Sinthanaigal ...

Deals2buy

2009-05-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

Online retailers in the US are famous for giving good "deals" regularly. And there are many websites which summarize these deals on one page. The one I use is deals2buy.com. They have a good list of deals on various products/services and continuously update them as and when required.

The link is: http://www.deals2buy.com/

An Apple a day ..

2008-03-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

A very interesting read that I came across : How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong. It discusses in depth, with many examples, Apple's (and thus Steve Job's) selling strategy for their products. The question of openness and partnerships with distributors is discussed in depth. Even though Apple did everything wrong (from the viewpoint of selling strategy), they still have been able to attract helluva lot of attention for their products. Some of the anecdotes described are unbelievable to read.

Highly recommended read.

Media Library

2008-03-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

I have added a new blog for any media content that I find interesting on the web (videos, photographs etc).

Link: My Media Library

What is this about ?

2008-03-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

What should I write about after this long hiatus ? That I am lying half asleep at 2:30 am wondering why I haven't updated by blog for such a long time ? That I was just reading through all my previous posts and feeling those wonderful yet painful pangs of nostalgia ? Or that I just took a complete week off sacing out ? Will my sinthanaigals continue .... ? Such an ironic question isn't it ?

PS: Just avoided a 1 year anniversary of no blogs :D

We are Virginia Tech !

2007-04-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

I am putting down some of my thoughts here regarding the unfortunate incident at Virginia Tech. As a Hokie myself, I am very sad for what happened. These may appear like ramblings to you ... please bear with me.

Monday was a sad day in the history of any educational institution. Such maniacal massacre is not what a place of learning and education should witness. More than the number of people affected, I was struck senseless by the manner in which they were affected and the inexplicable rage of the killer.

We, as Indians, have lost two of our fellow countrymen in Monday's massacre. Prof. G.V. Loganathan was called the "Master of measurements" and the "Father of Fluids" by some of his students in one of the facebook sites. I have always felt that a professor is worth much more than his/her life - he/she is worth the lives of all the students who have learnt something or have got inspiration from him/her. Minal Panchal, even though I didnt know her personally very well, was a very sweet person with a smile on her face always. I had observed her to be a reticent but fun loving person. As a student, I cant imagine what she should have gone through in the final moments of her life. I pray to the Almighty to bless their souls and keep them close with Him. Oh God .. please give their families the necessary mental strength and support to tide through these difficult times.

I know that these incidents are not something which can be explained by any mortal. Its something which is so deeply psychological that it can never be prevented. The media has been talking about how this incident could have been avoided - my own personal opinion is that this incident could never have been avoided with any sort of security measures/checks in place. One of the sites I was browsing had explained that there are different ways by which our thoughts can be kept to ourselves and not expressed outside. I believe, in this case, that the killer had been very thorough in his preparations and was very much determined to make his mission succeed. If only his determination had been funnelled into more constructive means ....

I am at a loss with relating to the killer on his motives for the executions he has performed. I have never considered VT to be a place where there is a huge economic disparity between the students. Its not a place where one observes any glaring difference in lifestyles.

I have not taken any pictures of the tragedy or the aftermaths out of respect for all the individuals affected by the incident in any form. I agree that the world needs to know what has happened and how. But the media is already doing their job (to the point of being obtrusive even). I feel that people would like to keep such moments close at heart and its not something for publicity.

As they say : "Time is the best healer". As time passes on, we will come to terms with what has happened and continue our life's journey. As Nikki Giovanni said : "We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning." But the human spirit is something which is unstoppable. Even in the face of any adversity, it will continue its journey and do everything it can to prevail itself upon the face of the planet !

"We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and
through all our sadness ... We will prevail. We will prevail. We will
prevail. WE ARE VIRGINIA TECH !!"

I would like to sincerely request all of you reading this post to put in their comments and views on what has happened. It will be of great help to know of others feelings and share our views.

Sequoia View

2007-01-25T12:08:00.000-08:00

Came across this pseudo useful tool called SequoiaView as part of the Information Visualization class. Its a file explorer that allows you to "visualize" the hard disk in terms of the size and types of files.

Well .. the above image is how my hard disk "looks" like. I feel this tool useful in situations when you want to free up free space and want to find out the biggest chunks. The first time I used it, I freed up close to 2 GB in my hard disk of unused files ! Now, thats something !! But of course, it cant replace explorer. Its more like a supplementary "nice-to-have" thing. (One bad thing which I hate about this tool is its huge startup and refresh time where it scanning the whole hard drive.

PS : BTW, the orangish and grey files displayed above are AVI and video files while the green ones are MP3. Now you know what kind of files I have in my hard disk ;)

Up and running !

2007-01-25T07:42:00.000-08:00

Ok ppl .. The zillionth webpage is up ! I've been wanting to put up this website for myself for a looong time. Finally got the motivation to get this done a few weeks ago. With enough motivation and zeal backing me up (along with my poor HTML skills), I fished out a decent looking open source template. A few decent mods later, I had what I felt was a simple looking yet elegant template.

Next step - the harder one - was to collect the 'material' to put up. I was absolutely clueless ! I started looking around in friend's websites and came up with some standard stuff about myself. (There is nothing much to say about me !). With many HTML and CSS editings later on, I decided that enough was enough and decided to launch version one dot oh of my site. I feel all ye people reading until this point would not mind taking another 2 minutes to go through my website also ! Leave me your valuable comments/suggestions.

Check it out at http://www.cs.vt.edu/~cnganesh. Also aliased at http://people.cs.vt.edu/~cnganesh

Chilling out at ATL ...

2006-12-24T08:57:00.000-08:00

Well .. Yours truly reporting from Atlanta from my sister's place. Having a nice time with my periammai, akka, athimber and my two nephews. :) My periappa, anna, manni and another nephew are coming tomorrow. Now thats a lot of family members !!

Having great home cooked delicious food after a rather loong time. Not that we are bad cooks. But the experience of relaxing at home and having home food is always different !

Watched Varalaaru yesterday. Nothing great in the movie except Asin. :) (I interestingly noted today that Asin hails from Kerala - her tamil is pretty much spotless !) Songs weren't too good I felt.

