largest IT company in India visited our campus to be the first one to go. Those days we never used to work much on our CVs nor on preparation for interview[none of my friends did]. I borrowed a tie from one person a belt from some other and got my CV printed on a piece of paper and went to the interview. That was the first  interview in my life. I never did a mock interview also before that [none of my friends did :P]. I was totally cool [ chatting,laughing out loud with friends] till I entered the interview room, but as I was going inside my heart beat was at triple the normal rate. That's when I could feel the chillness all throughout my body.

There were 3 people on panel. A middle aged man[guess a tamilian], an old man[dont remem how he looked] and a lady[she was for sure a northie]. Then the regular tell about u etc, somehow I mugged up that part and blurted out the same.so managed that part....and as it went on..they asked me techie questions..to which I could answer comfortably [not that was an expert..but yea managed even that]..

then suddenly the lady interrupted and asked me" So Mr. Unknown.. what are your hobbies?"

I went blank for a while...[firstly it was the lady asking, and secondly it was sudden shift from techy to personal questions]
So I said "Ma'm.. my hobbies are...[thinking for a while].. reading books, watching movies [ ok now I remembered my actual hobbies] playing carrom, football, hockey, computer games ...again interrupted by the lady..[now I understood she should be some HR]

HR-"Wow! thats interesting, you read books..so what books have you read?"

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Freedom of Speech - debate

The debate I am talking about has run for a week, and everyday morning when  I get up the first thing I used do was to check the reply to my previous comment. It all started like this.
As usual I was hopping on to different blogs and then found this blog by a blogger "Uncommon Sense". This post, Right to hurt religious sentiments, of his caught my attention and I couldnt stop myself from reacting on it.
Do check out the post.
A warning to my readers before you read the contents of that blog post. The content has many expletives.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

I caught the cat :D

Disclaimer: I am not jobless
I was casually browsing through the whosamongus widget to check the visitors of my blog, which I do at times just to see if I got anyone from new geographies :) and that is when this copied content part caught my attention. It showed me that someone copied some content from one of my blog posts. It is from this post Outsourcing - Good or Bad posted on April 15, 2009
and the content copied was
"Outsourcing is a tactic to reduce cost but that itself is not the sole intention. It is actually trying to improve efficiency by concentrating on our core area and outsourcing the not so critical activities to someone for whom that part is a core competency"
First I thought of ignoring that but the detective devil in me, who is very inquisitive, pleaded me to check this....

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Give it a try:)


"Trying to comprehend what GOD is ...is just like a computer program trying to comprehend what its developer is"







PS : sorry for the micro-post readers..I'm in a philosophical mood today :)
PPS: I believe in GOD!

Monday, September 20, 2010

Trip to Villagio - Venice in Doha

Dear Reader,
Today I will take you to the Italian village in Doha..and I will be your guide for this trip ..I am sure I will not bore you :)


Girls will find the last pic interesting :)...

Saturday, September 18, 2010

iThink using iPhone

@Corniche Road, Doha

Movie marathon - reloaded

My nine day long vacation ends today :(. I am sad on the thing that I couldn't make it to the desert safari and the reason being, unable to get 2 more people to accompany me [ min three are required for the trip :(]. And from tomorrow onwards starts my struggle....phew~ just ten more days and I will be done with the Doha chapter.
Today evening I walked along the corniche road to spend my last few hours of vacation. I walked for about 2hrs today and it's the longest I walked in the recent times. Really loved the place, it's an ideal one for evening jog/walks.

Finally I managed to get one photo clicked but that too in an awkward position. In this pic you can see my office building, which is the rightmost tower. It has small dome on top of it.

