Random Transients

Midnight's Children

2009-01-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

I think I might be shifting gears from lots of movie posts to books. Well, technically its only the third book I'm going to mention right now but, who knows. I just saw 20 movies and read 4 books during the christmas break :O I'll post details if I recover from the shock (Just to give a little background on that I happened to raid my friends place and made off with 50 movies and 15 books :D).

One of those was Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. All these years I stayed away from his books mainly because of his notorious reputation for 'you know what' and the fact that he's got a Booker prize (I have strong prejudices against prizes given out by committees :/). But, I'm glad I din't stand fast on my prejudices. Midnight's Children is an excellent book; I was vaguely expecting it to be a flaky fantasy but, it was deliciously different from anything I've ever read before (I had the same feeling when I read Catch-22 a long time ago). The narrative was descriptive and witty (if not always gripping). I particularly like the autobiographical tone of the narrative where Saleem Sinai gives you some glimpses of events that are going to happen in the future (I haven't read any autobiographies so, I'm only guessing here...).

I also like the seemingly bizarre chapter titles that somehow make sense when you finish that chapter. My particular favorites are: The perforated sheet, Many-headed monsters, All-India radio, Alpha and Omega and Commander Sabarmati's baton. Saleem Sinai's serendipitous tryst with India's destiny is almost like an Indian version of of Forrest Gump (one difference being Saleem is always not as lucky). Actually, it should be the other way around chronologically because Midnight's Children was first published in 1981 and the movie was released in 1994; forgive me there I saw the movie before I read the book. In some ways its almost like Paradise Lost for the average Indian. Another interesting thing about the book was that the story telling would abruptly shoot off on irrelevant tangents based on some small thing. All the math in the book also sums up which is always a big plus :D (581 + 420 = 1001).

On the whole it is a pretty awesome book and you shouldn't pass up a chance to read it up.

Fixing firefox quickfind

2008-07-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

Ever since FF2 I've been hampered with the quick find. Now, its a pretty handy feature but, why the hell would I need a find where I cannot move to the next/previous result? And the fact that there are 2 shortcut keys to the same thing ' and / will essentially popup that annoying quick find. If I had to use a regular find I'd have to do a ctrl+f (I guess that is to ensure consistency with IE :/..)

Thankfully in the FF world everything is customizable. If you don't want yet another heavy weight plugin/extension to do the job, FF offers you the option to customize it yourself. Just google for what you want and you should be well on your way with it. So, thats what I did when FF2 was released and now when FF3 was released (and I waited till all my favourite extensions supported FF3 ;) before I installed it).

So, here's how you make the quick find the full featured find in FF2. Go find (or create one there is an example present usually) the userChrome.css in your $FF_PROFILE/profiles/xxxx.default/chrome folder and add the following line (courtesy http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2006/10/firefox-quick-search-as-it-should-and-used-to-be/

#FindToolbar > * {display: -moz-box; }

And for FF3

.findbar-container>* {display: -moz-box !important;}

(its in the comments section in the same page)

Down Under

2008-07-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to picking up any non-technical books that are available at our office library. And Bill Bryson's Down Under was one of them. It was the first travelogue that I have read (I stick to fiction mostly) and, I enjoyed it. It turned out to be a witty, whimsical guide to Australia.

Australia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world! mostly because there are more things in Australia that could kill you than you have time to read about. Thats something I did not know about Australia. But, wait there's lots more. A prime minister goes for a walk and decides to go for a little swim and disappears. Now, why haven't any hollywood directors exploited that plot for some conspiracy theory movie?

No book about Australia can be complete without dealing about the native aborigines. The happen to be the longest surviving culture passed down unchanged for centuries. The magic of Uluru (Ayers rock). The weird ways in which the Australian government tried to bring aborigines into mainstream society, the most shocking of which is when it abducted aboriginal children to train them to be responsible citizens of white society.

The Search

2008-05-10T23:38:00.000-07:00

I recently finished reading John Battelle's "The Search", which chronicles the rise of search as a valuable business asset and how google helped in making it that way. For someone who has always been in awe of google for a long time I found the book a very interesting read. The rags to riches story of Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the background in which google captured the search market is wonderful.

Iron Man

2008-05-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

Bringing comic heroes to the movie screens seems to be all the rage now. And the latest, to hit the screens was Iron Man (well, technically as of today it would be Speed Racer). I wasn't a great fan of Iron Man after all he was only a normal guy in an iron suit. He has none of the interesting mutations of the XMen nor the supernatural powers of super-hero aliens. The movie was pretty good and I enjoyed it. It lived up to its 92% rating in rotten tomatoes.

Robert Downey Jr. portrayed a very convincing millionaire playboy genius and Jeff Daniels as the backstabbing executive was good. The narrative and screenplay din't wander off or slouch in between as it usually happens. The only misgiving I had was that after sitting through all the initial build-up to the final suit Iron Man had to resort to a clever trick to defeat his adversary in the other suit of armor. A little display of energy shields, sonic blasts and holographic decoy generators would have been exciting though. If you are a fan of comics and cartoons you will not regret watching it. Oh! don't forget to wait till all the credits have rolled past (and almost at the point where you are sheepishly edging to the door wondering why you even believed that rumor about it on the internet) you will be treated to a small cameo featuring Sgt. Nick Fury. So, don't miss it.

Wet monkey theory

2008-05-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

You put n monkeys in a cage with a banana (or any food that is of interest to the monkeys) and for some defined period of time discourage the monkeys getting to the fruit by splashing them with cold water till none of them attempt to reach for the fruit. Now, one by one replace the monkeys over a period of time where the monkeys will not be splashed with cold water at all. Now, because of classical conditioning each of the new monkeys that will instinctively reach for the fruit but will be beaten up (or otherwise restrained) by the remaining monkeys by the fear of punishment in the form of a cold water splash. Subsequently, when none of the original n monkeys are in the cage and the ones that are there have never been subjected to the punishment, it will be observed that none of those monkeys try to reach for the fruit in fear of retribution by the other monkeys.

The wet monkey theory seems more of an urban legend than an actual theory. Its actually based on the famous Pavlov's salivating dog experiment on classical conditioning. The little Albert experiment is perhaps the closest human counterpart. But, apart from that there are several examples of this in real life.

