The Depth of the Lake

2010 - A Blizzard

2010-12-29T06:08:00.002+05:30

My first blog post of 2010.. and probably my last but who knows.. stranger things have happened before. I write this post sitting in the Charlotte Airport on my way to Rio!!!!!!! I finally made my escape from Boston - the escape marks the end to an eventful year. As I spent the last few days stuck at home in the Great 2010 Christmas Blizzard... I thought about life and social networks - more specifically my social network.

In the last few years I have lived in many different worlds and the interesting thing is that these worlds barely intersect. World 1: The oilfield. World 2: The World of Small businesses in India. World 3: B-School at MIT Sloan. It will be interesting to look at my social map on facebook. I bet that I will probably be at the intersection of three different but very interconnected networks. Often we tend to hang out with those people who we have a lot in common with - same culture, same industry, same company, same college - some common thread. And as I look closely at who I hang out with in b-school.. I see some of those similar tendencies. But many people in business school are like me - their experiences and backgrounds are so unique that they have very little that they share with everyone else. And I think I spend a lot of time with these people.

Next year will be in a new world... the world of investment banking in New York. Of course this world will not be as exclusive from my other networks.. There will be links to all my friends from undergrad of course who ended up in NYC and my friends from Sloan who will be moving there. Maybe it wont be as alien a world after all. And that is exciting - for the first time I will be moving to a new place where I will actually already know a ton of people.

Exciting times.. bring it on 2011. The year of the great plateauing of my social network!

Now does someone have suggestions for mapping out my social network on facebook.. I am curious to see how it looks and who are the people who are most connected within it.

Magnificent Tamil Nadu

2009-08-05T18:19:00.004+05:30

In this age where every tourist destination has to be packaged and given an epithet, many destinations in India struggle to find the right word. How can a single word represent the varying splendour of history, culture, cuisine, natural beauty and everything else wonderful that doesnt fit into any of the three categories just mentioned. When I decided to do a road trip across Coastal Tamil Nadu, I looked up the tourism website - the chosen word was "Enchanting." After my trip, the word magnificent comes to mind. The staggering towers of the temples, the imposing fortresses.. Yes, the word magnificent fits just fine.

In the span of three days, 1200 km, covering only about a third of the state we were able to transcend a journey across millenia. from beholding the site of the Ram Setu at Rameshwaram to the glorious temples of the age of the four empires leading up to the Colonial fortresses of a more recent era.

One aspect of the trip that really surprised me rather pleasantly was the quality of the roads. Barring the odd goat(aadu) that got my goat by straying on to the middle of the road and standing its ground- we were able to make quick progress right through. The super quick highway from Trichy to Madras deserves special mention.

Starting out from Chennai along the East Coast Road we made our way to Rameshwaram in a span of two days stopping over at Chidambaram (a fabulous temple), Pichavaram ( a mangrove forest reserve that will be even more stunning in the Bird season after the Rains), Tranquebar( A Danish (yes, danish not dutch) Fort ( the special attraction I see here is the old governors bugalow on the beach converted into a resort), Vailankanni ( the famous church) and Nagapattinam (Overnight stop).

At Rameshwaram while we did the customary visit to the temple, our real destination had been the tip of the land that separates India from Sri Lanka, the site of the famous Bridge of folklore. This piece of land is also the site for the ruins of Dhanushkodi ( Bow's end - Rama's Bow) which was washed away in the Great Cyclone of 1964. To get to the land's end one has to travel on a lorry which drives across the last stretch of wet sand. Getting there around Sunset to see the water closing in from both the sides of this thin strip of land is a sight to behold.

For the return journey we chose to take the inland route via Chettinad ( Karaikudi) and Trichy in order to save time. The highlight of the return leg was the breakfast a a restaurant called Annapoorni at Karaikudi. For travellers who plan to get to Karaikudi around lunch time they should plan ahead and arrange for a traditional chettinadu food meal.

Definitely a trip I am glad I did. And on a slightly different note, I read an article on my return which talks about how the Baluchis from Baluchistan in Pakistan are people who speak a Dravidian language ( similar to Tamil). Fascinating to say the least!

The Origin of the Word Tank

2009-07-23T20:56:00.002+05:30

I have been reading this book called "The Prize- The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power." It is a history of the oil industry from its humble beginnings in different parts of the world to become a commodity which played a significant role in determining the history of the world.

While reading about how Oil played a key role in determining the military strategy in the early 20th century, I read about how the First World War turned around with the introduction of the "Tank" by the British. Today the Tank is almost syonumous with the image of that beast of a armoured vehicle that pops into our heads. But when you think about it - "Tank" is not a very obvious choice of name for this military innovation. Why then is it called Tank?

During the First World War after the French successfully stopped the German advance by using an army of "taxis" ( yes soldiers transported by taxis for the first time) the war had gone into a stalemate of trench warfare for a couple of years. During this time a British War Fiction writer, Colonel Swinton had the idea that an armored vehicle powered by an IC engine could be the answer.

At this time, a man named Winston Churchill was the First Lord of the Admiralty. A few years earlier he had championed the cause of the introduction of Fuel Oil for ships of the British Navy. When he heard about the Swinton's idea he championed the cause and called upon the army to begin research to develop this vehicle. But the highly traditional Army did not take this idea seriously. As a result Churchill decided to fund this research from the Navy's funds. Some of the initial names given to the vehicle were "LandCruiser" and "Land Ship" - to indicate the fact that it was the Navy developing this weapon. Later on, in order to keep the development secret, the project was given the codename - "Cistern" and "Reservoir" - since the product when kept under wraps could be mistaken for Cisterns. Eventually the name "Tank"stuck.

I chose to delve a touch further. Why was Tank - a container for water -called Tank? Apparently there is a strong linkage to the Hindi/Marthi/Gujarati word - Tankh, Tanka etc. Apparently the Portuguese carried this word to Europe as Tanque in the 17th century. From the West coast of India to the battlefields of western europe - a long journey the Tank has made.

A Vicious Cycle...

2009-07-04T17:16:00.003+05:30

Anger of the unbridled kind,
Pure unadulterated anger.
Held him in a tight bind,
Until his heart cared no longer

Pity, it seemed had no space.
How could it replace love?
Pity, it seems has its place,
But anger, it is not above.

Anger is essential, they plead
But it is not. Not at all.
Insincere anger, makes none bleed.
If real it makes a man fall.

Anger, Love, Pity and Hate.
A vicious cycle it is.
Heart's appetite they satiate.
Man must live with this.

What you learn about the nature of middle management in large corporations by playing Tennis doubles..

2009-07-01T14:34:00.003+05:30

When I was playing tennis this morning, I noticed something. When novice players (like me) play doubles there is a tendency to play it safe - to hit the ball less harder and try to stay in the line. But when they play singles they go hard and the ball, go for the lines and try to finish off points. While this might be partly due to the inherent nature of the doubles game, at the skill level of novices I do not think that this is the cause.

My belief is that because a doubles player has a team mate, he feels that by going for his shots and hitting the ball out he is letting his team mate down. The doubles player becomes less likely to take risks and tends towards a more defensive approach. Such behaviour is only exacerbated by the constant refrain of a double partner to "keep the ball in play." Part of that sentence is left unsaid..."keep the ball in play so that I come into play."

It is this underlying human nature that ensures that in the middle management of large corporations managers seldom want to take risks. The decision that is made is usually something that is acceptable to one and all who would have a say in the decision. The path of least resistance. The management tends towards hitting the ball in the oppositions court and keeping the ball in play.

But the same behaviour is probably not displayed at the higher levels. Just like professional doubles players learn to play aggresively when required, managers at the high levels probably learn the art of making decisions, sticking with them and pushing them through the system. The really good managers learn when to hit winners and when to keep the ball in play despite playing doubles - being part of large teams/comittees/ boards that decide the course of action.

In small firms and entrepeneurial organisations this phenomenon of management by "minimum consensus" does not occur. The decisions are made by a single authority. If a large corporation wants to maintain an agressive middle management team they must replicate the structure of small companies and help their management team retain the ability to take risks and hit the winners.

Oh!...The things you think about when you are serving double fault after double fault....

Led Zeppelin's Kashmir was inspired by the Sahara Desert...

2009-06-24T12:26:00.003+05:30

Excerpt from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_(song)

Originally called "Driving to Kashmir", the lyrics to the song were written by Plant in 1973 immediately after Led Zeppelin's 1973 US Tour, in an area he called "the waste lands" of Southern Morocco, while driving from Goulimine to Tantan in the Sahara Desert. This was despite the fact that the song is named for Kashmir, a region in the northernmost part of the Indian subcontinent. As Plant explained to rock journalist Cameron Crowe...

"The whole inspiration came from the fact that the road went on and on and on. It was a single-track road which neatly cut through the desert. Two miles to the East and West were ridges of sandrock. It basically looked like you were driving down a channel, this dilapidated road, and there was seemingly no end to it. "

Ponderings from Beyond the Mountains..

2009-06-19T10:29:00.003+05:30

Last week I returned from Ladakh. At the risk of sounding cliched, I shall venture out to say that I feel refreshed. Since then I have been in a rather philosophical mood - I guess the mountains and the lack of oxygen does get to you. Ever since I stood at the Sanchi Stupa overlooking the town of Leh a thought buried deep in my conciousness has returned and I realised that this core thought has always driven my thinking and behaviour. The thought I recall, is one that has been thougtfully ( pun not intended...what pun? ) included in all NCERT text books back when I was in school. The thought belongs to none other that the Mahatma..