Apart from that as expected from the title I've been watching movies one after the other in this weekend. I've watched totally 7 movies, 1 hindi and 6 english movies.So here goes my short reviews

Dabangg (Hindi) Rating 2.5/5
Again yet another Salman khan's family movie.. Thank GOD Sohail khan was not there. The comedy part of the movie is just ok and some of the action sequences are copied from hollywood movies....atleast one such of it I remember seeing in the movie Banlieue 13 (french movie). Sonakshi had really a sorry role...not better than a cameo role.....I dont understand one thing why do they need Malaika Arora for an item song...they couldnt find any other girl or was that a cost cutting measure.... A lot of muscle exposing fights...both Sonu sood and Salman competed on who will show the most...i couldnt stop laughing as Salman's shirt tears open when he gets angry on Sonu sood..Overall an okayish movie.


RobinHood (English) Rating 4/5
Good comedy, interesting story (I doubt if it is real), but you will never get bored throughout the movie.
Rusell Crowe as usual acted really well so was Cate Blanchett
People who love war movies...

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Hala - pay as you talk

Live life a king size is true in all aspects for Arabs.
There is lavishness in whatever they do .. just check the prepaid card envelope of Qatar Telecom (Qtel)
Hala is the prepaid service of Qtel.



That's how the cover page looks like. It has all chamkis on the cover which shines. There is also some design which is etched on it.

If they have to choose between utility and hedonism they will always choose the latter one for marketing the products.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Yours lovingly

I bought this for my niece
I like the camel tied to the letter 'l' :)

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Wilbur Sargunaraj - true rockstar :)

I dont think any of you will be knowing this person. Even I read about him recently. The first time I saw him was in a mail forward, the video "Love Marriage". I thought he was some crazy guy experimenting his new handycam and couldnt stop laughing while watching the video.But after I went through his website I couldnt believe myself looking at the number of followers he has. Also his story is very inspirational. Born in a small town in Tamil Nadu he grew from humble beginnings. But he capitalized on his childhood interest in singing and has realized his dreams of becoming a celebrity.
"Dance King, Drummer, Musical Sensation, Tamilian" Wilbur Sargunaraj is a true rockstar. He has an unique way of blending eastern and western style of music. The best thing I like about him is, he uses very common people for his videos, be it dancers or supporting actors. That goes by his punchline "making common extraordinary". Check this song, I bet anyone who watches the video will laugh out loud.


As they say "imitation is the best form of flattery", check out the following video. I wonder if the girl knows that it is "Tamil" language.

Kaun?

Thats how I kill my time ...

Any guesses on who she is?


















Quote of the day "Golden rule, he who has gold rules" 

PS: Want a portrait for free of cost? order now, offer valid only till  Sep18,2010.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Silly Dal

Ok, here comes another recipe from the master chef.
A quick and a simple way to make something, which tastes good as well, and I name it "Silly Dal".

Take a cup of lentils(dal) and pour water in it, soak it in water for sometime.
Cut an onion [I hate this the most] and a tomato if you want.
Fry the minced onions in oil till it becomes light brown colored [I guess I dont have to tell every silly thing like turn on the gas, light a match etc.. it is a silly recipe agreed, but not a recipe for dummies]
Now while frying the onions, you may add mustard seeds and cummins (this burns very fast..so keep the flame low or better turn it off). Then add half spoon turmeric and chilly powder[your wish]..mix the whole thing well.
Now add the soaked lentils to this. (If you have enough time you could have boiled the lentils also. I generally do it along with rice..in a separate bowl, to save time)
Since the lentils were soaked for sometime they become softer. Keep stirring well so that the whole ingredients mix well. You may add your tomatoes now [I did it then..you could have added it earlier also]
Add some water..I dint measure how much I poured..add depending on how lighter you want the dal to be...You may add salt accordingly..[My suggestion to readers who have high BP careful on this part]...
Let this whole thing boil for some time..in mean time you can take a shower....I did so:)..so thats like some 10-15mins.
Add a few curry  leaves..just to get some feel that you are having some good stuff. Check the image above, thats how it should look like else it means you didnt follow my recipe well.