Quiz

2006-11-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

Who would ever think that I could even get a prize in a quiz competition !! Well .. surprise ... I got the first prize for the GLC international quiz contest on Monday. It was of course barely attended properly. So it wasnt a prize in the real sense. But hey .. a prize is a prize is a prize ;)

Gandhigiri ....

2006-11-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

I was watching Lage Raho today for the second time. Even though I tend to feel that it wasnt as successful in making people laugh as the first installment, it surely made some effort (whatever minor) towards reminding us of our nation's Father. I concur that the movie might not be realistic in today's world, but it was successful in what it wanted to achieve : to make us spare a thought or two for our nation.

Given the direction at which our country's youngsters are heading to, it wouldnt be a surprise if they didnt know who Mahatma was, say 50 years down the line. No offense meant to our educational system. They might be doing their job well. But a lot of us are giving out the wrong signals to them. Even though this generation has achieved a lot and has the capacity to perform even better, it might also cause some disorder in the thought process of future generations. Or maybe its just me and my silly thoughts. But I would definitely love to see our generation rise high and proud and make great strides forward !

As an afterthought, I appreciated one aspect where the movie succeeded very well : presenting Gandhi's ideals through a simple term of Gandhigiri.

Belaaaaaated Diwali wishes !

2006-11-01T01:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry for such a BIIIG delay ... but its better late than never. So here's wishing you all a belated Diwali. Hope you all had cracking fun !

We had a good time here too. The ISA had arranged for some cultural events. Skit, dances (lots of them) etc. The stage setup came out really good. We helped the stage team with some last minute (meagre) contributions.

The event was followed by a 15 minute fireworks display (vaaanavedikkai). It turned out pretty decent. Then we had a sumptuous dinner with Malai Kofta and Gulaab Jamum.

My next baby arrived too !

2006-11-01T01:34:00.000-08:00

And in what style ! This one has a much different charisma than my other baby. Its my SE w810i !!

I got a Cingular connection out here (after some serious thoughts). The phone rocks better than a sailor on shore leave !! Plethora of features - half of which maybe I have not even explored !

I have umpteen good things to say about this phone. But the Cingular branding seems to have removed some features.

Sony truly has world class products (at a HUUGE cost agreed) ! No doubt about it ... (though in this case, its not a 'pure' Sony product)

My baby arrived !

2006-10-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

Ok .. no need to be worried. I was referring to my laptop. A brand new 1405. In fact, it had arrived 3 days ago on Friday itself, but nobody was there to collect it. Thankfully, our TOA class got cancelled today, so I waited all day long just to collect it. Now in CRC to create my VT wireless accounts etc and try it out ...

I just love the feel on the keyboard. It would have been better if the sound was a little lesser. But I dont mind. :) The screen is just too good and so is the weight I guess. Of course, nothing can beat the Apple iBook, Sony Vaio and the Lenovo Thinkpad (in that order). But given the price, I think I got a decent deal.

Hokies Vs Duke (Pics update)

2006-10-07T19:23:00.000-07:00

Ok ... here are the pics for the Duke game I went to ...

I took most of the game pics that you see there. Nice cam of Hari. Great game and good enthu !

Adios ..

Hokies Vs Dukes !

2006-09-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah .. I did see the match yesterday ! :). Hokies crushed the Dukes 36-0. There was this huge run by one of the VT players that was the highlight of the match. It seems he ran 58 yards for a touchdown !! Man .. it was exciting ! The excitement in the stadium was also very high with mexican waves, key jingling and what not ! Overall ... a great day out. The only negative part was the sun being a pain in the neck (literally !!).

Will post pics soon ...

Loaded !

2006-09-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

Loaded with assignments, projects and homeworks. I just submitted a 16 page homework. I have a kernel project, a paper presentation, another algo homework in the pipeline. Add to it, my TA work of taking a lab too !

"Fully loaded" .... I have nothing else to say ...

(For those from Pune, there used to be a "fully loaded" paratha in Roti which I used to like a lot)

Reporting from Blacksburg ...

2006-08-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

Well .. the news is that I have joined VTech as a CS grad student (yeah .. unbelievable aint it ?) ! So I packed all my bags and flew to the US (duh !) and reached Blacksburg after an uneventful journey.

The first thing that I noticed about this place is its sheer beauty. This place is just too beautiful ! :) I have so many things to say since I came here that I am at a loss with words. We have something or the other happening here every day. I will try to organize my thoughts and write it up in another post.

Yesterday we had William Morva shutting down the whole VTech campus. What a start to our first semester here !! Thankfully, he was captured around evening and classes resumed from today onwards.

Its a new phase in my life and I got to make the full use of it. Here's wishing me best luck in whatever I do in this new phase ! Please put in your best wishes too ....

Go Hokies !

Barcamp Mumbai was great !

2006-05-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

What I decided to check out for myself turned out to be really good ! Barcamp Mumbai r0cked big time (like a sailor on leave, you might say). What I liked more than anything was the concept and the driving force behind a barcamp. Since this was my first time, I have never been introduced to such a concept previously.

Anyway, we were one of the earliest people who reached the venue by 9 am itself. After a hasty breakfast of sandwich at some IIT canteen, we headed back to KReSIT. By then, people had started tricking in and the WiFi network was on. We had big time trouble connecting Atul's laptop to mine so that he could use WiFi through my laptop. Even after trying many things, we were unsuccessful in doing that and we eventually dropped the idea with Atul going ahead and using his Reliance card.

All the sessions that I attended were useful in some sense or the other. My overall impression after seeing a barcamp is the following :

* It mostly consists of geeks or were-geeks.
* Its a good platform for showcasing your new entrepreneurial ventures/ideas. One gets a look of feedback/suggestions/ideas from the audience.
* Due to the above point, even MBA's can benefit out of the discussions. (my view)
* Due to the ad-hoc nature, people who never had thought out presenting a topic might end up talking about something.
* Good platform for meeting people and sharing ideas about various things.
* Good platform for showcasing product demos etc.

Guess I will stop here even though I feel a lot more could be added. If not helpful, it was informative, to say the least.

PS : The good was good too btw.

Pics :

Links to other pics.

Barcamp Mumbai update

2006-05-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

Ok. We are in Mumbai right now and this place rocks ! Thanks to Mohit for arranging this ! After a sumptuous dinner of parathas, we are now sitting with our laptops open and browsing the net.