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

- One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi in 1948, expressing his deepest social thought.

More than the social intent that colours the second half of the sentence, I tend to focus more on the first line. In a world where consumerism marches on and people seek to be increasingly connected, where people spend many days agonising about what mobile phone they must possess, what clothes they must wear, what laptops they should use, when you stop and contemplate this in the serene silence of the mountains, these questions simply become meaninglessly irrelevant. Whenever we feel victimised, enraged and simply frustrated I recall this thought, and I feel thankful that I have not to worry about my next meal and a perverse smile returns to my face. We sweat the small things in life far too often and spend far lesser time on the things that matter. Although there is room to misconstrue this as a fatalist strain of thought, I believe that this is not the case. We all have goals and ambitions... we all seek to acheive something. While this passion to acheive something must remain - the paths towards acheivement shall always never be fully revealed. We must live in every moment and strive towards what we seek to acheive, shrugging off minor set backs, laughing at our mistakes and frustrations. At this stage the second half of Gandhiji's thoughts starts to make much more sense. If this is indeed the ideal disposition to maintain, then the goal itself must be a noble one, otherwise the equanimity and selflessness of this disposition will be difficult to attain. Passion combined with a noble cause makes the Mahatma.

In simple words, whenever you loose your cool or feel defeated, Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man or woman you have seen, then put your noble goal in front of you and trudge on with a smile - there is no other way.

What kind of Game is this?

2009-05-13T22:54:00.003+05:30

Suppose there is a game between A and B for a total of 40 points. At the end of the game both Team A and Team B can transfer their points to two other players Y and Z. Similarly there are games between C and D, E and F, G and H with each game being worth a total of forty points. Thus these individual games add up to 160 points.

Y and Z are playing a game with each other where they already have 200 points each and now depending on how many points the teams from the first 4 games transfer to each of the players Y and Z the final winner will be decided. A key point to note here is that in any of these 40 point games, both players cannot transfer their points to either Y and Z - they necessarily have to be on opposing sides.

Supposing each of the 40 points games can have only 3 outcomes - 40-0 , 20-20, or 0-40. This means that the 20-20 results effectively does not effect anyone - provided A,B,C,D,E,F,G are distinct from Y,Z. The games which have either a 40-0 or a 0-40 outcome will be the most important games which will decide who wins the overall game. Thus if these 40 point games are decided based on a democratic process of voting and I am a person who has to decide which team to vote for in a game between C and D for example, I will make every attempt to ensure that I support that team which is most likely to get a 40-0 victory because that means that my vote will have the biggest impact in the overall outcome of the game between Y and Z. Thus a group of rational voters will always vote to ensure a 40-0 verdict provided their knowledge of which team will win is strong enough.

In effect is the democratic process is seen in cold light for what it is - a scramble for power, which I believe that every voter is able to see, then the vote will always be cast in such a manner so that a winner will take all. Perhaps over time the team members and the supporters realise this and eventually every state where regional parties rule the roost ( distinct from central parties), the parties and the voters will always ensure that one team sweeps the stakes, because that is the most beneficial outcome for all concerned.

The game changes in those 40 point games where one of the team members is directly either Y or Z..... More thought on this later...

Bottom line is that as more states start to get into the mode of regional parties the alliances and the voting patterns will be so formed such that the result is always one sided. This will be the most optimum outcome for all concerned in these 40 point games. Perhaps it take a few decades for the team members and supporters to intuitively understand this - but eventually they get it and this is what will happen. Perhaps we can call it the Strength of Collective Bargaining in the Free Market called democracy....

The Windies and the lack of Bowling Strength

2009-04-11T19:50:00.002+05:30

I spent the afternoon watching the highlights of the second innings of a test match. Windies vs Aussies, 1997-98 in australia. This is the 5th Test match of the once famous test series that used to happen every alternate year - The Sir Frank Worrell Trophy. Australia had by this time already won the trophy by defeating the invincible Windies in the west indies aided by the heroics of a certain Mr. Steve Waugh. In Australia on the return tour, West Indies has already lost the series by the time they came to the final test match. But the strength of the team, even though in decline, during this tour was simply amazing. A star studded team led by Courtney Walsh. A bowling line up that included Ambrose, Bishop and the eternal under-performer - Carl Hooper. Although by this time they did not have any strong opening batsman - no desmond haynes and no gordon greenidge. I guess in many ways, the lack of a solid opening pair is a sure sign of a team that is not very strong. Australia's golden age coincided with the strong pair of langer and hayden and I dare say India's biggest strength is their opening pair at present. This Windies team was largely the same team that reached the quarter finals of the 1996 world cup under Richie Richardson. Since then no real strong team has come from that quarter of the world.

Well the point I am trying to make is that back then in 1997 although there were a few clear front runners, the gap between the teams was not very high. all the teams used to play each other much more frequently whereas now it seems that the number of test series that happen has reduced dramatically and so has the quality. It has been quite a while since a test match of fabulous quality has been played. The second point is that a strong West indies team or any strong team filled with much-feared faster bowlers is also something that world cricket misses today. Is this the impact of the advent of better technology? Perhaps the time has come to make change to rules of the game to make the playing field more level. Like F1 has done a number of things to make races more driver dependent I think cricket needs to think long and hard and come up with some rules to make the contest between bat and ball more interesting. I think one of the first things to be done must be to standardise cricket bats and reduce the strength of bats. I am pretty sure that if you analyse the % of runs scored through sixes over the past few years there must be dramatic increase in that number. Something has changed in World Cricket that needs to be set right. The contest between bat and ball does not seem very even any more and more wickets seem to come from the batsmen making mistakes rather than the bowler creating the dismissal.

Let me sign off by posting a link which I am sure many of us will enjoy. A Curtly Ambrose Special Spell of 7 wickets for 1 run against the Aussies. This was a different series though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5G4pqb4nns

Is it just me or is it really true that Aus,SA, India and England are playing far more cricket than the rest of the world? And more against each other than elsewhere?

Go Kiss the World

2009-02-06T22:16:00.003+05:30

That is the title of a book I am presently reading. Its sub title is "Life lessons for the Young Professional." Its one of the first autobiograhical book that I am reading but it has been a fascinating read. I had read Subroto Bagchi's first book, The High Performance Entrepreneur and I was able to completely connect with everything that was said in that book. The same goes for this one. Although the initial phase of the book where he speaks about his struggles in a buearocratic economy and his child hood in small town orissa is rather difficult for me to connect with, I think he makes a lot of sense..or rather talked a lot of sense into my headm when he talks about that latter part of his life in Wipro and how he founded MindTree. Here is an excerpt that I particularly liked, it has put into words those same thoughts that have always simmered in my mind. Wonderfully put.

"One frequent theme for high achievers is frustration. High Achievers set high standards for themselves and expect everyone else to follow them. This is a legitimate but sometimes unreasonable positions. As a result they tend to get frustrated easily, especially with the system. Frustration without the capability to change things is like a radioactive material buring inside you. Your frustration is the difference between your ambition and your capability. Either improve your capability or lower your ambition. Do not just sit there with the radioactivity turned inward.

Not everything around you can be changed by you. The world's job is not to follow you just because you have figured out things before others. You should only be pained to change things that you can take chare of and create a sustainable impact. This is where Stephen Covey's concept of zone of concern and zone of influence comes in. Focus on those issues that fall in the overal of your zone of concern and zone of influence. Concern without influence is of no use. "

Beautifully put....

And one card to rule them all...

2009-01-28T09:29:00.002+05:30

Government to provide unique identity numbers to all citizens...

Beginning a gigantic task of providing a unique identity to every Indian, the government on Tuesday notified setting up of a national authority that will ensure that each of its over one billion citizens carry a permanent identifier from birth to death.

From: http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/jan/28govt-to-provide-unique-id-numbers-to-all-citizens.htm

Three credit cards for all and sundry under the not-so-prime sun,
Seven ID Cards for the government agencies in their fortresses of stone,
Nine for voting, driving, rationing, drinking et all,
One for the Government that sits on throne,
In the Land of Delhi where the fog thickens
One Card to rule them all, One Card to find them,
One Card to bring them all and in the thick fog bind them into vote banks
In the Land of Elections where the fog thickens.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

The Price of Oil & my prediction...

2008-09-10T00:59:00.000+05:30

Many people look upon the increase in the price of oil during the past few years as a sign that oil has run out - A sign that the oil reservoirs are running out and that very soon there would be no oil. While it has created the much needed visibility for alternate energy technologies like solar energy, the economics of oil – the supply and demand equation is far more complex than the simple notion that oil has run out.

Large oil reserves have not been tapped into or have been producing far below their potential for various reasons -

o Environmental concerns – reserves in the arctic and potentially in deep sea waters

o Geopolitical circumstances – Iran, Iraq, Nigeria etc

o Cost of extraction – the large super oilfields which are capable of producing in large quantities cheaply (using current technology) are starting to decline in their outputs.

o Slow rate of emergence of new technology – Technology has not kept pace with the rate of increase of the demand. New technologies which dramatically decrease the cost of production from oil reservoirs which were hitherto expensive to produce from, have not come on stream quickly enough. Thus the average cost of production increases. The rate of increase in production is not fast enough.