Thats all..yummy dal ready.. Eureka! was my expression after this.
In my last post, Silly Pulav, I said.. "I am not an expert in cooking, but as they say necessity is the mother of invention"..now I say
"desperation is grandmother of invention"


Now this is what I call a happy meal.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

May the Lord Ganesha remove all obstacles and shower you with bounties.
Jai Shri Siddhi Vinayaka

This is a very big festival back at home and am missing all that.
In my family the whole puja is generally done by children, so me and my sister used to decorate Vinayaka with all the leaves & flowers and read the mantras. And the belief that the story of birth of Vinayaka and the Samanthakamani is a must read to avoid false allegations(neelapanindhaalu), So I used to read out loudly the story.

Today, early in the morning I got the wakeup call from home reminding me about the festival, and my mom told me to take full bath and pray GOD :). In addition to that am fasting till evening, which I used to do from my school days.

Once again everyone Happy Ganesh Chaturthi.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

EID Mubarak!

Dear All,
EID MUBARAK! to everyone
"May the blessings of Allah fill your life with peace, joy and prosperity"
EID MUBARAK
The month long roza has finally come to a sweet finish. As an icing on the cake we are getting a 9 day long vacation.
Planning to go on a desert safari tour, lets see Insha Allah we make it :)


Photo: HeyHijabi

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

The consultant way

This image was shared by my friend's friend on Facebook. After I went through the whole story in the comic I somehow felt that the Genie is more apt for a consultant than a professor( that too from IIT)
So this is my take on Consultants :)
A professor atleast will never guarantee success but plays a role of facilitator, whereas on contrary a consultant gives a very bad picture of your present( you may even feel like you are the biggest loser) and a gives a rosy picture post implementation. This can as well stir a discussion on the ethical stance of each of the professions.Which may go on for pages..so lets not deviate

Consultant is a person who comes in the middle of client's life [which was running peacefully till then], gives gyaan [read bullshit], confuses, scares, then provides a simple solution(on paper), charges hefty and disappears. After which only the client wakes up wondering what happened all the while.


You will get a good understanding on how a consultant visualizes and communicates the same to clients from the below image. This is typically in a software development cycle.

There is an old joke on consultant
A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban..

Saturday, September 04, 2010

The trip to Greece - Part III

Recap: It all started with this Greece trip-Part I , then the twists and turns continued even in the next part Greece trip-PartII.

So reluctantly we went to his friend's place. It was a shop and I don't remember what they were selling. It was dark inside. He took us to a small dingy room on top, to which there was ladder inside the shop. He made us sit in that small room and went down to talk to his friend. We all had a big question mark on our faces, to what were we up to. After a while he returned with a sorry face and told us that his friend couldn't give his car. We were inf act happy for that and said it was ok with us as we had changed our plan to go by train...Then he started telling about his story...may be he was guilty about his current situation..so he told his whole saga of how he became a refugee in Greece after having traveled many countries.

We were surprised to know about how corrupt the Greece government officials were by cheating the UN on funds allocated for refugees and not giving the same to the refugees, instead harassing them.

Strangely he had some views against Islam and that's when we started talking and trying to argue over that. He is definitely a well read person. He said he was a part-time journalist when he was in Dhaka, and that was evident with the logical views he had. His dream was to go to France and start a fresh life. He proclaims himself to be a good drummer and can sing also. The situation was getting lighter with all that cool talk and just at the moment when we were about to leave. He stopped us and invited all three of us for dinner. Now somewhere at the back of my mind..it was like the crocodile trapping monkey story for me...He was requesting us repeatedly...but we declined the offer very gently saying we had to go Kalamata and we had our return ferry booked. And also we were getting late to catch the train from Athens. So he gave up on that and gave me a box of biscuits as a parting gift. We then rushed back to our hostel.