Especially, in large software development shops where you have every kind of programmers (all of the 26 programmer predilections-link doesn't seem to exist now so, heres a digg posting of the same), all the 3 types of consultants and hordes of PHB's. The reasons why a particular approach/technique was chosen over others is often lost when the pioneers of the system leave or is buried in huge mounds of documentation. Now, documentation is always an icky subject when it comes to software systems the people who are in the best position to do it despise it with a vengeance and the ones that do write it (or are forced to write it) usually cover it up in layers of cruft to make the document appear important than it actually is. Signal to noise ratio in documentation is alarming low, the concept of code as documentation does not stand to reason if you have a half a million lines of code to read!! (notwithstanding the fancy design patterns and xml configurations distributed liberally over the codebase) All this leads to any question on anything is answered by thats 'the way its always been done'.

One way to bite down and bear it to turn to the Tao of Programming and rest on the wisdom of the ancients before us.

The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.

Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like an uncarved block of wood. Opaque, like a black pool in a darkened cave.

Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?

The answer exists only in Tao.

Second System Effect

2008-02-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

The second system effect is described in Fred Brooks 'The Mythical Man Month'. It is simply defined as the tendency of the designers to over-engineer an existing simple elegant solution. The tired architect warns us to think a moment before we take the plunge and develop 'the second system'. For a long time I thought this was mostly rubbish and you can only do things better with experience.

That was till I witnessed an actual second(or rather third) system being built. The original system wasn't simple or elegant but, it got the job done (And if you had been mucking around its code for over 6 months you will intuitively know where to fix a certain bug). It opened my eyes to YAGNI but, then the reality of features selling products crashes the party. Hopefully I'm a little wiser from the experience.

IRC woes

2008-02-26T12:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I've realized my long lost love for playing trivia quizzes on irc. I started off on irc://irc.criten.net/#triva when I was with my previous company. I still remember 4 people crowding on my machine answering(guessing is more apt) questions and desperately googling for answers. This time around I did a bit of searching around and found irc://irc.thundercity.net/#exp-triv. Except for the music questions which I've no clue the questions are pretty good and offer superb entertainment. I think i'm already addicted !!

Weekend Hitchcock Marathon

2008-02-26T09:20:00.002-08:00

Last weekend (Feb 23, 2008) I had the misfortune to be left alone in the apartment I shared with room-mates in Bangalore. And being my lazy self I planned to spend it entirely browsing and watching television. Well, fate had other plans and my broadband connection chose to give up and die. So, here I was alone, without internet access on a weekend. While most people would have chosen several creative and interesting ways to entertain themselves I chose to rent a DVD and watch a movie.

The idea by itself does pose some serious challenges. In addition to being a internet-addict I'm a movie buff too. Its is customary in our apartment to watch another movie after coming back from a night show...that should give you a fair idea :|. We have membership in 2 video rental libraries and just recently started frequenting another video rental library (simply because it was on the way home from our ususal weekend luncheon). So, on sunday I sauntered into our latest video rental library. Normally any attempt to rent classics or black & white movies will be met with sharp resistance but now that no one was around I chose to rent the 'Alfred Hitchcock Collection'!!

There were 5 movies on the DVD

The Trouble with Harry

Torn Curtain

Marnie

Frenzy

The Birds

'The Trouble with Harry' is about a corpse of an outsider in a small village. The story unravels itself as the characters reveal portions of their stories based on the information that is available to them at that particular point of time. Which interestingly leads to the corpse being buried and exhumed thrice. But, I thought the ending did not completely tie up all the lose ends. For e.g. Capt. Wiles flicks the deadmans shoes from the deputy sheriffs car and put it on the deadman later to be found by the the widow's son (Arnie Rogers).

'Torn Curtain' tracks the adventures of an American physicist defects to East Germany because the US government supposedly closed down his research on an anti-nuclear missile. Hell breaks loose when his fiancee insists on following him there. Then the physicist reveals that that he is deceiving the East Germans to get access to a brilliant East German physicist to pick his brain to solve a problem he was facing. An unfortunate murder upsets all plans and the rest of the story is how the couple escape to safety.

'Marnie' is about a pretty young girl who is a pathological liar and thief. Her usual mode of operation is to get a job and steal from the safe a few weeks later. Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) recognizes her, later falls in love and marries her. He tries to help her resolve her psychological problems which forms the rest of the story.

'Frenzy' is the story of an innocent man who is wrongly accused and sentenced as being the necktie murderer. Innocent circumstances incriminate him and he is betrayed by his own friend. The plot then revolves around how the actual killer is convicted.

'The Birds' is about an innocent weekend in Boedega Bay which turns into a nightmare when the birds begin attacking humans. The plot also has a dash of romance and a little unsavory family history. The movie ends with the Brenner family and Melanie Daniels leaving Boedega bay. But, the reason for the birds attacking humans is never explained.

FF4 - Rise of the Silver Surfer

2007-06-30T04:34:00.000-07:00

I was really excited about this movie mainly because of this awesome trailer and the presence of Jessica Alba. As usual I also headed up to wikipedia for some healthy dose of trivia and info about the Silver Surfer and he seemed a worthy adversary(though I don't fancy the FF4 too much!! I prefer X-Men above all else). But, nevertheless an underdog against a mighty adversary is usually a good watch :D. So, when I headed for the movies and found no tickets for this one I was more than happy to see FF4 - Rise of the Silver Surfer.

It certainly wasn't the effects that were jaded, though the trailer captured the best scenes of the movie. I think the movie audiences have evolved beyond mere computer-generated effects. The plot was weak almost implying that the surfer saved earth more because of invisible woman who supposedly reminded him of his sweetheart!! And Galactus the powerful almost god-like entity is defeated (killed ??) in the last few minutes of the movie by a mere herald!! Taking into consideration that the surfer possesses just a fraction of the power-cosmic of which Galactus is the keeper is just ...STUPID :(

Mr. Know it all

2007-06-03T04:17:00.000-07:00

How often have you stood on the pavement in a new neighborhood wondering how to reach your particular destination or, someplace where you quite did not manage to figure out what to do. I've always wondered how people pick whom to ask for directions. For myself I follow a simple algorithm, if I'm looking for directions I head to the nearest autorickshaw driver otherwise ask a group of people presuming that one of the many might actually be helpful. In other cases like for example in a bus-stop how does one pick whom to enquire for directions. Here again I tend to gravitate towards respectable elderly looking people.