Barcamp

2006-05-12T00:48:00.000-07:00

I wondered what that was when I first heard it from a friend of mine. (I was strongly suspicious whether it was some kind of a stylish booze party.) Then I checked out their site. I liked the idea the moment I saw it. Novel and impressive to say the least. But I wondered whether it would practically work. So I checked out some already held barcamps like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai etc and they more than proved that it rocks !! And given the huge sponsorship amounts that they have got, there is no more doubt left. :)

Unconference summarizes barcamp almost completely. An ad hoc discussion organized by attendees, for attendees.

So I decided to check out a barcamp for myself and see how it is. And so on this Friday, I am packing my bags and going to the Mumbai barcamp (as an attendee of course) and try participating there.

It would be unfair not to thank Atul for introducing me to Barcamp. Thanks mate ! And of course, thanks a million to Mohit too !

Chithra nakshatre thulaa rashou jaathasya ....

2006-05-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

The Tamil/Mallu calendar (or in general the Hindu calendar itself) follows a system of 12 raashis (which correspond to the zodiac signs in English) and 27 nakshatras . Each raashi has some nakshatras which fall under it. Some nakshatras spill over two raashis also.

So, a combination of raashi, nakshatra and the name of the person can be supposedly used to uniquely identify a person. Mine is as follows : Nakshatram : Chitra; Raashi - Thula; Name: Ganapathy.

For more details on nakshatra, raashi et al, refer Hindu Calendar.

Its pretty clear that with only 27 nakshatras, its bound to happen that in a particular month the same nakshatra repeats itself once more. (Once at the starting of the month and again at the ending). This time around, it was my nakshtra's turn to do a double act. So I got to celebrate 3 birthdays this year. April 11th, April 19th and May 11th. But since the number of naazhigais is more on May 11th, today would be considered the most suitable star birthday.

Ice cream facial

2006-04-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Thats what I got for my birthday. McSwirl swirled all over my face. Felt good though given the hot summer :).

Subbu had come over the previous nite with a cake. Didn't expect him at all - a nice suprise. Just the two of us.

Enna kodumai sir ithu !!

2006-04-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

Wanted to write that in Telugu except that I don't know it. But the meaning of the title sums it up. The context being the following link. The only guy who can beat our dear old Captain. And for those who want more. Enjoy !

Its interesting when one sees such out of the world, superhuman actions/stunts. The question is about presentability and context I guess. I am sure many Hollywood movies also have such out of the world concepts and stunts, though in those cases we would be watching watching with our mouths wide open in amazement. (Yes, I agree that we watch the above links too with wide open mouths - but in laughter !). Whats the difference one might question ? For one, the way it "looks". I often wonder whether such directors are that stupid to take such scenes. Maybe its fan pressure. Another difference is the practical context. In a movie which is supposed to be treated realistically, such scenes throw you completely off mood. Maybe in a concept movie, this might have appeared better. But then, our people are so afraid of taking such concept movies. After all, in the end its the audience that matters and I consider myself a part of its minority.

Goes to show that we need much better expertise in taking movies before we can start comparing ourselves with Hollywood. But I completely agree that we have the required talent and skills in many of our actors, directors, singers, music directors etc.

The Lord of the Diary ??

2006-04-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

An absolutely hilarious site about the secret diaries of LOTR. A must read ! :)

April fool joke turnes us into fools ...

2006-04-09T23:26:00.000-07:00

Well yeah .. Our recent April fool joke at office backfired. :( Not just backfiring .. it was as if we were aiming our guns directly at us all the time !!

It was a good one though. (Am not going to tell you what it was) Had great mazzaa doing it with the 'fun' team in our group. But I guess we went a teeny weeny bit too far. But I dont feel sorry for it. It was great fun :). Made some great preps and next day morning, it was Phhhhssshhhhhhhhhh .... Add to that our "nenaps" that we were still doing fine. But things went pretty serious after lunch. "Apologies for the inconvenience" followed suit.

PS: Lost a bet and have to give a treat :(. We are now giving the April fool cards that we bought to each other :((

Happy !

2006-03-18T11:46:00.000-08:00

I'm really happy today !! YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY !!!!! :)

Kangaroo curry for dinner ...

2006-03-14T23:49:00.000-08:00

As one specatator put it, it was kangaroo curry for dinner that day - the day when the greatest ODI cricket match was played ! The photo says it all ! And OMG what a match it was. Records tumbled everywhere. Players outperformed each other. Spectators had a run for their money (pun intended !). The worst nightmares of bowlers came true.

More than anything, I was most impressed by the fight put up by SA to scale the impossible. I've seen such impossible fightback situations in movies, but never seen it a real life situation. Confidence and vigour to such an extent that even after you have been beaten to almost certain death, you rise up and whack the breath out of the opponent !!

Another such match may not happen for ages to come and I am proud that I was a live witness to the greatest match in ODI cricket ! Fantabulous !!

Hi to my sis ....

2005-12-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

It was a nice feeling to have my dear sis over at Pune even though only for a day. She had been here on a official visit to arrange some conference (though it ended up as a flop due to politics) Nevertheless,we spent some quality time together (from whatever time we could salvage). Went shopping for an anniversary gift for VA and then ate a hearty meal over loads of laughs at McD. Then went back to her room and talked and talked and talked till really late. Felt a centain sense of inner satisfaction after the long talk. As usual, it was sad to part in the end. See you soon Sugu ....

My humble respects ...

2005-11-28T12:03:00.000-08:00

It would be really unfair if I don't take a minute off to pay my homage to Mr. Manjunath Shanmugham. (Read the story here.) I really admire his courage and sincerity in the face of such grave danger. May his soul rest in eternal peace.

Truly wireless

2005-10-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

I am writing this post from my group laptop which has a high speed Sierra wireless card (from Reliance) in it. And suddenly I experienced what truly wireless is ! No power cords, no ethernet cables, no keyboad/mouse wires. I can as well be sitting in a beautiful beach surrounded by ... (well .... you know what I mean) and write this.

Our company gives some impressive perks for staying in touch with work . One can either go for a wireless card, in which case you don't have to worry about where you are connecting from etc. (The card costs a fortune though !) Or you can avail reimbursement on you broadband bill upto a certain amount. I never knew about such schemes until about a few weeks back. Goes to show how companies publicize themselves wrt perks while at the same time ensuring that minimum employees avail such perks.