*Upset 1*
This train to Kalamata was supposed to start from a station which was quite far off from the main station,Larissa, and has a different route. We decided to walk till that station. It could have easily been about 3-4 kms. After all that walking with heavy luggage, finally when we reached the place we discover that the station was abandoned long back and no trains run through that. Imagine how our situation was like, walked 4kms with almost 15kgs of luggage each. This was like a big blow to us. We kept aside our kanjoosgiri(stinginess) and then immediately took a taxi to the main station. There was only one train running on that night which was to Thessaloniki. Now as usual we wanted to skip the night stay at hotel by sleeping in the train which was free us. So we checked the chart..it halts at a place called Larisa(different one) around 3am. And there was a train from there back to Athens around 4am.So we thought this was the best way to spend our night.
In all this hurry we couldnt have our dinner, It was the same biscuits given by Shabeer we had for that night.. I take this blog as an opportunity to thank him. And I feel really bad to doubt his character. Shabeer, I wish you realize your dream of starting a fresh life, InshaAllah


*Sexual+Racial Discrimination*
We then boarded into the first class compartment in the train.. There were 2 ladies in our cabin who were very scared looking at us. Right from the time we got into the train they were very skeptical about us. One of them even complained to the railway police thinking we were some jerks....

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Sivamani - the rockstar!

These days everyone talks about Common Wealth Games (CWG), and it has been over hyped in media for all wrong reasons. I dont want this post to be yet another post with all the dirty stuff. It is about  the theme song I am going to talk and the comments surrounding it. I've heard the song for many times and felt the song was good but definitely not an apt song for such a high energy event. After Shakira's 'Waka Waka' has swept all over the world, pipping into top charts..people expected much more from this song. But sadly it is no contender to 'Waka Waka'.
I personally liked the theme song except to the rap part which was little turn off for me.

I've been reading the comments on this..and have observed that many have blasted this one..
one person says.."Wow!..so much energy that I almost fell asleep"..
and other one says "lets have chaiyya chaiyya as theme song"..
one of my friends, Phil, says like this













but a few ardent fans of ARR have maintained their stance..supporting the song
so overall it got a bad response from public.

Now comes the actual part which I wanted to talk about. In TOI there was this article in which some of the celebrites have expressed their views on the CWG theme song. One of those which caught my attention was by the percussionist Sivamani. Ok i know that he is part of ARR troupe. But such a comment is not at all expected from a professional of that level, who is known all over the world and might have his own fan base.

The article goes by this title 'We expected better from AR Rahman!’. And our man says this
"Musicians can't be great all the time. We can go wrong. But even the audience needs to hear not-so-great music at times. If they hear good always, they will not be able to tell the difference like they have now. It's good to hear criticism, as that is how a singer grows. I personally like it, but whenever the masses don't like it, they should come out and say so, we will improvise then"
Just wondering what my dad would have done..If I had given a similar reason to him by failing in an exam..and say you will appreciate the first rank only when you see a failure...as a matter of fact..my dad never spared a second rank :O also...Readers..see what all torture I went through :(

Can Sachin give similar reason whenever he gets out by duck?
Can Pakistan give the same reason in cricket whenever they fail? ..Now if they do they'll be ripped apart

If only I get a chance to meet Sivamani, I would like to say this..
"Sir, being a celebrity, you have to watch your words. If you dont know what to talk better not. Please dont talk rubbish like this and make a fool of yourself. When you are enjoying a status of celebrity you better maintain it, try being an inspiration to many. Accepting failure is never wrong, but it stinks when you give such lame excuses.
Also dont forget that it is the same people on whom your livelihood is dependent. People throw away money to attend your concerts and yes..they expect a lot from you..they raise the bar every time you prove yourself..you should take it as an appreciation,encouragement(applies to me also) in different form and stop whining over it."

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Blog Update

It's my sister birthday today so I called her up and then talked to my nephew and nieces. And as usual I've recorded the short phone conversation. It is in Telugu.Kindly bear with the weird sounds :P

Apart from that, Readers, you might not have observed this, I have modified my blog's look and feel. To add a little professional touch I have created 3 new tab pages.
About Blog : A lot of people have been asking me some questions like "Why do you blog?", "What do you write on?", "Why that url?" , "Why the title? Unknown? caption?"
So I hope now the About Blog page answers it all.
Feeds : People who would like to subscribe to my blog feeds can do it here.
Also I've added the About Me, which is my autobiography in one page.