But, often (more often than I would like) I've been on the other end. In some cases people have come to ask me for directions in cities where I'd only just set foot. Take for example when I came to Bangalore a year ago (just days after I had come) and was at the bus-stop trying to figure out whom to ask for directions to my destination 2 people walk up to me and ask me (eek!!) for directions to 2 different locations. I've just resigned myself to accept the fact that I appear to be "Mr. Know it all" to most people. So, if you have a question that needs answering "Don't ask me!"

I'm Luke Skywalker

2007-04-30T04:06:00.000-07:00

Now I've irrefutable proof of what I have known all my life :D

Take the star wars personality test

No glue

2007-01-07T14:04:00.000-08:00

I've always been a great fan of paper crafts and origami. I've been hooked ever since when my neighbour (who was 2 years older than me) taught me how to build a bike out of cardboard for my G.I. Joe when I was a kid. So, when I found this when doing my daily rounds of the threesome (slashdot, reddit & digg) I had this sudden urge to rekindle my lost childhood :|...

I spent a full 1.5hrs cutting what you see below here. Then I realized I did not have any glue to finish it up.

The Hulk

2006-12-30T14:20:00.000-08:00

Guess what? Turns out I'm 'The Hulk', I thought I would have been a more sneaky super hero like the Night Crawler or Wolverine. After watching this trailer even the Silver Surfer. But, I'm 'The Hulk' and the world has to deal with that.

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk		80%
Superman		65%
Iron Man		65%
Robin		63%
Green Lantern		55%
Spider-Man		50%
Supergirl		50%
Catwoman		45%
Batman		40%
The Flash		40%
Wonder Woman		35%

You are a wanderer with
amazing strength.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Talent crunch is here

2006-08-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

Part of my new job in Bangalore is conducting technical interviews to hire more people. I'm no expert having done at most 5 face-to-face interviews and a around 10-12 telephonic interviews (these don't actually count as I was doing it for a position which required skills that were not even part of my skill-set!!).

That apart I was interviewing candidates with 2+ years of experience for a software engineering position. I think I've interviewed close to 25 or more telephonic and face-to-face together (with the larger chunk now going to face-to-face interviews). I was looking for a programmer who had a good grasp of the concepts and technologies he/she was using and be able to leverage development tools and the internet to get the job done.

I thought it was going to be a walk in the park with Bangalore being the 'Silicon Valley' of the east. I had done a little bit of research as to what sort of questions a 2+ years of experienced guy (like me) would find challenging. I was in for a rude shock. I can fill up numerous blog entries with the wtf answers and antics of the candidates. Slowly I was asking more and more basic questions till I had to finally resort to asking the candidates to write a program for string reversal. Sadly, I have not seen a single implementation of the string reversal program that would either do the job or compile (I've resigned myself not expect both).

I've learnt a lot about resumes in the process especially technical ones, they are a joke. Usually a technical resume will contain a table containing a list of the languages/databases/platforms/web servers/application servers/what not that the candidate has experience in (some cases the experience in months or years may even be mentioned) the only criteria for a candidate needs to add a new item to that list is simply whether or not he/she knows that expansion of that particular acronym.

One of my roommates is an HR executive in a well known multinational software company and I asked him if they were facing the same problem and he they have lots of vacancies open and were not finding the right persons too. Market research has also found that even though there is a surplus of qualified persons there are just not enough of them who are employable. This does not bode well for India's plans of becoming a software hub. How do we solve it? Well, I don't know. But, people realizing that they need to become more competent in whatever they are currently doing might help, I think.

Changing lanes

2006-08-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

It has been 2 months since my last blog and a lot has happened meanwhile. I quit the first company that cared to hire me some 2 years ago sometime in April 2004 (how they did it is a nice story which I will share sometime later).

I've moved from Chennai to Bangalore and have to deal with staying away from home, washing my own clothes, post job-switch dissonance, bed bugs etc. I moved to get away from my comfort-zone which, is when inhabited for too long can lead to stagnation according to people with more intelligence than I.

2 months later I seemed to have found my comfort-zone again in a slightly different sense. I think I'm doing the same things professionally the only difference being that I'm staying in a different city. I still go late to work, I still wear casuals 4 days a week (it was 5 earlier), I still never start real work until after lunch, I'm usually one of the last persons to leave office etc. Which leaves me wondering as to what I should change next?

Flame of Recca

2006-05-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

Animax is going to air 'Flame of Recca' from 8th May 2006. Wow !! I'm a great fan of cartoons and to get a re-telecast of one of my favourite cartoons is gonna be fun (first time I saw it was when I was in college). This cartoon was singlehandedly responsible for a lot of desks in my college having 'Saiha Fire-sword' and 'Madoka Fire Barrier' scratched on them in all the calligraphic glory that I could muster.

Whats so captivating?

Simple really, the main protagnist 'Recca' has fire coming out of his right hand. COOL !! I have been fascinated with fire since I was a little kid. My favourite plaything was a box of matches, with a candle it was divine(wasn't too popular with my parents because of that ;)...). When I was visiting my native place (which, thank god did not have electric water heaters...) I used to spend hours sitting before the stove feeding the flames (dried coconut shells, coconut choir, firewood, old rags, paper...), heating up water for everyone to take bath. Long story short, fire is my favourite element and this guy had it coming out of his hand as and when he wished. The added fact that each flame was governed by a dragon made it simply irresistable.

Smile Aim Shoot

2006-04-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Some time ago when I was in Hyderbad. I went to watch 'Mangal Pandey' at Prasads and while going to the loo saw this poster(for a photo competition) right above the urinal. Whoever though up the pun 'Rock on mate !!' :)

First On-the-Job Lesson

2006-04-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

It happened like this.

I was just a few weeks into my first ever job in my life and my boss asks me to accompany him on a meeting. I happily trudge behind him into the meeting. Few minutes into the meeting he passes me a note which says something like "Don't fall asleep. Meetings can be boring". Ofcourse I did not see the truth in that statement till after a while...

Chinese...Japanese...

2006-04-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

Chineese...,
Japaneese...,
Dirty knees...,
Look at these...

This is a little rhyme I picked up from a movie called "The Devil's Rejects" which, by the way is a movie I wouldn't recommend to anyone (If you are a fan of mindless killing, illogical story or bad language go right ahead). Don't worry this isn't a rant about the shortcomings of that movie instead its about situations when I really enjoy a movie.

1. When I miss the good part in beginning of the movie

This may be slightly weird but its true for me (atleast when Star Movies & HBO were available without CAS :(...). In some cases I still do not know the movie title yet !! I think this is mostly because it gives me something to to imagine as to what would have happened earlier which is leading to the current chain of events in the movie. I'm no Sherlock Holmes so I'm usually wrong.