RTO Blues ...

2005-10-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

I had my first experience with a traffic cop on Sat nite. NOC issue. My bike has TN registration and normally one can ride a vehicle of outside registration for 6 months in a different state. I had read this piece of info from RTO Pune website ! (The site seems to be down now). Well, this cop wasn't listening to anything. Me being a non-Marathi wasn't helping at all. Thankfully, my friend at office smoothed out some things and I ended up emptying my purse !! Thinking retrospectively, I shouldn't have parted all my money. I'm sure he must have been ready for a far less sum too. My bad ... Anyway, it ended up as a bad beginning to a hilarious night at Great Punjab !

Hole-y experiences ....

2005-09-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

The surface on which vehicles ride in Pune (no please ... I CANNOT call them roads) is giving me a lot of training in my biking skills these days. I end up trying to search out a plain stretch of road in between all the potholes. I feel really sorry for all the trouble my bike is going through ....

I just can't believe the cool callousness being shown by the authorities in this matter. How can they continue to remain so unmindful of what is the situation around them ? I know that the rains haven't been helping things, but I am sure that if they had taken up basic repairs, I wouldn't have been writing this post ! The contractors are having a real scoop - just do some sloppy repair work and show the finger at the weather god !!

In case you are from Pune, do sign this petition if possible : http://www.PetitionOnline.com/PUNPOT01/petition.html

PS: And yes, I'm posting after a *looong* break ...

Rain rain ..

2005-06-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

Rains have been lashing Pune since the last few days. I missed the fun last year due to my injury (though I watched it from my bedside window). This year, I don't want to miss it. Have already had 3-4 drenching sessions with the rains. Thankfully, haven't fallen sick till now. Of course, the most interesting part would be viewing Deccan in all its beauty and spendour. And the uninteresting part being the sloppy roads, the damp rooms and the like ...

Farewell, my friend ....

2005-06-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Time to say goodbye to HP, who decided to honour IIMB with his presence for the next two years. (The chaps at C and K were a bit unlucky, I guess.) As thorough as he is with everything, I am sure he is going to beat the s**t out of a lot of people in IIMB. Look out for the name of Hariprasad Pichai in the near future in some BIIIIG financial concern/consultant company.

Adios amigo, my friend .... Take care and keep in touch ....

One year up ...

2005-05-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

I feel a strange tingling sensation in my leg today. Why ? It was on this fateful day last year that I broke my leg. I was somehow destined to get hurt that day. Even now, when I think about that day, I am amazed at how such a minor accident could result in a so nasty an injury. I guess I have nobody to blame except my bad luck. Three months on crutches and another three months to return to complete normalcy. It was one horrible time I went through. It must have been even worse for my parents.

Oh ! how could I forget that day ...... Or rather, how I would love to forget that day .....

MOTAS

2005-05-31T01:47:00.000-07:00

If you are addicted to the game in my previous post, this link is THE game for you. 13 levels and still counting. I can assure you that you can easily spend one fruitful (or is it unfruitful ?) hour on it. Happy escaping !

Escape ....

2005-05-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

Now, before I get the following as a thousand forwards, I decided to post this here. For all those practical puzzle lovers, you get excellent "room" to try your talents in these puzzles. The Crimson, Viridian and Blue Chamber are three rooms from where you have to escape using whatever you find in the room (and your brains, of course). Ok.. don't come barking after me if you lose all your hair (hmm... maybe you could use them in the Viridian chamber somehow).

Hints :
Crimson : Click-o-mania !!!
Viridian : Try it last ! No fancy clicks required here, but try *all* combinations with whatever you get.
Blue chamber : Hmmm .. is relatively simple.

Vishu Aashamsagal ....

2005-04-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Vishu to all of the Talloos (A unique breed of Tamil Brahmins who have their roots in the neighbouring state of Kerala, but whose mother tongue is Tamil) reading this. புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள் for all the Tamilians. What a beautiful festival Vishu is !

The picture that you see above is the Vishukkani. The kani consists of what one percieves as objects of his prosperity (generally consists of dhanam, dhaanyam, phalam etc) kept in what is called a uruli. It is decorated by konnappoo, a beautiful yellow flower. (Its seasonal and flowers only during this season). Now, the Vishukkani is arranged the night before Vishu by the eldermost member (generally male) of the family. On the day of Vishu, one is supposed to get up early, and without opening his/her eyes immediately, he/she should view the Vishukkani first. The whole funda being that the following year would be filled with what you see first on this day.

Now, I used to wonder in my childhood days as to how one could get up and still not open his/her eyes immediately. Tricky situation, that is. When we were children, our parents used to wake us up after closing our eyes with their hands, so that we don't see anything else. But, how does one do it after he/she grows up ? My experience shows that if you sincerely think really deeply just before you sleep, that you shouldn't open your eyes on getting up, you will be able to wake up and still not open your eyes. It might seem difficult at first, but believe me, it has worked for me many times :)

This year's Vishu was the usual bachelor affair of arranging some currency notes and coins along with a mirror and some fruits (if you remember to get them). And since I slept late at 1 am the previous night, I saw 3 kanis, because, on the first two times, I felt so damn sleepy that I fell back on my bed and slept again !! Now, does that mean that my year will be 3 times as prosperous ??? Atleast I hope so.

2005-03-29T00:21:00.000-08:00

Rang barse ...

Holi celebrations were a little mellowed down this year with just a 'formal' play of colours in my office. That too, two days before the official Holi. Not that I am big enthusiast of playing Holi. Again reminiscing back to my college days, one of the important colours in which the junta used to play Holi was brown. Simply said : mud. No wonder if people had glowing skin the next day. A mud bath was made in the QT and every non-brown-looking-person was just dragged and dipped into it. And I still remember 2 things vividly about Holi celebrations in my college :

1. In my first year, I lost my room key in the mud bath and had to wait till all mud baths were over to fish it out.

2. The really messy bathrooms after the whole affair. (yewwww !!).

Back to the present, if watching movies one after the other is called back-to-back movies, what do you call watching back-to-back movies in back-to-back weekends ? Ha haa .... Well, thats what I did during this weekend. What can you expect to do at home with CineWorld's licence being revoked for a month for doing what it was famous for. (Just kidding ! )

Wonderful wonderful weather ...