While the above factors are responsible for oil production being below the potential of the proven reservoirs there are two other factors which are also responsible for the increase in prices.

Underinvestment: One of the reasons for the slow rate of emergence of new technologies has been underinvestment from oil companies. This is primary due to the nature of the business cycle. The oil industry has always been through boom and bust cycles. This has led to a chronic underinvestment in lean times. This under investment leads to shortage during the upswing in prices during the boom. The shortage is created because the time lag / gestation period for a new oilfield to move from exploration to start producing to its full potential can range from 5-10 years. The underinvestment in R&D leads to new technology coming online slower than expected and also a shortage of equipment such as rigs, drill ships which restricts capacities. This creates the spike in prices by which time it is too late to increase investments.

Demand Growth: The growth of demand for oil has been at a furious pace as more developing countries start to increase the penetration of cars. Thus while oil may not be 'running out' per se, a complex bunch of factors coupled with speculation in the crude markets, ensures that oil prices remain high.

The Future Prediction:
While no one really knows the way forward, I will go forth and make a prediction just to give myself half a chance of saying ' I told you so' a few years from now. Perhaps I will become famous for the prophetic prediction some day – as did that non-descript analyst who predicted the spike in oil price.

The current trend of decreasing prices will continue over the next few months to drop to around $ 50 per barrel in around 1-2 years time. The price will continue to hover at these levels for about 3-4 years before slowly starting to increase beyond 2010 – perhaps then the prices would touch 200-300$ per barrel by 2015-2020. By then electric vehicles and solar energy will start to have a significant impact on oil demand. And before that boom and bust cycle comes to and end with a drop in prices by 2020 alternate sources of energy will take over and the price of oil will no longer make national headlines.

A Journey Begins

2007-11-03T15:15:00.000+05:30

I am now officially back. Back to blogging, back the real world, coming back to reclaim a life that was lost, saving a life that was on the steep slope of decline into oblivion. Yes. I am back.

Four months since my last post. A lot has changed in that time. After a two year stint as a wanderer in no-man's land - the land of the unstable( refer previous post) I decided that it was time to move on. I quit my first job and am not in the process of defining how the next few years of my life shall pass.

In this post I want to talk about holding on and letting go. My first visions of quitting, appeared in January of 2007. I did not want to do this anymore. And it was only in September that is was finally over. A long 9 months. A carrot always dangled in front , and if didn't there were always the blinds of busyness and overwork that kept you on the one-way road with no exits. The little time for yourself was spent frantically searching for exits on the highway before you ran out of fuel stranded in the desert. And slowly a small path began to open up, a vision - was it a mirage.
I wasn't. As it turns out, for me it took a lot of effort to quit my job and move on. For some people, it is all too easy. They realise they want to quit, they do it and they have already moved on. But for me it was hard. The hardest thing to overcome is the fear of not knowing where you are headed. It takes a lot of conviction and clear thinking to figure out what are the things that make you happy. What are the things in your life you wish to cherish forever and what are the things you can afford to let go. What path must you take so that regret will never feature in your future. It took nine months to figure it all out and now although I do not know what the future holds, there is a quiet contentment of having made the right choice.

In those few months I took care of all those things on my to-do before I leave list and when I let go there was no pain - a smooth easy release from one world to slowly plunge into another. The Age of instability is over and a new era is dawns. Back to the city of intersecting paths from the desert of one highway. Choices to make, paths to choose - a life to live, a journey begins.

The Stability of our World

2007-05-27T09:52:00.000+05:30

Life in the Oilfield. If there is one word that can describe the lifestyle, it is the word unstable. Although a more indirect and confusing word for it is 24x7. Its confusing because when you hear that word you are not sure if its a good/bad thing. But I like the word unstable because it describe the way of life as positively negative.

And when you live like this it gives you a lot of insight into the nature of human beings and society. There are many people who lead such unstable lives. Sailors, Soldiers, Pilots. Humans have always tried to make their lives more stable. Which is why people moved from being nomads to building villages and cities. When you lead unstable lives your needs become more immediate and your whole life revolves around today and tommorrow. It becomes difficult to care about next year just as it becomes difficult to think about faraway things , people, places. Today, here, now is what its all about. And this changes the way people behave. Just like the behaviour of the invading hordes of Genghis Khan were different from the behaviour of Mughal occupiers. Loot, plunder and building cities , empires are merely different behaviours. One is the behaviour of people who lead unstable lives and the other of people who want to lead a stable life.

If this stability factor can affect the history of our world so drastically, think about the world today. If our world is going to be ruled by people who lead unstable lives we may someday look at our world and wonder, if only... That is why military dictators are bad. And so are people who only want more oil.

Music and Life - A Movie

2007-04-17T21:43:00.002+05:30

Add background music to life , and you have a movie. All our lives have all the ingredegents to make a sucessful movie. We all have our struggles, and the drama in our everyday lives..

Everytime you plug in your headphones and listen to music, while you watch idly the scenery from a stationary window, or from a car window, the scenes play out like a movie. You wonder inwardly about the scene you are experiencing. The lives of all things in your view is contemplated and the music... the background music is just what makes the experience movie like. The music brings the emotion. It colors the scene that presents itself with imagination. The music takes out the soundtrack from real life and replaces it by a fixed music score and that somehow transforms the scene into a movie. It lets our mind wander,and we connect with our past experiences andn each frame takes on character. Meaning. The story wanders on with no beginning or end, like a mystery tv series with no real end. The mind wanders, feels and our field of experience widens. We feel the intangible emotions that move us to tears in an instant and a smile the next. Everything that cinema is.

Life with music, is beautiful. Art. Cinema.

The World of War and Peace

2007-02-04T22:35:00.000+05:30

When you find yourself in times of war.
How do you live with loss?
Each day is a celebration.
The home that was, is.
and is yet, no more.

The meanings of words change,
as each day rolls on.
The daily pleasures keep us
company. Epicureanly.
As homes crumble and nations fall.
Life alone soldiers on.
Battling the past and despair.
Life soldiers on through the defeats.
Getting by on parties at night,
and laughing by day.
Laughing because to not laugh would
be another defeat. A harder one.
A deeper wound.
The winter shall end and
Summer shall come. And life,
it lives off the routine, mundane.
Everyday things in everyday life.
And it goes on.
Life goes on and on and on.

Two different philosophies.
Two different worlds.
A world in War and another in Peace.

Bravery

2007-01-27T08:05:00.000+05:30

Every time there are awards made for Bravery, I wonder. I wonder how many brave people loose their lives trying to save others and are never recognised. And I even wonder if it is indeed brave to go rushing in to save other people when you are not fully trained to do so, in the process endangering yourself and merely reducing the chances of survival for the victims. We hear of stories where such acts of "bravery" were sucessful and we applaud. But there must be for every sucess story so many more people who acted bravely, and ended up making things worse. Imagine a burning building with people trying to rush in to save the others who end up collapsing in the thick smoke. Now people trying to rescue the initial victims, have to first rescue their would be rescuers.
Would that now be classified as a brave act?? Is that sacrificial tendency something that needs to be applauded and encouraged? How often do we salute "brave" people who didnt rescue anyone.

I dont oppose bravery awards, but I would appreciate those acts of bravery where people think before they act and make sure that the person who is in danger has the greatest chance of survival.
Before I end, I will ask one question. How many "brave" acts end tragically. It is not bravery that I oppose. It is the way we define brave acts that I reject.

In a burning building, is the man who rushes in immediately only to be over come by the smoke brave? Or is the man who calls for the Firefighters and then does everything possible without endangering his own life to make sure the trapped people get out brave? Or is the second man not brave simply because he chose not to endanger his life?

Music

2006-11-23T18:52:00.000+05:30

I have rediscovered the joy of music. I was up early this morning and listening to music. It was dark at 7 a.m. It was chilly and there was a traffic build-up outside the building. There was an orange tinge in the horizon. And the music purged the mind. Music performs the job wonderfully when you need something to clear the mind and the aid the thought process.

And I seem to be developing a taste for classical music. It is a pity that I won't be around for the music season this year. I wanted to attend and see if I could listen patiently to an entire vocal concert without thinking of the badam halwa and vazhakkai bajji in the academy canteen. I am probably going to have to wait another year for that.

There was an agenda: I would be in a position to identify atleast a few ragas in the period of one year. The 12 months are long over but my knowledge has improved, not at all. But I tell myself, one day it will happen. I will appreciate the music I listen to, a lot more.

My Journey East and The Journey to the West

2006-11-05T08:08:00.000+05:30

Beijing - 0n National Day.
__________________________________
Some amusing mispells...from China
On the freeway - " Caution! Rear end collusion - Keep Space"
On the CD cover of a popular animation movie - " The Loin King"

More...Coming as and when I see them.

____________________________________________________

During my visit to The Summer Palace and the North Ocean Palace in Beijing I got to know a little about the history of China. And what surprised me is the close links that India and China share, culturally. Nothing signifies this better than "The Journey to the West" - one of the four great novels of Chinese literature. Hanuman is Sun Wukong. And no, I am not referring to King Kong or Loin kings for that matter.
____________________________________________________________________

The view from my hotel room at dawn..