2. When I don't recognise the lead actors

I've an almost encylopaediac memory of most Hollywood actors including those who act in television serials (courtesy Star World :(...) so, this is a really rare case.

3. When its a lazy weekend afternoon

This is the mostly because everybody else is feeling to lazy(napping...) to snatch the remote away from me and, there are no interruptions like pesky telephone calls for the same reason.

Now some movies that I saw in these situations that I liked...

Mockingbird don't sing -- story revolves around a young adolescent autistic(?)(or mentally challenged) girl just on the verge of puberty. Her therapist (a famous doctor) is a firm believer of some hypotheses that states that if such children cannot be taught basic language skills before puberty they can never be trained in the language (or some such thing) and a rookie researcher who develops an attachment to the girl and wants to disprove the hypotheses.

The Game -- about a guy (Michael Douglas) getting a birthday gift from his brother (Sean Penn) who buys it from a company called CRS (Consumer Recreational Services) and the harrowing life changing experiences that he goes through. You wouldn't want a practical joke like this played on you.

3000 Miles to Graceland -- about a bunch of gangsters who are also Elvis Presley look-alike enthusiasts. One (Kevin Costner) even thinks that he is one of the illegitimate sons of 'The King' himself and the softie (Patrick Swayze) who falls for a swindling prostitute (Courtney Cox of 'Friends' fame) and her 'enterprising' young son.

Scent of a woman -- blind man (Al Pacino) takes a adolescent young man on a journey to New York(???) of self-realisation for the both of them.

..... -- goofy lawyer (Jeff Daniels) is forced by circumstance to stand in for a comedian in some remote town (the comedian is left defending some lawsuit which originally had to be handled by the lawyer)...falls for a girl in a trailer (Charlize Theron) who is a college dropout (who decides to stay in a trailer rather than go home after flunking college)

..... -- budding cartoonist who spends an evening comforting a girl who got dumped thinks she's in love with him so, begins working in the girls hostel to further the relationship...even works as a delivery boy in the hostel to find that his affections are returned by the first girls room-mate...exposes the peeping tom hostel superintent and finds true love in the room-mate. Importantly, he has a friend who has weights suspended from his balls in the hope of a better scoring chance ;)

Gattaca -- sci-fi story of a normal human (Ethan Hawke) in a world of genetically engineered humans for specific lines of work. And how he beats the system to fulfil his dream of going to space by borrowing bodily fluids, hair and dead skin cells from a disabled genetically engineered human (Jude Law).

And many more...If you're still wondering what 'Chinese...Japanese...' has to do with any of this well, nothing actually the rhyme was so catchy and had wrapped itself around my head that I got rid of it here :)

All for coming in early?

2006-03-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

The day started as any other, I woke up late (no surprises there...), hit office late (as usual), checked mail... Nothing interesting was lined up for the day and there no surprises sprung up either... another boring day in office. The later part of the day seemed more promising and there were some interesting things set to happen. First, I had plans of leaving early by around 4.30-5(which is really unusual for I'm the kind of guy who stays up late in the office just to avoid rush hour traffic...anyway I usually leave office around 9.30-10.30...).

I left sometime around 4.45ish, reached home by 5.20ish much to the surprise of my mom and with time to spare to wish 'bon voyage' to my dad who was going on a short trip to Japan that day. He was travelling with an old friend and colleague so we said our goodbyes at home and he sped off to the airport in the ubiquitous call taxi and I was left at home on a weekday so early in the evening which I've never been before (for a loong time... to say the least). I was supposed to meet an old friend (from college) after a pretty long time (4 years atleast...) only much later at around 9.

With more than 3 hours to kill and having complete disposal of the television (my moms serial saga starts much later...) I realized what I'd been missing all this while. It felt great to be out of office and at home reminded me of the time when I was a kid studying at school. Seeing all those school kids on the way home must have induced that because, usually I only see other office goers. And, my early departure from office gave me the opportunity to look at a lot of kids in bright school uniforms giggling away in all glory (man! do I miss my childhood). Anyway, I din't do anything interesting. Got bored with television (mom was not cribbing about keeping the volume down or fighting for the remote), drew a complete blank with the days 'The Hindu' crossword (usually on a good day I fill up half of it today, it turns out wasn't gonna be my day :(...), the internet wasn't too interesting as I'd already read up on the interesting feeds of the day in office. Finally, I hit upon and old forgotten habit, reading. I was once an avid reader but fell out of practice lately, and realized that I had quite a few books due to my friends which I'd borrowed long ago with high hopes of completing them in days but lay unattended accumulating dust in my shelf.

So, off I went dusting off one of them and in auto-pilot to my favourite reading spot at home, the balcony only to find it had become a mini storeroom of junk. I've spent hours languishing in the balcony doing whatever I did reading, homework, brooding... but, since I had been coming late just in time to eat dinner and sleep my parents had taken over and filled it with junk. So, I went to the next most comfortable spot the bedroom to catch up on some reading. I was pretty restless and had to take quite a few snack breaks wiping out a large quantity of snack my mom usually hoards up for my dad and me. But, I did put in a good 2 hours on my reading :)

My friend whom I was supposed to meet at around 9 that day called in at around 7.30ish to say he was already free and could improve on the meeting time and would ping me after coming near my neighborhood. Now, he has come to my house only once or twice and I was confident he wouldn't remember it and I was right (ok only technically he only did not remember which door but came to the exact block). By 8.30 we were heading on his bike to our age-old hangout 'Elliots Beach'. We parked just outside Planet Yum's outer wall facing the skating rink (remember that, its important...). We were in and out of Planet Yum with cold coffees for each in about 5 minutes and were on the beat strolling up and down the walkway.

We had a lot to talk about since we'd had very little contact from the time he'd gone to Germany to study and later moved to New York to work. Emailing had never been our forte and my friend was notorious for abandoning email ids. I came as no surprise to me that he had meet a quite a few of our other classmates and knew a lot more about what each was doing than me who hadn't left the shores of Chennai. I think the distance from home and the foreign land have something to do with that, guys who have gone to study or work have always found time to meet up. I guess they have a better incentive for that ;). I also found him to be more confident of himself than he was before. He spent a lot of time trying to convince me to move ahead and see the world and stop wasting my time here(nothing new there I get a lot of that and I personally do dole out such stuff at people willing to listen). Plus we reminisced a lot of the time we spent in college carefree and clueless wondering how we reached where we were with no conscious effort from us. I filled him up on how I got hired (a story by itself) and he filled me up on how he spent his time alternating between studies and clubs and later slogging for a paltry €300 as a Delphi programmer and finally how a chance chat conversation landed him in his current job (and subsequent migration to New York). Meantime one other friend from our class who had just gone back after his 2 week vacation here in Chennai called up from Minneapolis and we congratulated him on his excellent timing and had a whale of a time over phone.