2005-03-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

The weather today has been too good to be true. Woke up to a nice breezy morning and had a refreshing cool bath. Walked out of our apartment and was greeted by warm sunshine and a cool breeze. Not a hint of வெய்யில். I decided to 'walk the weather' to enjoy every moment of it. Wow ! Just wonderful. A good weather truly lifts your spirits !! :) Why can't the weather be like this every day ?

Back to back movies ...

2005-03-22T01:23:00.000-08:00

Now, whatever happened to the days of watching back-to-back movies ? In our college days, we used to regularly watch movies one after the other, especially in our psenti sem. (however bad they may be). Watch a RAF (no, thats not the British Air Force) movie at 8 in the audi, another one (very rarely, even two) in my room at 11-12'ish. That used to be an intrinsic part of our schedule. We ended up watching close to 70 movies in that 120-day sem !!. Boy .. did we have a run !!! And with VCD's available for rent at Rs.10, who would complain ?!! And I can't even estimate the number of times, I have used my HDD as a floppy disk to copy from other's comps.

After those wonderful days at college, we saw 2 back-to-back movies at a multiplex here last week. Meet the fockers and Ray. The former movie was a good laugh-o-therapy. Ended up in a slightly sleepy mood after the second one. Nothing great in Ray except for Jamie Foxx.

Aamchi Mumbai ...

2005-03-16T00:10:00.000-08:00

Had been to Aamchi Mumbai for the weekend. Just a gen visit. Shaka's house has turned into a "gadget ghar" (with iPods, laptops, DVD players, portable MP3 players, digital cameras etc etc lying all over the house) after his (and his roommate's) return from the US visit. Couldn't meet Ambix as his parents had come to visit him. And Simmy and Madhu had gone home. (Bad timing). Just roamed around some malls and watched some films.

Kadhal was a decent film picturizing some realistic difficulties one might face after falling in love and running away. Million Dollar Baby - a good one, though a wee bit longer than necessary in the end. I somehow didn't feel that Morgan Freeman deserved an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this film.

Had a looong trip back home since the bus I took from Thane seemed to stop at each and every bus station on the way (though nobody boarded).

Well done Narain ...

2005-03-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Well, OK, so what if he finished 15th only ? Atleast he finished his first race ! Moreover, he was the first among all 4 rookies in a not-so-impressive Jordan car. Lets hope he breaks into the top 10 next time :)

BTW, Google was caught breaking their own rules when one of their pages employed cloaking techniques to increase their own page rank !!! Of course, the site in question was immediately corrected, I guess.

Back home, we had a wonderful nite at Not just Jazz by the Bay. Thought there wasn't any bay (or any Jazz, for that matter), there were some very good singers in the 'happening' crowd on Sunday nite.

Our brave attempts at singing (it was karaoke) 'Knocking on Heaven's door' fell on uninteresting ears, with even Subbu imitating our (pathetic) "Knock, knock, knocking" every other minute. Well, it was a bad song for karaoking. Hotel California was much better, I think. And because, we had such a wonderful start, I was 'politely' asked to refrain from singing one of my favorite songs. And as our enthu level went down, so did the skirt of a woman in our neighbouring table ;) And we had a different kind of peek-a-boo as compared to HP's

Update : The food sucked bigtime BTW.

Travolta and Thurman in a new pulp ...

2005-03-02T05:44:00.000-08:00

John Travolta & Uma Thurman will be co-starring in a new film since the 1994 swashbuckler movie Pulp Fiction. The new film called Be Cool is a sequel to the Travolta starrer Get Shorty. It was interesting to note that they haven't acted together since 1994. No need to say much about Pulp Fiction - simply superb !! I always start ROTFL whenever I hear the ketchup joke (One day there was these three tomatoes walking down the street, a mama tomato, a daddy tomato and a baby tomato. the baby tomato was walking too slow, so the daddy tomato went back, stepped on him and said "ketchup" !)

Now, how did I reach Google search?

2005-03-02T04:27:00.000-08:00

If this is what you are thinking, chill down. Its just my new template :) I came across this template when I was walking through some of the plethora of links on the web. A nicely made template ! Well, what was wrong with my old template ? Nothing, in fact. I just felt that this template was cute (and popular too).

Birthday வாரம் !!

2005-03-01T09:25:00.001-08:00

Synonymous to the typical Sun TV's (old) style of publicising the genre of movies which would be screened in the coming week, it was "Birthday" வாரம் (week) in my case. After the interesting birthday of Subbu, it was Guj's turn on Feb 25th. He told me that its actually is on 26th. Normally, we hear of cases where people move their 'official' birthdays by many months so that they can get admitted to school without wasting a year. (I wonder whether anybody does it these days !!?? ) Here's one (silly) case where they entered the wrong date by mistake !! So, he ends up celebrating two birthdays back to back. :)

Ok .. back to the birthday 'bash', the next in line were Shanth and my boss on March 1st. Since, I haven't got an opportunity to introduce Shanth till now, here it is : He is one of my roommates who also works in the same company as me (and my other roommates). One of the toppers in our CS batch from BITS, he is one hell of a fundoo guy who nora vuttifies regularly. Anyway, his birthday also went great except for ..... well .. forget it. And what better a day than your birthday to get the good news of getting an admit with TA'ship to a US univ !!!!! And that too, to the univ where his soulmate is studying now !!

And my boss' birthday was celebrated at office with Pizzas and cakes !!! Twas really good and a different way to celebrate also, though Subbu ended up in a Police station when we went to buy the cake ! :))

Diddya miss me ?

2005-02-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

I had written the last post as a draft a few days back only. So technically speaking, I haven't been completely 'out of touch' with this part of the world. But yes, it has been a lean time. Maybe, I should do a quick update on the recent happenings.

* My roommate's b'day was celebrated with fun (true to his type/character, people should have been celebrating his birthday instead of St. Valentine's, but he missed it probably by just a few hours and ended up in the next day). Gave him a real good surprise by gifting him a mobile phone (take this remark with a pinch of salt though. Well, not a pinch, a whole load of it)

* Got a really happy and interesting news from one of my wingies. More on it later on.

* I suddenly seem to have gone Lee crazy. Bought 2 jeans (on a real good discount) in the past 3 weeks !!