Im putting up some pictures taken on my Beijing Trip. In this post I'll restrict my pictures to day One of my visit, since I'm too lazy to put up all the pictures right now. Will do it in installments. We left Tanggu in the afternoon and reached Beijing around 7 pm. We checked into our hotels and we were off to taste the best Beijing Duck in Beijing. After dinner we walked into Tiananmen square - very close to where the restaurant was. And these are pictures taken there. Ill make another post with pictures of the Summer Palace and the North Ocean Palace which we visited the next day.

Tiananmen Gate.

Tiananmen Gate - the other side.

Other Pictures from Tiananmen Square:

Mongolia Again - The Land of Genghis Khan

2006-09-25T21:59:00.000+05:30

The title: I found statues of Genghis Khan in the border town of Dong Wu Qi, with offerings of apples placed before him. Im assuming he is something of a God in these parts.

The precious grass protects holds on to the earth.
Without which , this land would be desert.
(The crudest translation of this stone tablet we found on the wayside)

Border Town of Dong Wu Qi - 50 km from the Mongolian Border.

Day Break - as beautiful and refereshing as ever

The lonely droopy Sunflower(if this is not a sunflower feel free to correct me)

The Wall

Me and my Crew Chief

Erlian Basin - rig in the distance

There and Back Again : Road to Mongolia

2006-09-20T21:10:00.000+05:30

This post consists of bits and pieces. Little paragraphs i managed to eke out on the road on my laptop. Might sound a bit disjointed.

On september 14th the client called us for a job, in the Province of Inner mongolia, a two day drive . So we started preparing for the job.We checked out tools, loaded our equipment, and we're all packed up by 9 pm.Next morning after a briefing with my manager and a visit to the bank and phone company to make sure we were fully stocked up, we left for Xi Lin Hot- Inner mongolia

First Stop - Beijing
On the way to Beijing we caught up with what seemed to be a group of very rich sports car enthusiasts driving their Ferrari's and Lambhorgini's and Ford GT's on the Jing Tang Expressway between Tanggu and Beijing. Unfortunately for them the driving was reduced to a crawl since there had been an accident on the way which had blocked the road.

The Wall

We didnt enter Beijing, we took the by pass and headed for Zhang Jia Kou our pitstop for the night. And i was in for a pleasant surprise. The Great Wall. The great wall was built to keep out mongolian invaders, and to get to Inner mongolia(the Chinese province bordering Mongolia) we had to cross the Great Wall. We actually took an easier way. We drove right past the great wall and then underneath it through a tunnel.Even from far, the sheer slopes and height at which these walls were built traversing impossible paths through the hillside, was a magnificent sight. The great wall apparently stretched 13 km(Badaling) at this point. I made a note to visit this place some other time, it isnt all that far from Beijing. One weekend would do. But getting the weekend off is the hard part. We hurried past this Wall and continued onward to reach our stop for the night by sundown.

Xi Lin Haote
We left very early the next morning. We were to leave Hebei province where we had spent the night and cross into the Grasslands of inner mongolia. We were heading for Xi Lin Hot.

The grasslands built up gradually. First we passed through some barren hills. And slowly the land got flatter and flatter and soon we were in the real grasslands. We met our client in Xi Lin Hot and after a quick lunch procceded on to the wellsite which was another 200 km away. Miles and Miles of grasslands in between, no towns no cities, and the villages also thinned out very quickly. We did see the occasional "Yurt". The traditonal mongolian nomad's dwelling complete with a mongolian horse. But I hear most of them have taken to motorcycles now. But many of the mongols still live away from the cities, grazing their sheep and catttle and selling the meet to the cities dominated by the Han - Chinese. And very soon my crew chief was telling me that we would have to travel 100 km on the grasslands itself. There was no road to the rig. But until then the road was smooth and thhe view of the sun bathed golden grasslands of inner mongolia(Xi Lin Haote) was just perfect. It was almost exactly the same as the Praeries were in Alberta almost exactly a year ago.Atleast now I can let go of the regret for not having a camera back then. Well anyway, the title for this post is there and back again, simply because im on my way there, back for another job. And we managed to stop at the Wall for 15 mins. More pics coming up soon.

A veena in the dust

2006-09-06T08:39:00.000+05:30

The fascination continues. More Bharathi...

nalladhoar veenai seydhae - adhai
nalangedap puzhudhiyil erivadhundoa

solladi sivasakthi - enaich
chudarmigum arivudan padaiththuvittaay
vallamai thaaraayoa - indha
maanilam payanura vaazhvadharkae
solladi sivasakthi - nilach
chumaiyena vaazhndhidap puriguvaiyoa

visaiyurup pandhinaip poal - ullam
vaendiyapadi seyyum udal kaettaen
nasaiyaru manam kaettaen - niththam
navamenach chudar tharum uyir kaettaen
thasaiyinaith theechchudinum - siva
sakthiyaip paadum nallagam kaettaen
asaivuru madhi kaettaen - ivai
arulvadhil unakkedhum thadaiyuladhoa

Source: http://www.musicindiaonline.com/lr/26/6316/

நல்லதோர் வீணை செய்தே - அதை
நலங்கெடப் புழுதியி லெறிவ துண்டோ?

சொல்லடி சிவசக்தி! - எனைச்

சுடர்மிகு மறிவுடன் படைத்து விட்டாய்,

வல்லமை தாராயோ, - இந்த

மாநிலம் பயனுற வாழ்வதற்கே?

சொல்லடி, சிவசக்தி! - நிலச்

சுமையென வாழ்ந்திடப் புரிகுவையோ?

விசையுறு பந்தினைப்போல் - உள்ளம்

வேண்டிய படிசெலும் உடல்கேட்டேன்,

நசையறு மனங்கேட்டேன், - நித்தம்

நவமெனச் சுடர்தரும் உயிர்கேட்டேன்,

தசையினைத் தீசுடினும் - சிவ

சக்தியைப் பாடுநல் லகங்கேட்டேன்,

அசைவறு மதிகேட்டேன்;- இவை

அருள்வதில் உனக்கெதுந் தடையுளதோ?

Having crafted a wonderful Veena - will thou

spoil and consign it to dust?

Tell O' Goddess - I have

been created with wisdom by thee,

Won't you give me the strength - for me

to live a life fruitful to this land?

Tell me O' Goddess - will thou

make me live as a burden off this land?

Like a swiftly thrown ball - a body

ready to spring on brain's command I ask.

Spotless mind I ask - a life

born anew daily I ask.

Even when the skin is on fire - a heart

that sings thy praise I ask.

Unshakeable wisdom I ask - Is there

anything that stops thee from bestowing these?

The translation was from here

Bambooze

2006-09-03T10:41:00.000+05:30

Chicken Feet and Bamboo shoots
Turtle Blood and Dog Meat
Horse Meat and Baiju
A meal. Oh!What a meal.
From a nightmare does come.
Strange are the ways of others.
As are our's to them.
Some like it hot.
Some like it not.
Bamboo shoot.
I sure can eat.
Where it comes from
Where it goes.
It all goes back to ground.
Beneath our very feet.

2006-09-02T18:17:00.000+05:30

It was scary.
He was reading something without registering it, he couldn’t put his mind to it. And when he did, he couldn’t follow it. For the first time in a while, he had no clue what he was reading and more importantly why he was reading it.
What do you do when there are people around you who discuss the same thing like it was the English alphabet?
It was scary.

2006-09-02T16:36:00.000+05:30

Was listening to this song and felt like putting it up. Havent read any interpretations of this song on the web. Just gonna put down my own version of whats being said, just for the record. Now, dont asks me who's keeping the records. This song is both heart and record breaking. :). Now dont ask me which record. Cos like i said, who's keeping record?

This song he sings about missing his love and he'll be home soon. After a long time. A war possibly. Or maybe he just ran away, and now he is back. He knew this girl for a long time and then he went away, and now he wonders why he went away. He's been gone a long time and he's now close to dying and he wants to see her again. Slow down my bleeding heart. Slowly.. Slowly.. love.

In a little while
Surely you'll be mine
In a little while I'll be there

In a little while
This hurt will hurt no more
I'll be home, love

When the night takes a deep breath
And the daylight has no end
If I crawl, if I come crawling home
Will you be there

In a little while
I won't be blown by every breeze
Friday night running
To Sunday on my knees

That girl, that girl
She's mine
And I've know her since

Since she was a little girl
With Spanish eyes
Oh, when I saw her
In a pram they pushed her by

My, how you've grown
Well it's been
It's been a little while

Slow down my bleeding heart
A man dreams one day to fly
A man takes a rocketship into the skys
He lives on star that's dying in the night
And follows in the trail
The scatter of light

Turn it on
Turn it on
You turn me on

Slow down my bleeding heart
Slowly, slowly love
Slow down my bleeding heart
Slowly, slowly love
Slow down my beating heart
Slowly, slowly love

How True!

2006-08-20T12:02:00.000+05:30

I have wanted to write something like this for a while. Read on..if you haven't read already.
But I agree with everything said here about the Chinese Cuisine Culture.
An interesting thing to note: The chinese word for chopsticks is basically a mangling of the word for "quick". I wont spell it here because I dont know how to i only know how to say it. It sounds like the word "quay" in english. But I do agree, chopsticks are at time quicker. But they are quick primarily because the food is served is usually in a way that makes it comfortable to eat with chopsticks.