We had walked the length of the beach thrice(2 legs to and fro...), our coffees had long run out and it was almost 11PM when we decided to go home after making plans to meet up after the weekend for which he had other plans. So, off we went to Planet Yum to pick up his bike in which he was planning to drop me home. We reached there to find one single bike standing which wasn't my friends'. We are both not much of panickers and inquired with the security guard if any vehicles got towed away or saw any suspicious activity around the parked bikes. The security guard coolly said he wasn't responsible for any vehicle parked outside the compound, which is where any parking was if ever was being done.

I was secretly feeling guilty and sorry for my friend but, he was taking the whole thing quite coolly. He calmly informed his parents of the loss and tried comforting me! saying, there was nothing to be done about any of this(which is true) and there was no way of preventing such a thing beforehand. In a futile attempt, we decided to look through the entire length of the beach for the now missing bike. We decided to file a complaint at the police box found near one of the junctions of the beach and went across to find it locked and empty. We took an auto to the nearby Beasant Nagar police station to file a complaint.

This was actually my second time for giving a complaint for a missing (stolen) vehicle, the first time was when somebody stole my own bicycle. The general mood of the policemen in both the instances was no different, they first tried to convince us that we had probably left the bike somewhere else and forgotten all about it so, we should go back and look for the vehicle ourselves. A constable spent a good 10 minutes of his time trying to do this and advised us against filing a complaint. He even suggested that we wait near the spot where we parked the bike to see if there were any other bikes that had been abandoned as its original owner had mistakenly taken my friends bike. We persisted in filing a complaint and were directed to the writer.

The writer too gave the exact same suggestions and some more after inquiring how much petrol was left he suggested miscreants might have taken it for a joyride and would dump the bike once petrol ran out. There were two other policemen in the room and they too joined in this fun(?). They even tried to convince us to wait till the morning to see if some irate guy turned up after having mistakenly take the bike in question. It took some more insisting for them to note down the registration number of the bike on the back of some notepad claiming they would look for it during their nightly rounds. My friend and I were rapidly losing interest and confidence in their speech. By which time my friends brother-in-law who was a high-court lawyer advised him over phone to file a complaint if possible or wait till the morning to file a complaint as the policemen suggested. We took the policeman's suggestion of going back to see if the single left out bike was probably abandoned. We arrived just to see a young couple depart on that bike. Our auto driver meantime was filling us up with stories of similar incidents in the area and his own experience with a particular deserted wallet that contained cash.

Realizing there was nothing more to be done we ended up giving the registration number and my friends phone number to the security guard and the auto driver on the auto driver's insistence that he would keep watch for my friend's bike. We headed back to my house in the same auto and for want of something better to do I dropped my friend back to his house at almost 12. He seemed not too worried about the whole incident and claimed that the night was going to be a memorable one to be remembered with nostalgia in later meetings. I did agree with him on that but wished something else; something nice had happened... it is of course wishful thinking. Adversities usually leave a deeper mark on our memories when all the fun and joy merge into one happy halo. I can still recall how ashamed I felt standing out (with the guy who called) of class just few months into college while all the fun moments we spent together seems like a more continuous nebula of time where individual incidents are blurring with time.

So, was this eventful day due to some juju of coming in early? I must admit a lot of old stuff, books and friends were rejuvenated and I had fun but, still feel I would have felt better if March 10th 2006 din't have to end the way it did.

Voyeur !!

2006-01-22T12:41:00.000-08:00

Not too long back I was on my bike heading for work. Its a long ride and most days I get through it on autopilot. This particular day I was not far from home and autopilot had not engaged yet when I spied a (pretty? (din't get a chance to check that out though)) lady on a scooterette. She had a nice long plait and (which caught my attention) a pretty low backed blouse which set me off into thinking its better off naked. Precisely when I was going to construct a mental picture of that I remembered something I'd seen long ago on a television serial called "Blossom" which used to be aired on DD2 (Does anyone remember that ? :/).

Anyway that serial had a central character called Blossom(?) (you ofcourse din't me to tell you that ^_^). Now (completely on autopilot with regards the road), the thing I remembered about this serial is that in one episode our heroine/protagonist has to make a presentation to her class and like you and me is afraid n' anxious about it. Her dad (Ted Russo ? don't remember his screen name that all too well!) gives her a pearl of advise namely to imagine her class is naked and hence reduce her anxiety (dunno how? I've tried it and it doesn't seem work for me, I just end up fantasizing :(...) and it works for her. So, the point is that I aim big and try to picture the entire road with all its traffic naked which if you've tried is an arduous undertaking on which I lost interest and latch on to the serial instead.

I really used to enjoy watching that serial when it was aired now, I can't even remember Blossoms' last name (or her real name). Then I remember that one of the guyz who used to act as her brother (Joey ? I think was his screen name) had a brother (who had the same last name atleast and looked alike) was the main protagonist in another serial (that I used to follow again on DD2) called "Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad" (SSCS). SSCS was all about a gang of four students who are also part of a band who can also project themselves into cyberspace as superheroes and fight viruses !!

From this connection the connections part of my brain kicks in and tells me that a look-alike + same last name girl starred in "Xena Warrior Princess" as Xena's trusty sidekick which I carefully set aside for later googling. Then I start to wonder that I'm having great recollection of television serials that day when the next serial connect hits me. Its from one of my all time favourites "Friends". Its between Ross & Rachel when they've officially split/taken a break, Ross I think is trying to take Rachel to a Doctor for something and Rachel has to undress and asks Ross to leave. Ross replies that all he has to do to see Rachel naked is close his eyes and closes them to which Rachel starts objecting...etc.(its actually a lot funnier than that onscreen :))

Then ??? Well nothing... something happened that momentarily snapped me back from autopilot and I only frequently thought about it and decided it was worth a try to blog and here it is.

Keeping the word

2006-01-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

My casual statement about my blogging being "beginners enthusiasm" has come true. Its been more than a year since I graced this blog with a post. Mostly because I was too lazy and sometimes because I wasn't sure if something was bloggable and had reading value. Well, I can't throw caution to the winds, the reality of getting dooced ^[2] is pretty real ;).