* Keeping up with the movie tradition, saw 2 movies, both of them really good. Black, a celebration of the human spirit, kept upto my high expectations. But not Oscar quality, as others might claim. Some logical mistakes and a wee bit overacting. Terminal, the other movie, was cute.

* Got the 'highest' grade on one of my 'lessons'. (It was a really simple 'lesson', so nothing great about it) :)

* Work has been pretty much on a slump in the near past.

Well, ciao then. Getting late here, so gotta leave.

The changing face of F1 ....

2005-02-16T08:23:00.000-08:00

Ok.. Lots of interesting rule changes for the 2005 F1 season.

First off, the engines should last 2 races instead of 1. A 10-second penalty for any change. Hmmm .... brings in a lot of reliability, but raises the question of what would happen if the engine is damaged due to a crash or mistake of another driver ? I wonder how the officials keep tag of all these things, that too for every team (??!!!)

Next, tyres must last for the whole of qualifying and the race !! This I consider to be a major change. Normally in F1, tyres are changed for every pitstop (on an average of atleast 2 times in a race). Add to it the fact that there are different tyres for different weather conditions. I guess, the F1 teams would start recruiting weather experts for accurately forecasting weather conditions (especially rain). :p And for puncture/blowup cases, only one change of tyres is allowed !

Some aerodynamic changes have also been introduced to reduce the speed.

I think the Scarlet team stands to gain a lot with these changes as they have started their homework loong ago. (Jordan and Minardi recruited new drivers recently only and have just started testing their new engines.)

Lets see how things work out. Its definitely an interesting to watch out for (for more than one reason) ... :)

Garfield rocks !!

2005-02-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

And those who say Dilbert too rocks, yes .... he does too :)

Communication blues.

2005-02-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

Today I realised how much havoc miscommunication, or rather no communication at all, could possibly wreck in the healthy working relationships between two people. The situation is something like this : We have a parent group in US, one of the teams of which, takes care of a very small project. Due to the movement of a bigger project here, we decided, to sort of, start using (which would mean snooping and a bit of meddling around here and there) that small project. The only hitch was that, this decision was not communicated to them at all. I agree that the decision was pretty quick, but we had about 2 days, and thats a good enough time ! It turns out that the person handling this project in US was planning to do some major overhaul of the project, and our decision has restricted his 'freedom' of handling the project.

The unfortunate aspect is that I am caught right in between all this confusion, because I was the person who as asked to start 'using' that project. I have a very decent working relationship with this guy in US. Now, since the last 2 days during which all this confusion has arised, he seems to be in an angry mood. From the moment he got a hint that we were going to use his project, he used to discourage me into using it. I didn't understand the reasons behind it of course, but I used to patiently tell my team here about his views. I used to tell our team indirectly, as much as possible, that what we want to do, albeit a good one, is not being done in the right fashion. Still, no measures were taken to communicate our rationale behind the decision to use the project. Today, it has ended in an 'angry' email from him expressing his views.

All this has ended up in some friction in the communication between us. For the past two days, its somewhat evident in his communications with me. He doesn't respond immediately, he doesn't wish me at the start/end, his language and general mood has gone on the angrier side. Now I don't know whether to lie low for some days till he becomes his usual self again, or whether to act as if nothing has happened.

Looking back, I would say that an innocent email on the first day would have prevented all this. A good decision ended up in a sour note, just because it was not communicated.

Sweeping away my time ....

2005-02-07T08:19:00.000-08:00

Broke my minesweeper record in Expert level to finish in less than (or equal to) 2 minutes ! I've been wanting to break this barrier since a loong time. Of course, it isn't a huge record compared to the world record of 41 seconds. (Refer this site for the world records and world rankings.) To get listed, one has to have a time of 99 seconds or less (for expert level). For intermediate, its 35 seconds or less. I am missing both the beginner and intermediate listings by just 2 seconds. :( Here are my present records. (In the intermediate level, I have a record of 34 seconds in my PC at home).

BTW, Samsung mobile has announced an interesting contest for those who like to 'finger' a lot. Wait, wait ! Before you start mistaking me, take a look at the link. :)

Below in an interesting picture which I got from one of my friends. (Disclaimer : The comments in the picture does not necessarily express my views.)

A bugging link and a really bugging link to sign off. Ciao.

Listening to : Chala jaata hoon from Mere Jeevan Sathi.

Movie weekend.

2005-02-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

Had a mad movie weekend this time. Saw 3 movies. Had planned for 4. Could not watch 'M. Kumaran ...' as the CD was taken on Saturday and the shop was closed on Sunday. :(

1. Page 3 - the inside story.

Initially, on hearing the movie's title (without the tagline), I thought "What the heck !". Just another 'candy' movie. (as our wing calls those sweet movies where everybody has lots of money and keep flying to US and Europe whenever they feel like, the hero has no worries in his life except whether the herione loves him. Eg: Almost every other Bollywood movie). Three weeks after it was released and after hearing reviews from my roommate and others, I realised that one shouldn't judge a movie by its title. (As Subbu does, so often).

Haunting - that best describes the movie in one word. Each and every character starting from the NRI investor who wants his picture on Pg 3 every day, the paedophile industrialist, the homosexual make-up man, the two party gate crashers, and of course, Konkana and Atul as the journalists, have been very intricately etched by the director. In the end, the movie is about contrasts, hypocrisy and conflicts in one's mind. Most of the dialogues are crisp (and at times funny too, especially between the chauffeurs), except for a very few hanging dialogues like "Nanda, you are ganda" (??!!!) The background score is another haunting feature of the movie. 5/5 is my score. Don't miss this really slick movie.

2. National Treasure

Its a mix of a robbery movie (with those high funda gadgets, master plans etc) and a treasure hunting movie. End result : Just another Hollywood movie. Those who have read "The Da Vinci Code" will find lots of similarities with the book (The Knights Templar, the brotherhood, cryptic clues, churches etc etc). The film talks a lot about Democracy and how citizens should take the power upon themselves in times of crisis. As usual, Nicholas Cage does a fine job. I would say : don't watch this movie if you have something else important to do.