Will we ever find out Why?

2006-08-14T09:52:00.000+05:30

I read this today and I wondered, Why? Everyone will have someone they would like to blame. But will we ever find out Why?
'A Strange Phenomenon'

A Reply and some Rhyme - Be Warned

2006-08-13T11:01:00.000+05:30

After a filling dinner of dumplings which traditionally, apparently marks the onset of autumn I write this post. I'm reminded of another autumn day in september about a year ago when I landed in Calgary Airport. A year! Is that how long its been? Time flies and as flying goes things so far away suddenly seem nearer. I remember it like it were yesterday and yet it was a year ago. The adventurous journey punctuated with breaks, breaks where I head out of the dream(nightmare at times) and go home to reality to face a life unchanging. Unchanging for me in many respects but people have moved on. People have changed lives, stock markets have fallen and risen and governments have changed but life for me still remained the same, a re-union with friends and loved ones, a community of people you know and will always know irrespective of whether you knew them or not. Unfamiliar surroundings breeds love for the monotony just as the monotony cries out for a break from the reality. To escape is one thing, but to live in escape another.

Sweet dreams are made of these.
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas.
Everybody's looking for something.

A break from a dream was what I sought,
Half a break I deserved,that I got!
Another half soon to come.
Too soon is not soon enough.
Bout that I wont bluff.
To sit and have no thought.
No worry- a dark blot.
No more thoughts for company.
No more of this company. :)
People real people I seek.
Where? Where from.
The future is bleak.
No more oil.
Hard Toil.

Life will change as it always does.
The fires will loose their fuzz.
The big ball in the sky burns brighter
Our hope. Earth's burdens lighter.

Worlds will change and govts will fall
But home, the concept of it stands forever tall.
Forever Tall. Forever and all?

2006-08-08T17:36:00.000+05:30

After reading Half Gone , a book i randomly picked out from Landmark when I was home recently on vacation, I have started looking at many things differently. And for that reason I would say this is a good book. Look up this link , its pretty interesting. Even if you aren't really interested in Energy, if you enjoy doomsday predictions, you will find this interesting.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I have an oyster with a pearl but got not the time

2006-08-07T16:23:00.000+05:30

I have a fetish for Bharathi's songs, I think...
"Nallathor Veenai seithu athai nalam keda puzhudhiyil erivadhundo..."

Another song from 'Varumaiyin Niram Sigappu'. You can classify it as a communist movie if you want to. It is a movie about an angry young man. A man who chooses to rise against the societal codes of conduct and manner of doing things and suffers because he goes against the grain. A man influenced by Bharathi; by the communists; a socialist and reformist at heart: an idealistic young man.

Kamal Haasan plays the angry young man remarkably well. And in my humble opinion (as a person who has watched very few Amitabh movies), he is the real angry young man of Indian cinema after the Gunasekaran in Parasakthi. His communist ideologies fit the role carved out for him by his mentor KB (K. Balachander) like the perfect pair of jeans. The colors chosen and the other characters surrounding Kamal aid in enhancing the depth of the character. Kamal fits the role to a T and the support cast pushes him to give his best and more.

I am not going to talk aboout the performances of SriDevi, MLA S.V. Sekhar et al but the other standout performer in the movie for me was Pratap Pothan. The psychotic, obsessed play director was brilliantly portrayed by our man. You can feel the anger when he sees SriDevi hold Kamal's hands or looks in his direction!!!

The music was outstanding. Bharathi, MSV (corrected after a reader pointed out the error), SPB combined like banana, honey, jaggery in a panchamrutham. The color symbolized anger and there was an undercurrent of it throughout the movie. The movie was on the edge at all times..... a KB master-piece. I salute that man. How many pieces of great cinema- none of this technology, special effects stuff- brilliant story-telling in one lifetime!!!

PS: The title translates to:
"Sippi irukkudhu muththum irukkudhu,
Thirandhu paarka naeram illadi raasathi..."
another evergreener fro the movie

Of friends, coffee and goodbyes

2006-08-05T14:19:00.000+05:30

Last weekend, I was at home. Three days were spent in the city, largely out of the house.
Over two hours on a saturday afternoon at Landmark, followed by about an hour at Barista in the company of A~.

Amethyst: it's a lovely place. Old house, cane and now metal chairs in the garden, coffee. The crowds spoil it for me but then, when in the company of good friends, these are forgotten.
I had a good time. Visited a temple on Sunday morning, attended a quiz, met one more close friend over a cup of coffee after the now habitual trip to Landmark.

I have mixed emotions about going home. It's pleasant to go back to familiar surroundings, meet people you care for and love. Home food rocks... though my expanding waist-line could say the same about my regular meals. But leaving is hard, I don't particularly enjoy the lonely journey back or knowing that work is lined up.

This trip was even more so... so many goodbyes.
How do you say goodbye to a close friend? a loved one? to someone whose existence you had taken for granted?
A number which you'd now dial and be greeted by silence? With whom do you share the late night conversations, the meetings near the house gate, the memories of past bus journeys?

This has to be done though... you know, you knew all along, people want different things. But when you actually have to bid adieu, you wonder... is growing up worth all this?

All who left: Thanks for the memories

Music...

2006-07-16T23:45:00.000+05:30

The end of a day, music for company, all the day's frustrations forgotten. My homage to Bharathi.

theerththak karaiyinilae therku moolaiyil shenbagath thoattaththilae
paarththirundhaal varuvaen vennilaavilae paanigiyoadenru sonnaay
vaarththai thavarivittaay adi kannammaa maarbu thudikkudhadi
paarththa idaththilellaam unnaip poalavae paavai theriyudhadi
paavai theriyudhadi

maeni kodhikkudhadi thalai sutriyae vaedhanai seygudhadi
vaanin idaththaiyellaam indha vennilaa vandhu thazhuvudhu paar
moanaththirukkudhadi indha vaiyagam moozhgith thuyilinilae
naanoruvan mattilum pirivenbadhoar naragath thuzhaluvadhoa

(Source: http://www.musicindiaonline.com/lr/26/6251/)

I don't understand the lyrics completely but SPB's voice in the soundtrack of 'Varumaiyin Niram Sigappu' is haunting. And a post on this movie sometime maybe. A personal favorite.

2006-07-16T18:49:00.000+05:30

So I've been in this city called Daqing for exactly one month today. This place is basically an oil town. Oil money everywhere you look. This town is in the province of Heilongjiang which borders Russia. Anyway I have having this discussion with a client on one of my jobs in the neighbouring province, Jilin.

Amongst other things the Chinese are usually very interested in knowing how far east the use of chopsticks goes. India is usually where they are pretty unsure. A common question that I get asked after i inform people of my vegetarian origins is how we eat in India. Do we use a fork and spoon? Do we use chopsticks? And usually my answer is that we use our hands at home but I guess its beyond me to explain the fact that our choice of equipment for a meal depends on a complex set of societal norms. So I just leave it at that. But there is one issue that I need to clarify usually. At the dinner table for a chinese dinner each person has a small saucer sized plate, a cup for green tea(surprisingly 'Cha' in chinese) , a glass for juice/beer/water and the rice or noodles is usually brought in later once the main dishes have been served. The interesting part is that the plate for each person is not used much in the whole eating process. So the dishes are all placed on this rotating table in the centre and people use their chopsticks to pick up morsels of food from the dish in which the food is placed in and put it into their mouths directly. So very often the saucer size plate hardly comes into play.
Its used occasionally if the piece of food turns out to be too large. As a result of this cultural mismatch I need to quickly explain that we in India use spoons / ladles to first take the food from the common bowl and transfer it to our own plates ( a fascinating concept for many people here) and then proceed to sometimes use our hands.

Another discussion I had was regarding the India-China war of 1962. Now it wasnt a very heated discussion but it was pretty interesting to hear the other side of the story. His story was this. The McMahon line was according to him not the correct boundary between the two countries. And India he said was busy buying loads of weapons from the US and Russia in this period and acting aggresively. As a result the Chinese had to act against this agression. Who know which side of the story is right? There is probably no answer to that question. The truth as always lies in somewhere in the middle, by the wayside.

Music, Sunrise, Sunsets and Movies.

2006-07-08T08:33:00.000+05:30

Take life. Add back ground music...Any song will do and you get a movie. I guess thats the beauty of music. Just imagine yourself walking in the evening sun with the long shadows to keep you company. Its not all that exciting. There isnt anything that makes you want to stop walking and start running. But play some music and the moment is transformed into a magical moment. Just the simple event of walking in the evening sun is now worthy of a scene in a movie. Music is a powerful thing and so are sunrise and sunset, they are somehow inherently beautiful events. Despite the fact that they are repeated everyday unfailingly at the exact moment that we can so accurately predict. But yet, every single sunset and sunrise is unique. The uniqueness comes from nature itself, its wonderful ability to create a new picture everyday, like an artist churning out masterpieces everyday.
Music, Sunrise, Sunsets and Movies.

Corn Fields and Canals

2006-07-03T08:27:00.000+05:30

Jilin, June 30th , 11:30 PM . I was walking through a maze of non-existent paths in shoulder high corn fields trying to find my way from the rig to the main road where a car was waiting to take me back to what you might relatively call civilization. A civilization of a different kind, civilization in its original form, when man took to agriculutre and settled for living together in a society. I was in the middle of rural china.