Richard Stallman

2005-03-28T21:12:00.000-08:00

Stallman in the bright red t-shirt by the podium.

The man was in the city to give a speech on "The dangers of Software Patents" at the CLT, IIT Chennai. Having got special permission from my boss and in the company of a colleague arrived at around 2.30pm to get a seat. The auditorium was fully crammed when Richard Stallman walked in late and just as you expected him to be, in jeans, red t-shirt with a backpack on. Before anybody could give the introductory speech or start with the formalities he took the podium and went straight to the topic at hand.

He started by explaining the differences between a patent, trademark, copyright and quote Intellectual Property unquote (hey!, thats how he mentioned it every time he had to use the term...). Having laid the foundation he moved on to the actual dangers of software patenting. According to him software does not lend itself to patenting as well as it does for other industries because all software is simply a representation of abstract/mathematical ideas. Each software does not have a single idea but has thousands/millions of ideas (some of them are not considered ideas anymore because they've become structured like the if-else, while, for loop etc.), and ideas can be patented. And because software consists of abstract/mathematical ideas they can be grouped as using a different set of ideas by different people. Added to this is the convoluted legal language in which it is all written. So it is a nearly impossible thing to write software which does not have a single patented idea in it which can only happen if you have a totally new idea which is extremely rare. Most ideas are enhancements of existing ideas(like we have bubble sort, heap sort, quick sort,...if one was enough why the other?) even then that single idea cannot make a complete software it needs other ideas for other things it must do to appeal to a customer. So, the task of tracking down all the patent infringes of a particular software is massively time consuming and useless to be bothered about by a programmer. Infact, the penalty for infringing a patent without prior knowledge is lesser so its more feasible that way ;).

He decried the moral ideal behind software patents is to protect the small entrepreneur from being forced out of business by a big company because he has a patent on his software that cannot be violated by the larger company. What happens infact is that the big company has numerous other patents which cover parts of the software developed by the entrepreneur that he is forced to cross licence.

Another concern about software patents is that the party holding the patent may not issue a license thus effectively preventing the use of an idea (which would be called restrictive trade practices otherwise if not for patents). An interesting anecdote Richard Stallman shared was about a Paul Heckle. Another interesting tidbit was from IBM about the benefits of software patents for IBM from them

1. The license fees

2. The litigation and payments avoided by cross-licensing (which is a better benefit than the first one)

On the whole the speech was a blast !!

I'm back !!

2005-03-28T21:06:00.000-08:00

Its been a long time since I found time to update this blog. Had lots of interesting stuff happening meanwhile. But, first things first :).

About the movies...
The Wind Game - is about the letters to an old writer from his young friend in search of his father. Most of it was really abstract and I had a difficult time figuring out whether I really understood anything at all. The scence kept changing from an elusive white horse among ruins, to an equally elusive old loremaster among the same ruins, to a pretty lady seated among cool fountains, to the main protagonist despairing
over the parched desert surface, clutching about six small hollow bamboo sticks. When the movie got over I really had no idea if he found anything about his father. I'm still confused if I'm dumb or it was just meant to be that way.

Clear Skies After Rain - is a story of a beautiful girl who likes to sing and likes to believe she is a good singer. How she is stuck with a rude, arrogant husband who thinks he is Sylvester Stallone and a slick agent type who is trying to seduce her.

Ararath - is actually the name of a mountain in Armenia. Its shot using a really interesting concept of a movie inside a movie. In the movie "we" are watching a movie is being shot so, whenever there is a flashback to the original event the movie inside the movie kicks in. And when its done the the film smoothly transitions to the actual time (with respect to the movie that is...). The story is really complicated and
encompasses both the timezones. The central character of the movie is Arshile Gorky who is a painter famous painter. Now he has only a token presence physically in the movie but everything in the movie is about him and a self-portrait of him with his mother which is actually painted out of a photograph. Gorky was a kid when the massacre of the Armenians happened and later he comes to Canada marries, has a daughter, marries again to a writer who has a son from a previous marriage(to an Armenian revolutionary who blew up someone). The step brother and siter share a incestous relationship. The daughter accuses the writer wife of murdering her father but the writer claims he commited suicide...There are several interconnections for example the painting hangs in a museum where the disgruntled daughter tries to wreck it, the security guard's gay partner stars in the lead role of the movie inside the movie and his father is a customs officer who (disapproves the marriage...) and on his last day of duty catches the son of the writer inadvertently smuggling drugs into the country but eventually lets him go. I know most of the above does not make too much sense :) but the movie was a great watch.

Dance of the Wind - is a sad tale of a movie director who goes location scouting somewhere in tunisia for a movie he is going to shoot which is about a guy getting lost in the desert and dying...and the poor guy himself gets lost in the desert and dies(just like the movie he was going to shoot!! is it coincidence or what?).

Mademoiselle - is about a little excitement in the life of a happily married mother of two sales executive, who is out of town for a meeting and misses her train. She hitches a ride with the same entertainment troupe that entertained them the previous evening. This entertainment troupe consists of a married couple and a single guy. They call themselves the "Impromptu Company" and have no script ready for anything but pick each others cues excellently to astonish and entertain the audience. The sales executive does a little bit of impromptu herself and falls for the single guy and happily returns home to her family. (Realy cute
story...)

Road oft travelled

2005-01-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

Three days in a row I had the opportunity to walk through one of my favorite streets (alleys?) in Chennai. Its no neat street with beautiful houses on either sides with lush green lawns (I've some of those too...but right now will settle for this one). Its a slightly dirty narrow street where two people sitting across two sides of the street can have a conversation without being bothered too much by the traffic (infact they do). Its got no posh houses lining it but a string of small houses with mostly around 2-3 small rooms per house (I can say because most of the time the doors are open and any passer by can look right through the house).

The first day (by no means the first, first simply first due to where I'm starting...) was Friday, 14 January. It was Pongal and having tucked in a lot of sweet pongal in the morning and noon, at sometime around 6 (vilakku vekkira neram or lamp lighting time...which is significant) decided to take a walk to Elliots Beach (not too far from home just under 2.5-3km). The next day returned home from office (at around 8) to find no one home and with no keys with the neighbours, so to spend time till my folks returned took a walk. Sunday's walk had a certain purpose as I was heading to Rajaji Bhavan to buy train tickets and this was late in the morning at around 11.