3. Swimming Pool

Nice one. I like those movies with open endings where the audience is left to wonder and form his/her own theories about what really happened. I had initially assumed that it would be like those thriller college flicks where murders take place every other night and the killer is revealed in the end (atleast the tagline - "On the surface, all is calm." hinted at something like that). Nothing remotely close to that. Its about an best selling crime fiction author who goes to France (the publisher's villa) to be alone and get the inspiration to write another book. There she meets the publisher's sex-crazy daughter (who makes a lot of noise, pun intended ;) ). Things don't go well between them initially, though later on, the author becomes interested in the daughter. Lots of weird happenings here and there, and finally a surprise ending. Though the explanation of the ending is entirely left to the audience. Dialogues are really less in the movie, though there appears to be strong hints and analogies in many scenes.

I read a lot of interesting (and plausible) theories in the IMDB site. But I couldn't find one single explanation that links together all the intracacies of the movie. Frankly speaking, at this stage, I myself am confused and would like to have a good discussion with anybody who has seen this movie and has a good explanation for the ending. I would rate this movie at a good 4/5.

India on track.

2005-02-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

The fastest Indian with the cherubic face (reminds me of Ambix) has finally made it. He has made a deal with the Jordan F1 team and has been selected as one of their drivers (the other is Tiago Monteiro) for the 2005 F1 season . In a circuit which has been completely commanded by the scarlet (many critics condemn them for their utter domination stating that people will lose interest in the sport), some might say that it is clearly not a judicious time to make a debut. But coming from a fairly conservative city like Chennai and getting an opportunity to race with the likes of Schumacher, Montoya and Raikkonen is itself a big achievement.

It should be interesting to observe the conflict of support. My head would say - Ferraris, who IMO, are far more technologically advanced than the others. But my heart would definitely support Narain and hence the Jordan team. (Probably Renault also, because of this).

The entry of Narain in the F1 arena would give some small respite for the otherwise cricket crazy India. It would probably also make people rethink about the abandoned (and ambitious) plan of having an F1 circuit in Hyd.

Baba ....

2005-01-25T08:57:00.000-08:00

An interesting pic which I got from Piggy.

Our computer is our head ....

2005-01-25T07:08:00.000-08:00

"Our computer is our head and our Gandhi cap is the cover to protect it from the sun or rain". In an age where people cannot even imagine living without a computer, I was amused on reading this comment by Raghunath D. Medge on the Indian Express. I am sure your first reaction would be "Who is that ???" He is the president of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supply Charity Trust. And why is that so famous ? Because they were awarded the Six Sigma award by Forbes magazine. Add to this that a group of students from Harvard Business School did a study about how they maintain such excellent quality assurance standards and that Prince Charles, on his visit to India, paid a special visit to them (They didn’t delay your operations during his visit though) . To think that a group of (mostly) illiterate set of people could achieve such a great distinction is mind boggling !

Mumbaikars have a unique way of having lunch at their office. Normally, you would expect them to carry their lunch when they leave for office/school/college, as in any other city. But no, they are so adamant about having their lunch freshly cooked that they get it delivered through a unique system (food courier, shall I say ?). I am not talking about a few hundreds, but approximately about 170,000 mumbaikars !!

To explain the system in a few words, about 5000 odd dabbawallahs collect dabbas (tiffin carriers) from suburban households all around Mumbai. They are taken to the nearest suburban railway station and sorted based on the destination. Another person takes over from here and delivers it to a bigger station and again sorted. After changing about 3-4 hands, the dabba is finally delivered to the desired destination. A complex coding system of colours, dashes, crosses and dots identify the street, building and even the floor of the destination ! The entire system depends heavily on excellent teamwork and timing, apart from the Mumbai suburban railway system (another Mumbai marvel, more on it later).

One might expect utter chaos and confusion, considering the numbers and the distance covered. Surprisingly, they have a complaint rate of just 1 in about 6 lakh ! That is a Six Sigma value of 6.15. The Six Sigma standard states that to achieve Six Sigma status, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (which would correspond to a Six Sigma value of 6). I guess their quality metrics must be the envy of many MNC's.

Some interesting information :

1. Most of the dabbawallahs are related to each other or belong to the same villages (adjoining Pune).
2. All of them are shareholders of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supply Charity Trust !
3. They have their own unique Panchayat system to handle complaints/misconduct.
4. The monthly charges are about Rs. 200-300 per month.

That is some food for thought for each and everyone of us. Something which every Mumbaikar (or any Indian for that matter) should be proud of.

What a nailhead !!

2005-01-18T05:18:00.000-08:00

This was the X-ray of a guy who had a 4 inch nail backfire into his head, but didnt realize it !!! When the nail gun backfired, it sent one nail to a piece of wood nearby, but what he didn't realize was that a second nail had also backfired. After six days, he went to the doctor complaining about what he thought was a minor toothache ! Imagine his surprise when the doctor comes and tells that a 4 inch nail is embedded in his skull !

I think he must consider himself the luckiest man in the world to survive such an accident. The brain is a really complex organ with a huge bundle of nerves and neurons. Any slight damage to them, and the results can be really unpredictable. Look at the way it has got embedded, missing the eye by a whisker and stopping just short of the cerebrum. The poor guy had it removed after paying close to a hundred thousand dollars for a surgery

I remember watching a very similar case on Discovery channel (or was that AXN ??) in which a nail, probably much smaller, had backfired from a nail gun. The most astonishing fact was that the guy didn't realize it for a full 20 or 30 years !! Yes, years it is. That is sometime, I should say !

Pongal Pics ...

2005-01-18T04:09:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are the pics of my Pongal 'experience'. See Pongal 2005 for more info.

Thats me at the extreme left holding the kite strings. Subbu is at my immediate right.
(Photo credit : Aditya Deshpande for taking the picture. Hapi for sharing it with me)

A similar picture. Subbu explaining some funds of kite flying to me. Thats our kite at the top right corner. :)
(Photo credit : Aditya Deshpande for taking the picture. Hapi for sharing it with me)

What a blissful scene !

Thats me with the setting sun as a companion.
(Photo credit : Subbu for taking the picture. )

If you need high resolution images of any of the above, contact me .

Til gul ghya ... goad goad bhola ....