Thats the way its been for the past few weeks. Each job is harder than the previous and for some reason known to the Great Mr. Murphy , something always goes wrong. Just when you think, finally tonight I get to sleep in a bed and take a shower, you wake up from your day dream to realise its going to be another long night in the chair or on your feet. Life has been hard, real hard and looks like it will be for a while.
--------------------------
Hoping for a vacation sometime soon. I guess "He" has to decide and i dont mean God.
------------------------
And I have spent a lot of time in the past few weeks cursing myself for not having brought my camera along.
The countryside here is really beautiful, especially when the sun comes up at 3 am and you can see the orange glow of the yellow ball falling upon the greenery which stretches to the horizon. or when you have a really clear night sky and you can see a crisp crescent moon and the stars as a background for the rig. Its a pretty sight.

2006-06-13T20:40:00.000+05:30

Today's the day it all comes back to you.
How you were? Who you were?
How life was meant to be lived.
Like an insomniac suffering from amnesia
Suffering wakefulness so he can remember.
The familiar tastes , the smells.
The memories came rushing back.
The dams cracked and the tears swelled.
The flood of emotions drowned him.
He fought back. Once, Twice and thrice.
His life flashed before him.
He remembered who he was.
Too hard to live. Easy to forget.
Everybody has something to hide.

Life Goes On..

2006-06-11T15:35:00.000+05:30

The Summer Rolls On.

The Cranes Rumble On..

The Sun sinks low.

The cranes are still.

Night rolls in.

Another day.

Learning

2006-05-27T15:17:00.000+05:30

I have something against people using the phrase : "Learn it the hard way" and "Learn by making mistakes"
If I were given the option, I would learn things the easy way and by making as few mistakes as possible. Learning by making mistakes and learning the hard way are in my opinion inefficient methods of learning. I am ready to face the fact that learning is not possible without making mistakes, mistaken assumptions, misunderstandings. As I heard a wise old man say.. A man who hasn't made a wrong decesion in his life is one who never made a decesion at all. But there is often this whole ideology, which claims that the hardest way to
learn is the best way to learn and I find this concept wholly absurd and counter intuitive.You do learn from mistakes, but that is not your primary source of learning the way some people look at it.

The way I would like to learn is to look at something I need to learn, find out how much I need to know and find out whats the easiest and most reliable method of gaining a working knowledge so that I can go about the task at hand by doing things right and making as few mistakes as possible.This absurd alternate ideology would have me learn with absolutely no guidance from any reliable source of information. It would have me blunder my way through a task, doing a terrible job at it, spending ten times the amount it should have normally taken and ending up with a mixed up knowledge based purely on experience and not on fact.

I believe that facts must form the basis of any approach to a task and thereafter the experience in performing the specific task will come into play purely because the amount of information required to go beyond a particular level of understanding is too large.The task of sifting through this information would be too time consuming. I wonder from where people form this twisted notion that the best way to learn is by making
mistakes and by doing it the hard way. I think its easier to learn from other people's mistakes and from other people who might have been forced to learn things the hard way due to lack of any well informed sources. I
think the only exception to this would be in learning where creativity and individual thinking is needed.

Reservations

2006-05-23T06:51:00.000+05:30

Here is an isue that has polarised the country, brought forth the divisions that run deep in the system and all that. It's been seen as an Us vs Them and Merit vs the rest and so on... and rightly so perhaps. If I've worked hard for it and someone else gets that seat owing to a caste certificate, I feel wronged and justifiably!!!

As everyone agrees, it's about time we did something to fix primary education and paved the way for people to be able to compete on an equal footing. A quick-fix solution in the form of reservations in higher education is playing to the gallery and is self-serving for the politicians.... so what do we propose as an alternative... a reform in the system, rite? What about the intergenerational gaps in growth, development? It is in this light that the following article was one of the saner ones I read, a point of view that recognizes the disadvantages suffered by many and many of them quite valid.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/23/stories/2006052305841100.htm

The above was not perfect- no system is. It fails to talk about time frame for reservation- that is the only acceptable way, if at all.
The above analysis sounds fine in its basis though and places sufficient(?) emphasis on academic merit to ensure that people who come through the system aren't terrible and can cope. And I'm not stating that reservation is the best way forward. But I'm wondering what is, a system that will be inclusive and dynamic at the same time. A time bound system while our primary education sytem grows to cope.... hmmm

PS: I hope the views aren't considered biased as I will not be affected by this system any longer.

One fine day

2006-05-07T06:25:00.000+05:30

Sunday morning on the beach. The cool, salty breeze blowing and the clouds blocking the beautiful sunrise. A sea of sand and the sea beyond it. The hundreds of walkers walking by. Wonder what each one is thinking. A son and his father. The pleasant drive and a nice stroll. I love the beach. (In spite the garbage strewn all over the place).

A Walk in the Park

2006-05-06T15:05:00.000+05:30

The cold breeze, the gentle drizzle, the dull grey clouds, the unfamiliar greenery, red flags fluttering. The silent walk of a lonely man. He walked into the greenlands for he had nothing else to do. He moved slowly, stopping to take pictures. He walked until his memory card was full and when he turned back, what seemed claustrophobic and dull now looked magnificent. The place acquired new meaning. He realised that every place you had been in the past, every person you have know, they all seem beautiful from a distance in the future. Retrospection was simply a filter to weed out bad memories and means to cherish the struggles and triumphs and to forget failures and sadness.The past was not something to hold on to and the size of adversity was not something to ponder about.From afar what he needed to do seemed more within reach.He deleted some old pictures, took newer ones and then walked back home with a resolve, which wouldnt last too long. But atleast it gave him new strength to take on the world. A world with unfamiliar greenery, red flags and a tongue he knew nothing about.

Man Overboard

2006-04-30T16:13:00.000+05:30

"Man Overboard!" is what you are instructed to yell when you see an incredibly lucky human being floating around in the ocean. But what do you scream when you are the one falling overboard. You could hear the wind howling its way through tiny gaps in the structure. You could hear it, but until you turned a corner you didnt feel it. I turned a corner and whoom, it hit me in the face and almost blew me off my feet and straight over the railing into the ocean. Almost. With the heavy fog rolling it and a steady drizzle, you had no chance of being spotted if you did fall off. I was lucky. I am lucky to still be here.
On a dull foggy stormy night in Bohai Bay I almost died.

"The place with a view"

2006-04-24T22:43:00.000+05:30

Heard
A really smart person, a senior, among the top students in the batch: "This place provides us a window of opportunity to do well...."

Me: (later)(to myself)..... but isn't this place supposed to give me more? Am I not supposed to make more out of it? Is it just that "small window" (of placements) that matter? Will I be left gazing out of through the bars if I don't do something in these few months?

And this from one of the smartest people in the batch... is there something wrong, I wonder? I should grow up?

Survival

2006-04-23T08:50:00.000+05:30

As I sat there in the orange life boat with my seat belts fastened staring out into the waters of Bohai Bay my immediate thoughts were far far away. In the one week that I have spent in the place I should be calling my home, I have thought a lot. These thoughts bang around internally not because there is a lot of empty space up there, but because they are flooding up, struggling to get out and be spoken.
We were doing survival training for going offshore, two chinese oilfield workers, two Sri Lankan cooks who were going offshore to cook for rig crew, the Chinese instructor, the short changing chinese-english translator
and myself. He was short changing because for every ten words in chinese we received one in english.

The two streams of thought that battled around in my head were like this:
Who would have thought I would be able to go offshore on a rig in the middle of the bohai bay, not too far from north korea and ride on a helicopter to get there. Sounds James Bond like..yes?
But the question was, did I really wish to be Mr. Bond?( ok im exaggerating..what the hell). Stuck in the middle of nowhere. Stop your life. Take away everyone you know, everyone you've been with. Put yourself in a new place, a place you never thought in your wildest dreams you would be in. A place where the only thing you can do to keep sane is work. Was this some kind of weird experiment? Was this really where I wanted to be?

That question is hard to answer, because it kinda hard to look at yourself and understand where you are at?
I hated being in Canada when I was there, and now that im here I wish I was there. Perhaps someday when I leave here Ill miss this place too. So I give this place some time, some time to grow on me. Perhaps Ill grow used to it, perhaps ill grow to like it.

Anyway, from now on any long duration disappearances from the face of the earth by me will be attributed to being in the middle of nowhere.

Where are the kids?

2006-04-22T15:12:00.000+05:30

I must sound like an old man when I ask something like this. But this is something I have observed over the last few years and as I was out in the evening last week and this afternoon, I was wondering - where are the kids?

When I was much younger, about five, we moved into an apartment. Over the course of the next five or six years, I spent almost every evening of over forty weeks a year playing, running, chatting with other kids in the apartment complex. Come summer and out we were, playing - unmindful of the heat, scowls of housewives whose peace we were wrecking with our screams and the wrath of the people whose windowpanes we shattered. As I grew up, my activities grew more restricted to school and looking back, that was not healthy at all. I knew few of the kids in my neighbourhood when we shifted houses from a different city and all my sporting activities were restricted to the school. But the times spent playing, chatting, whispering to each other, irritating our parents were integral to growing up. But I noticed, the younger one was doing none of that- more time was being spent reading, watching television and summers were spent attending some class which my parents wouldn't have dared enrolling me to for fear of the tantrums I would throw and more importantly because they knew that I would be doing something that didn't involve the idiot box.