I usually avoid all the big roads and stick to small alleys and deserted roads which were abundant sometime ago in and around the Kalakshetra area(there are still some left...I'm not telling...). I take the usual left to enter my favorite street. A little walkthrough (sorta like the drivethrough for an F1 lap but not so racy...)

Immediately to the left is a thached home cum ironing shop exactly opposite to which is the side of another house just by the corner of the road. Immediately afterwards the road takes a mild left turn to accomodate a small temple to the right which actually faces the other side so has its back to our road. The temple has its own approach road not quite perpendicular to our road (It can be better visualized as a hangmans knot with the knot and the rope leading out as the road approach to the temple with the temple in the noose area containing the temple facing the knot, with the outer periphery of the rope touching our road (which should have confused any mortal sufficiently...my work here is done :-))). Probably 2 houses are there to the left and then we have a small Potti Kadai (which is just a small store which can sell anything from stationery to groceries). Just opposite to this store is a fenced house follwed by a string of small houses interspersed with narrow internal alleys. Next to the building housing the store the road again takes a small bend to the left where there is a small flat followed by a mechanic shop (which I have never found to be empty of young boys loitering about). There is a very small clearing next to the mechanic shop which serves as their parking. Just next to it is an apartment block with 4 blocks. Exactly opposite to this is a cow shed that houses something like 2 cows and 3 buffaloes. Almost halfway through and we have a small road leading to a dead end to the left. The row of houses to the right continues and there is a hand pump just before the road to the left. Just adjacent to the road to the left is the biggest house in the entire road which has a huge open verandah. The rest of the road has small houses on both sides and the road bend slightly to the right and joins another road.

One of the first things that strike you in that street is the smell of incense from the houses (remember its just little after vilakku vekkira neram plus the incense, flowers and camphor from the temple). A little down the road the mechanic shops smells of petrol and smoke. A little more and the stench of the cow shed and then again the smell of incense picks up like its never left you at all. As you are walking you just have to simply look down to realize that you are walking on a carpet of kolams (since it was Pongal the kolams were unusually large and took up most of the road and some were even pretty colorful). I've been through this road at several times of the day and never found it empty of kids scampering around, or mothers trying coax their young ones into eating something, or threatening them to come inside, or scolding them for making a racket etc.

I've never been able to pin down one good reason as to why I like walking down that road. I've been hooked to taking that road for about 3 years I guess and have never missed an opportunity to walk by that road (I usually take a different route to and fro but still manage to wiggle that road in between my route). I don't know why but walking by that road always gives me a peculiar sense of safety and serenity.

Update Preview

2005-01-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

On the subject of movies, had the chance to be at the Chennai International Film Festival, but din't fully make use of the opportunity and only managed to see a few of them. Here's a list of the movies I saw (might have seen some movies only paritally, others have slipped my memory for obvious reasons).

The Wind Game - Ali Reza Ghani (Austria, 2004)
Clear Skies After Rain - Natalie Schmidt (France, 2003)
Ararath - Atom Egoyan (Canada, 2002) (pretty impressed by this one will probably be the first one to update)
Dance of the Wind - Taieb Louhichi (Tunisia)
Mademoiselle (France)

This is just an online checklist for me to update about later(hopefully in the near future...:-))

Why it Rains

2005-01-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

Just came back after watching "Kadhal", a real life story of a tragic love. Apart from few scenes where the emotion had been intesified to cater to the majority movie going masses. I must confess that this is one movie where I have not been a let down by the movie after hearing great reviews about it (usually the agony of expectation does not make up for actual reality...). One factor contributing to that I feel is the absence of any big names/stars. Apart from the hero and his friend there are no familiar faces (most of the starting credits had introducing...). This probably freed the director from the customary punchlines, stereotypical jokes etc.

The story by itself is simple. Girl with a rich and powerful family falls for a poor grungy mechanic(nothing new there for the average moviegoer, but this mechanic actually manages to look convincingly grungy and never fully cleans up to be a smashing hero). The fact that the girl is still studying in 12th standard (B section Roll No. 16 if I'm not wrong which is intriguing because the heroine's name is Aishwarya...unless there were many Aashas, Aakilas, Aanamikas, Aannapooranis and Aannalakshmis ahead of her...) does not deter her father (Rich, ugly, powerful wine shop owner and local ganglord) from arranging for her marriage. Girl panics and elopes with the boy to Chennai and after a street corner marriage, find refuge among the hero's friends who set them up in a rental house.

By this time the heroines uncle (fathers younger brother who misses his left arm but still rides around in a Bullet) tracks them down and convinces them to return back to town for a fitting marriage. Which does not happen (no happy ending here folks...). The heroine is forced into another marriage, meet the crazy hero a few years (and a baby) later. Breaks down feeling guilty for leading a normal life while because of her the hero is raving mad. The husband simply accepts both of them (i.e. puts the crazy hero in a mental institution and continues his life supporting both the lovers).

Read an interview of the director who had met the husband on a train. While in school I've read "Thirukkural"s by Thiruvalluvar stating that the presence of good samaritans brings rain. Now you know why it rains.

Skewed

2004-12-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

I'm skewed. Its mostly beginners enthusiasm I guess, but I'm sure my thought process has suddenly become oriented to blogging. I will not be hasty to conclude its addictive(will wait a while for that to happen...). Why is that? If you are hasty skip the next paragraph.

It was a unique experience to be in a nearly empty office caused mainly due to rumors(?) of an aged politicians death, tsunamis striking again, a religious seer commiting suicide etc. (certainly a night of rumors...will come to that later) with my blogging mentor(He is responsible for me troubling you and the entire world with my blog. He is also same the person who infected me with the blog reading habit. In fact most blogs I read are pilfered from his OPML). So much so that our constant hassling somehow convinced even our HR who advised us to leave early. It was unique because the seasoned veteran that he was and the rookie that I am, we were both blogging our experiences of the quake on Sunday. It was really great and a lot of fun.

How am I skewed?
I'm skewed because, I'm on my way home at around 9 in the night and in a small corner of my brain(YES. I have one) I'm apprehensive of what might happen if the rumor of the dying politician becomes a reality but simultaneously(YES. Sometimes I'm capable of that too), I'm also thinking how to convert thi s into a blog entry(For which you will have to skip the rest of this paragraph and move to the next). I would not be making such a fuss of this issue if I had not done one small thing. I'm on the Adyar bridge at around 9.30 and see a lot of vehicles parked to the sides and groups of people are staring below at the Adyar river. My usual course of action would have been to pass them with a superior smirk on my face but instead, I stopped. Walked over to one of the groups and enquired what they were looking at, took a peek at the river myself and having satisfied myself with they expected replies about the water coming back again I continued my way home.