2005-01-15T02:48:00.000-08:00

Thats what the Marathi people say on Sankranti day. Which when translated means "Have these sesame sweets and speak sweet words". Of course, the Tamilians celebrate பொஙல் (Pongal) in a much grander version with "பொஙலோ பொஙல்" (Pongalo Pongal) echoing everywhere. It is a 4 day festival dedicated to the Sun God or Surya Bhagavan. The first day, called Bhogi, is for cleaning the whole house and throwing out and burning of all unwanted things, which signifies the coming of the new year. The second day, or the main Pongal day, is when the Sun God is worshipped for his life giving rays and for making the soil fertile. The third day is called Mattu Pongal, the festival of cattle, when farmers worship their cattle for giving them milk and helping them out in the fields. Its the day when the traditional ஜல்லிக்கட்டு (Jallikattu or bull fight) happens, where money bags are tied to the horns of ferocious bulls and the youth of the village fight with them and claim their prize. The last day is called Thiruvalluvar day in honour of the famous Tamil pulavar.

Even though Pongal is predominatly a farmer's festival, its celebrated in gaiety by everybody. Its one of the two major festive seasons of Tamil Nadu, Deepavali and Pongal. With 4 days off from work and other worries, people enjoy the break and go on a shopping spree. The shopkeepers too, sensing the huge market opportunity, offer large discounts.

So, you might ask, what special did I do on Pongal day ? Well, though I could not cook Pongal in our house, the least I could do was to wear our traditional dress of veshti to office. :) Me and Subbu (my roommate), wore a nice clean veshti after reaching office. There were lots of surprised looks here and there when we went for lunch, but the response was definitely positive. There was even a female employee, a proper Iyer, who couldn't stop smiling (that too for a full minute) on seeing us. I still don't know whether she was genuinely amused on seeing us wear veshtis, or whether we looked like jokers to her.

Our company has a tradition of having a kite fest on the Sankranti day in the terraces of all our buildings. Initially, we had thought of not wearing veshtis during the kite fest, as it might be 'dangerous', what with all the running around and strong winds. But, after the enthusiastic response, we decided to take the plunge. :) We went to the terrace with trepidation, fearing the worst. Again, surprised looks. Once we had taken the plunge, there was no looking back. We enthusiastically started flying kites, though I didnt know a thing about kite flying. Subbu was the one who lifted the kites high up the air. I just held the string for some time, flying the kite here and there, learning some funds from Subbu about controlling a kite. I must say, it is a tough job as the kite pulls at the string and the manja (the string) can easily cut your hands if you are not careful. It was a truly wonderful and fun filled experience though. Fun filled, due to the healthy challenges of who can cut whose kite. We lost our first kite pretty early in the evening. After that, we lost some time trying to float a new kite as there was hardly any breeze. Eventually, we did manage to fly one kite and at one stage, ours was the one flying far above all the rest. :) With the sun setting and only 2 kites left, we decided to 'do or die' by challenging our opposite floor colleagues. After some fight, sadly, we again lost :(

After about 2 hours of 'high flying', we returned to ground level really tired, exhausted and heads slightly aching. Needless to say, not much work happened that day. Will post the snaps as soon as I get hold of them.

Got up late today, watched 'Pardes' movie on cable and came to office. Its yet another weekend and time to enjoy !! :)

Listening to : Yeh Shaam mastani (Kati Patang)

My old blogs ...

2005-01-08T08:58:00.000-08:00

As I had told previously (in My first one ), I had made a very low profile attempt at blogging previously. I started to blog during last year April, after one of my friends coerced me to do it. Wrote some 10-15 posts, but after that got busy with work and many other things.

Here's the link to them :

Link 1
Link 2

Take a look at them too. Some of them talks about my BITS life and the Goa trip that we went for during our training. Those were the days ......

Listening to : Enter Sandman (Metallica)

Orkut ... at last !

2005-01-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

The news is that I (atlast) got an Orkut invite ! :) I should admit that its been really looong to get this invite. Well, better late than never !

Added 36 ppl on day one !! 14 ppl have responded. Thats pretty good, I should say, considering that I am not considered so popular among my circle.

Another weekend has come. Had to stay late at office because of a stupid call. (Grrr !) A stupid call to discuss some really stupid bug about Daylight savings time mismatch. I spent a week on rolling out a build only to realize later on that what we were doing was indeed the right thing. The problem in fact lies somewhere in the product that integrates with us. Had to spend more than an hour explaning to him that we dont have to give a fix to them !! Well, in a way, I am also partly responsible for what happened. I should have actually verified their statement before rolling out a build.

Anyway, the weekend has partly pacified my mood :) Gotta watch a good movie this weekend. BTW, saw Swades last weekend. A truly 'neat' movie regardless of what the damn film critics say. As we all know, there is no use listening to a film critic's views. Its your own views and what you like that matter. Comparing Swades and Lagaan makes no sense whatsover !

Listening to: Wanted Dead or alive (Bon Jovi)

New template !

2005-01-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

At last, after about 2-3 hours of HTML CSS editing (I don't know HTML coding, you see), I managed to bring up my new template. Had to put a big fight for formatting the text, margins, padding etc etc. My first introduction to CSS. Pretty versatile, I should say !

Hope you like the white background (one of my favourite colours) with the ivy branch. Do send me your comments about the template.

High 05 !

2005-01-02T04:11:00.000-08:00

04 down. Time to start a cheerful 05 !! 2004 ended in a sour note with Tsunami 9.0 (more than 1,30,000 copies sold till now) causing core dumps after being installed in SE-Asia 1.0 . This has also given a backdoor entry for the deadly Diseases 4.3 . A hotfix patch of Rescue&Relief 2.50 is being released all over the world.

Lets hope 2005 brings a fresh 'wave' of prosperity and hope to all the people ! As the Vedas say, "Dhanyam, dhanam, pashum, bahuputra labham, sata samvatsaram deerghamayuhu".

Happy New Year ! (புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கல்)

My first one !

2004-12-29T08:15:00.000-08:00

As with any computer program, I start my blog with a "Hello World !".

I am actually not a prolific writer or speaker. So I am not sure how much this first attempt at blogging (well, its actually not the first) would take off.

For those who didn't get the title of my blog, Sinthanaigal (சிந்தனைகல்) in Tamizh means thoughts. I would rather have liked to keep it kirukkalgal (கிருக்கல்கல் - scribblings), but somebody else had already taken that name :(

Here's hoping that I get some constructive feedback from you and that I start blogging regularly .....