Admittedly, kids these days do much more than I did when I was younger. True, the lure of television, internet is far greater. And yes, the roads are more congested and many apartments don't have the space inside their compunds. Are schools more demanding? Maybe. Kids spend their summer attending classes, camps, being out on vacation- basically being occupied. It has its benefits I guess. But in my view, being a kid, outside the watchful eyes of adults around you, playing as you will, unconstrained by time limits is far more important to growing up.

The more worrying sign about all this is the lack of interaction with and knowledge of the people around us. In large apartment complexes, people hardly seem to notice (forget know) their neighbours. This I observed when I went to meet a friend and I lost his door number. No one but the watchman knew the door number when I mentioned the same- there was the careless shrug, the puzzled look, the raised eye-brow that such a name existed in the neighbourhood.
(It could very well have been that guy's fault but these are still dangerous signs).
This attitude of adults tends to rub off onto children and we seem to grow more and more apart. True, people want their privacy but interaction is equally important I guess. It's important that you don't grow up as just another person, family in the neighbourhood. People around you know you as a person and not as a door number. I don't know if these things will happen, I don't know whether when I move on I will know my neighbours or whether I'd want my kids out playing in the heat but maybe I'll come back to this post someday and think about it.

Simple Joys

2006-04-16T10:07:00.000+05:30

Kisiki muskuraahaton pe ho nisaar
Kisika dard mil sake to le udhaar
Kisike waaste ho tere dil mein pyaar
Jeena issi ka naam hai

Maana apni jeb se fakeer hain
Phir bhi yaaron dil ke ham ameer hain
Mitte jo pyaar ke liye woh zindagi
Jale bahaar ke liye woh zindagi
Kisi ko ho na ho hamein to aitbaar
Jeena issi kaa naam hai

Rishta dil se dil ke aitbaar ka
Zinda hai hameen se naam pyaar ka
Ke mar ke bhi kisi ko yaad aayenge
Kisi ke aansuon mein muskuraayenge
Kahega phool har kali se baar baar
Jeena issi kaa naam hai
Kisiki muskuraahaton pe ho nisaar..

- Mukesh, Anari

I don't know enough about Hindi music to comment on Mukesh or other singers of his era. But even I can recognize a lovely song when I hear one and this one of my favourite Mukesh songs. Lovely!!!

'Farishtha'

2006-04-15T00:23:00.000+05:30

It had been a warm day. But over the last hour, it had started becoming cloudy. He was happy and was taking his new vehicle out for a spin, windows lowered, the salty breeze hitting his face, a song playing in the background. The fanciest restaurant in town, the best of their wines and the prettiest of women, what more could a guy ask for.

He saw her, again. It had been months or was it years. She looked just as lovely. He had wondered what it was- the face, the eyes, the smile.... damn he had never figured it out but the package well, suffice to say he was spell-bound, yet again (in a non-wizard fashion).

He was sitting at home all alone, reading his book, listening to music. He was trying to drown out the voice, the face, the evening. How could he have let it happen again? He was angry at his helplessness. There seemed to be no free will any longer and this hurt a man in control even more! What was she feeling? This was a question he had never figured out.... would he, finally?

Dosa woes

2006-04-07T08:58:00.000+05:30

I know- even for frequent bloggers this is too frequent. But, something happened this morning that could alter my life in an unexpected, radical fashion.

I'm a dosa guy. Anywhere I go, if there is dosa available, I'll probably be eating it. My folks are big fans of the much poorer relative, the idli- bah it sux. Ok, moving right along- I am having difficult deciding whether I like the chennai dosa better or the Bangalore one. The Chennai ones are thinner and crispier but I have taken a liking to the thicker Bangalore variety. The Msaslaa dosas are a different story altogether. Don't like either!!! The masala adds nothing to a good dosa.

Now, to the point. I dropped the older one off at the airport and on my way back home, decided to stop for a dosa. I went to the Sangeetha outlet on Bazullah Road. Now, while I like Saravanaas, Sangeetha is closer and I used to be a regular there. I order my dosa and coffee. The coffee was mildl cold and could have competed with the Pepsi I drank last night.... and the dosa, was not crisp, thin or hot. How hard can it be to give a hot dosa. I mean all you have to do is just serve it off the 'kal'. I am starting to tilt more and more towards the Bangalore types and I definitely won't recommend Sangeetha to anyone. All those dosas and coffees at the Sangeetha, man... those were good times. It's the end of an era, sigh!

Random

2006-04-06T19:26:00.000+05:30

It's been a long time. I did not know what to write and the occasional poem that was posted with due credit to its authors was, well in a bid to keep the blog alive from my end. The 'y' key on the keyboard is causing some trouble. So, I request whoever it is who is reading this nonsense to understand and forgive but I guess you reall have a lot of time on your hands. So many y's in one sentence!!!

I have now figured out what I want to post about. I need to chronicle my ten months on campus. It has a been a wonderful experience thus far. Also coming up, a post on my room and how it is odd to have vacated.

Now that the teaser previews are done, let the show begin. For all those who don't know, I will be in Chennai, living at home for the next two months, working with an auditing firm in a (ahem!) consulting role, doling out gyaan and hopefully, actually learning stuff. Now that I have come back after spending time away from the city, I get what people mean about the weather- It is HOT and STICKY. Also, I get what they say about older siblings who work- They serve their purposes. The guy pays for everything I buy and also has gotten me a Shuffle...

By the end of the summer, I hope to be a well-read, erudite individual. Any recommendations that will gently nudge me in that direction at a break-neck speed are welcome. No, I don't really want to read classics- good literature doesn't mean it should've been written before 1925! I have just started reading "The end of Poverty". But I might not be able to finish the book before it is taken away and hence, anone who can lend me a copy, please please do. I promise that I will take better care of the book than I do of myself. And anyone who has a copy of "The Undercover Economist"? Ok, I will stop now.

People, you are going to hear a lot more from me this summer. So, please don't waste your time and abuse the free internet at work.... Have a rocking summer and people who lend me books, please keep visiting. And people who don't, you really should!!

Cycle

2006-04-02T13:21:00.000+05:30

Pointless.
Direction? East?
West. North. South
Where?
Circle. A Sphere.
Life.
Night. Day
Day Night
Night Day

Sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep.
___________________________________________________________

Song I'm listening to now:

Hello my friend, we meet again
It's been awhile, where should we begin?
Feels like forever
Within my heart are memories
Of perfect love that you gave to me
Oh, I remember
When you are with me, I'm free
I'm careless, I believe
Above all the others
we'll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
My sacrifice

We've seen our share of ups and downs
Oh how quickly life can turn around
In an instant
It feels so good to reunite
Within yourself and within your mind
Let's find peace there
When you are with me, I'm free
I'm careless, I believe
Above all the others we'll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
My sacrifice
I just want to say hello again
I just want to say hello again

When you are with me I'm free
I'm careless, I believe
Above all the others we'll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
Cause when you are with me I am free
I'm careless, I believe
Above all the others we'll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
My sacrifice, My sacrifice
I just want to say hello again
I just want to say hello again
My sacrifice.

- Creed

2006-03-27T13:01:00.000+05:30

Here's about a guy who's living his dream. Great going FilmMaker Kisku.

Life on the Oil Patch

2006-03-10T07:49:00.000+05:30

During the last three weeks I've been on seventeen different wells across Southern Alberta right up to the border with Saskatchewan border. Actually on one rig exactly on the border line. You cross the sign which says you are leaving one state and just before u see the sign saying you're in the next state you're on a rig. It been hard hard work, little sleep and some food whenever possible. The weather has ranged from cold, to
really really cold to bright and sunny. I've seen white-outs and beautiful sun-rises and sunsets, sometimes on the same day. And now that I have some time to sit down and breathe the unstressed air for a while, and listen to the relative silence of not having a truck generator blare out the dull drone, there's one thing I'll say. Life on the Oil Patch is hard.

So here I am hoping to spend my last few weeks in Canada in relative comfort as I prepare to finish my training phase and start life as a Field Engineer without the "Jr." tag attached before it. So my cold Canadian adventure shall end and a new chapter will begin.
I think I've written this post in about five different sittings.. so I wouldnt be surprised if it were disjointed. But guess what, that reflects exactly how life has been. You know things are not normal when you need to decide whether you want to sleep OR you want to eat. Either. Or.
And weirdly when you think you are too tired to work, you "time-out". Thats how busy work is out here in the winter. Thats when all the drilling occurs and hence all the logging as well. It because a lot of land becomes accesible by large trucks only when the ground freezes over. Otherwise its too soft.
Which is why the winter is busy.
Anyway so after a few weeks of messing around out here, I go back to airdrie for a couple of days and then back home for a short visit before I leave for China. Never ever imagined in my wildest dreams that I would actually go to China. But thats exactly where im headed.
Here are some pics from my hitch in the oil patch. That rhymes now. Doesnt it? And dont let the pics fool you. It was as cold as hell...

Brown Penny

2006-02-25T19:46:00.000+05:30

I whispered, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.
'Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

- W.B.Yeats

Downtown & Snapshots of Winter

2006-02-19T04:01:00.000+05:30

Going Downtown..