From the interesting lifetime I've spent in Chennai the death of a famous politician is usually followed by a general fear of anarchy and anarchy itself. I think we can draw a parallel to this with the burial system followed by the Pharoahs of ancient Egypt where when the Pharoah dies a contingent of his slaves are also buried with him to slave for him in the nether world. Only difference being the slaves of the Pharoah knew they were doomed to die with the Pharoah but in this case the companions in death for the politicians are totally unaware of their fate. The fate of such innocents(I'm not sure anyone is innocent anymore but...) is in the hands of an angry mob. The group dynamics here are interesting, a group that is synergetic can be constructive and have an IQ of a genius; whereas an angry mob which is also a group harnesses unspent anger is so destructive. Anyway I'm safe for the night and hope all of you were too.

Day after Yesterday

2004-12-27T06:16:00.000-08:00

May you live in interesting times

This is an ancient Chinese proverb (or that is what I was lead believe from somewhere), and its certainly working for me. Before I started blogging I always used to wonder what to put in a blog. And once I did start now I've a lot to say.

Saturday dawned very early for me (surpisingly..). After a long time I was going to play cricket !! with a few of my colleagues and friends. I enjoy playing any game (sort of like the destination does not matter as much as the journey). I don't particularly like playing cricket infact my favourite is football (or soccer for any americans).

Only 9 of us turned up and we managed to play 3 matches with me in the losing team in all the three :( My only defence is I haven't played for a long time and not quite so good either. I'm the kind of player who is not exactly a match-winner of his own right but can be quite useful for scoring singles and keeping the scoreboard ticking.

Now, the whole point of this whole story of playing cricket is that I was dog tired on Saturday night and was asleep through the earthquake that struck Chennai at around 6 AM on Sunday.

I was awakened finally by my neighbour ringing the doorbell, after my parents who had unsuccessfully tried to call me from the morning soon after hearing the news of the quake. Once fully awake my neighbour filled me in about the entire quake episode which caused most of the residents of my apartment come running out to the open in panic.

I turned on the television to see the news of the tsunami striking the Chennai shore. Different news channels claimed the incident a Black Sunday and Bloody Sunday. One of the anchors of the local news channel even claimed that viewers should not panic and run out to the streets, instead he suggested that they watch the telecast for the latest information. What a pathetic ploy to boost TRPs.

By this time the telephone was ringing off the hook with friends and relatives calling in to know about the situation. It is important to note here that I live quite near to the sea but not quite so close probably about 3-4 km away. So being stiff from the previous days play I spent most of the day answering the phone and watching the news.

At around 5 in the evening I decided to take a walk and see for myself what is the exact situation. So laboriously(and painfully) I trudged to the nearby Beasant Nagar/Elliots Beach. It was a good idea to have walked because no vehicles were being allowed in that side and a police barricade had been erected to keep out snoopers.

Coming to the sea shore I saw Elliots beach as I've never seen it before. There were no vehicles parked on the road, no people walking on the pavement, no people in the beach; was really weird. Police and fire engines were present at regualar intervals and kept the public to the far side of the road median, by the way did I forget to mention there was a good crowd gathered there to watch the sight. The actual beach itself looked pretty undisturbed to me. The posts where balloons are strung out to be shot with air rifles were still standing with most of the other entertainment infrastructure we have come to associate with a vibrant beach. The business was brisk for the mango/sundal hawkers which is fair enough considering the hour of panic was past and people had come to sight-see. I admit I'm guilty of that too.

By this time a little of the stiffness was wearing out and I decided to walk the strech of the beach from the far side of the median ofcourse. What I noticed was that the usual beach crowd of walkers, loving couples and families was present and doing pretty much the same as usual, taking in sea breeze and munching sundal.

The local fishermen had transformed themselves into some sort of guardians of the beach, patrolling on the pavement usually occupied by seasoned walkers and keeping any straying individual off the beach. Which I thought was pretty considerate of them considering the fact the most of them would have lost some portion of their homes/possessions in the tsunami's disasterous visit to Chennai. One particular conversation I overheard really bothered me.

Some brave(?) fellows who had got to the pavement were trying to get to the beach and one of the fishermen stopped them (there wasn't a policeman nearby as usual !) here's a small snippet of their conversation.

Fisherman: Don't come near the beach it is not safe.
Brave fellows: We know what is safe for us, we don't need you to tell us that.
Fisherman: Sir, I'm a fisherman and know the sea a lot better than you do. Please don't enter the beach.
Brave fellows: Yeah ! Yeah ! We can see.

At this point thankfully a policeman came in dispersed the arguing group. It is indeed difficult to understand how mindless people can be even when you are trying to warn them of danger.

I probably went too late since I saw no sign of a panic anywhere. There was one lone incident where I saw a lady(whose appearance suggested she lived in nearby slum area) who was dragging a battered suitcase. I was in the moment and thought she was moving her belongings to a safer place but now, I'm more skeptical and think she was probably a roadside hawker packing up for the day.

Chennai has long since been enamoured by its beach as a source of endless and free recreation. But from yesterday's events Chennaites will be haunted by the apocalyptic power that the sea wields over them which they never had a chance to witness (except probably some flooding during monsoons). This thought sets me thinking that why intelligent life did not evolve on the sea which covers 3/4th of the earth and instead evolved land.

Infact the ocean is home to the most diverse flora and fauna many times that found on land. Then why is that intelligent life is found on land and not in the sea. This is really interesting and has set me thinking will update you on this soon.

My first blog entry !!

2004-12-24T06:20:00.000-08:00

Hello World!

This is probably the most appropriate greeting for any startup (like a program for instance :-)). I don't know of a programmer who has'nt written a "Hello World" program.

This is my first blog entry !!
I've a lot of friends who blog, some more regularly than others and I a quite regular blog reader. For long I envied them on their ability to make such a bold statement of their point of view and had sudden urges to start one myself. But I procrastinated till now thinking secretly to myself that I'll come up with something better and cooler than everyone.

Now, I realised that waiting is futile and decided to take the plunge. This may not be better or cooler than anyone else's blog (atleast in my head thats a long term goal :-)) but atleast its mine (A lame excuse but will do for the time being...).