Bright & Sunny with a high of -20 C

I went on the Trans-Canadian Highway and saw..Nothing.

Hot & Steamy Froth Bed.

2006-02-14T11:34:00.000+05:30

Here is an interesting thought:
First think of the movie, Munich. I haven't seen it yet. Will get around to it. But its about the killing of Israeli athletes in the Olympics by Palestenian terrorists.
Then think of "State of Fear'. The book by Crichton about Global Warming. Well thats atleast the broad theme.

Bring these two together. And you think of the following headline:

Eco-Terrorists hit Winter Olympics
Melt all snow. Skiing events called off.

Well ok that might not be too funny, but when ur sitting at breakfast watching the winter olympics it does sound funny.

Another disconnected thought here, I read the book One night@ call center by Chetan Bhagat on my flight here, all I'll say is that it will make a good bollywood movie.

Death the Leveller

2006-02-11T21:20:00.000+05:30

THE glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

- James Shirley

Bharathi

2006-02-08T11:16:00.000+05:30

"அக்கினிக் குஞ்சொன்று கண்டேன் - அதைஅங்கொரு காட்டிலோர் பொந்திடை வைத்தேன்;வெந்து தணிந்தது காடு; - தழல்வீரத்திற் குஞ்சென்று மூப்பென்று முண்டோ?தத்தரிகிட தத்தரிகிட தித்தோம்..."

Aggini Kunjondru Kanden - Adhai
Angoru Kattilor Pondhidai Vaithen
Vendhu Thanindhadhu Kadu - Thazal Veerathil
Kunjendum Moopendrum Undo?
Thatharikita Thatharikita Thithom

- Subramaniya Bharathi

A fledgling ember of flame - I found.
And I placed it under a hollowIn a distant wood.
The forest was burnt down to ashes...
Is youth or eld a factor in fieriness?
Thatharikita Thatharikita Thithom

Two Worlds

2006-02-02T10:44:00.000+05:30

I live now in two different worlds. Two different lives in two different worlds. And its as if these two lives have no intersection except for myself. The everyday routine, the routine challanges, the pressures are all different and very often my second life is invisible to my first. Especially because my work life is very unorthodox and it does not fit into the patterns that people are familiar with.
If you take every single aspect of one life and turn it on its head, you would get a pretty decent description of the other.
A couple of nights I had this dream where I got fired, and within the dream itself I realised that it was a dream, it had to be for some logical reason which i cannot recall, but the dream didnt stop, it kept going and things kept happening. I guess that's an effect of being away from your other world for a long period( not long enough, but 13 days is long in this context). Its as if your other life is calling you back, wondering where you've gotten to. Its sometimes hard to imagine, that bout 10 days ago I was doing a job which lasted 24 hrs, with three runs at a rig and in ten days from now Ill be doing the same, but for now ill just be walking barefoot on the beach, not in steel toed snow boots. Ill sit around and eat home food and not rush to the nearest Subway to get some decent food. And I will sleep at nights and best of all meet friends and just sit around and talk over a cup of coffee as if the clock were wound back a few months. There must be something wrong with the clock, it turns too fast.

Heading Home

2006-01-21T10:55:00.000+05:30

It's been a long four months in more ways than one. September, October, November, December and most of January. I guess that makes it more like five months. Its surprising how easy it is to loose track of time. One day you're a student, just out of college. And five months later you're head on into work life. The sheer routine of work life changes you mentally and physically, I mean who would've thought that I would wake up everyday at 6:40, alarm or no alarm. And the past four months have been quite and ordeal and quite an adventure. I never thought I would have a Malaysian for a roommate, Egyptians, Syrians, Indonesians, Americans, Australians ,Canadians and Thai for friends. And after the last few months of training I can say that I am rated upto -30 C, and when I said this a few months before I was joking but now i would be dead serious. Because it isnt funny.
So Im done with training school and im heading into the field, more travelling, from rig to rig, but before all that I get to go home. And the pleasure that I derive from just looking forward to being home is like nothing i've ever felt before. I didnt know I could come to miss a place so much, a place I lived in for the 21 years of my life.
So thats what is up, after a month of being terribly busy, im going home, and I hope to meet anyone and everyone. All the people that fill up the city I call home.
(I rambled a bit on this one, Rambling Rantings..why ever did I call this blog that??)

Divine

2006-01-07T16:12:00.000+05:30

I was listening to M.S.

kurai onrum illai maraimoorththi kanna
kurai onrum illai kannaa
kurai onrum illai Govinda

kannukku Theriyaamal nirkinraay kannaa
kannukku Theriyaamal ninraalum enakku
kurai onrum illai maraimoorththi kannaa

A rough translation I found somewhere

I have no complaints, my Lord
None
Lord of WisdomKannan!
Though you stand Where I cannot see You,
My light, my very eyes,
Protector of all beings,
I know You sustain me

Moving....

Homeward Bound

2006-01-05T04:10:00.000+05:30

I’m sittin’ in the railway station
Got a ticket for my destination
On a tour of one night stands
My suitcase and guitar in hand
And every stop is neatly planned
For a poet and a one man band
Homeward bound,I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
Everyday’s an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines
And each town looks the same to me
The movies and the factories
And every stranger’s face I see
Reminds me that I long to be
Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
Tonight I’ll sing my songs again
I’ll play the game and pretend
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
Like emptyness in harmony
I need someone to comfort me
Homeward boundI wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
Silently for me
Silently for me

-Simon and Garfunkel

Upliftment

2006-01-04T15:51:00.000+05:30

The song was bare, and he was sick.
The table drumming drew him in
The rhythm he found too hard to resist
Sick enough to hear voices in his head.
The whole orchestra was playing.
The entire audience was singing along.
And the bare song drummed along.
It was playing in his head.
There was a crescendo, a grand finale.
Then he was sweating. He felt better.

Co-contributor is hereby officially requested to post.

30 Days...

2005-12-27T05:53:00.000+05:30

Its been a while since I posted last. Haven't quite found things to post about. I just got a couple of days off now, time to relax and to take a deep breath and head into the last phase of training school. 30 days to go..before I get a well earned vacation. 30 days before I get to go home. 30 days to go before I'll be well on my way to becoming a Field Engineer.
We had a party on Christmas eve which was a lot of fun. Especially because it was a well deserved break after 2 weeks without a day off almost. We had a "brown" christmas, which meant beautiful weather. Clear skies, temperatures touching 10 C. All thanks to the Chinook, which is a warm pacific wind which breaks up the spells of cold weather and melts all the snow away in hours.
While I was typing this I just realised that I've been tending to put in a "we" everywhere instead of an I. And that to me tells me how much I have identified myself as being part of this group of people who are in training with me. A group of people called "ALC-13"..which stands for Airdrie Learning Center - batch 13. An unlucky number perhaps, but a great bunch of people who've made training school a great multi-cultural experience. But then we're all still counting the days left. There still is a long road to travel, but we've already almost in sight of our destinations. Home.
As the days tick by to another new year, ill be busy working through new year's eve and new year's day..sad but worth it, cos it means going home two days early. To all of you who are working on the 1st and to all of you who aren't, and to everyone else( who would fall into this category? suggestions anyone?).. A happy New Year to all you people, and everyone else.

2005-12-20T01:33:00.000+05:30

As Time goes by..

2005-12-14T02:05:00.000+05:30

He woke up that morning and all was white again. The warm spell was over and the biting cold was back. He woke up thinking of her. Of that beautiful winter night in December almost a year ago when everything had made perfect sense. It was the memories of all those beautiful months that kept him warm in the cold monotony of work life. And it was the knowledge that he would see her again that kept him awake, and unconcious of the harshness of his routine. He counted the months, the weeks and the days. As the days got shorter and colder the only consolation was that they were getting fewer.
As the days got shorter and he was settling into his 24x7 lifestyle the days and nights stopped making sense. All of a sudden, sleep cycles became an increasingly important factor in his life and the need for concious effort to manage biological cycles was new in his life. It was all enough to keep him occupied. But that wasn't all his life was about. It couldn't be.
As time goes by, the days may grow shorter, the nights may grow longer but the heart grows fonder.

As Time goes by

2005-12-08T20:49:00.000+05:30

He woke up that morning to bright, blue skies. There was a nip in the air and he was particularly happy. He had woken up thinking of her. His mind went back to a pleasant December evening two years back, spent in the company of the people who meant most to him and the phone call that followed the lovely evening. He had never imagined it would happen. Thinking back, it seemed but natural. The world seemed perfect.

Looking back to the first hug, the first kiss, the long conversations, he wondered what a fool he had been- How could he have let things come to this? How could he have watched while she left? Should he have called out? Pleaded? Begged? Would it have made a difference? He had never seen it coming. But, could he have? Should he have done anything different - Could he have? Had he been too pushy- that didn't seem to be in his nature. She had assured him that it wasn't his fault. He knew so too but who is to blame. He couldn't get himself to feel anger or bitterness towards her. Was he a fool?- if she had said she'd come back, he'd have welcomed her back with open arms. To him, nothing had changed... for a long time.

Time moves and things change. He had slowly moved away, to another place. All that was left were memories - of a very pleasant year, where he had learnt that he could get hurt too.

As he woke up thinking these things, he couldn't help but wonder how it would be to have her near him, again. To see that smile and hear the voice calling out to him. The wounds had healed, time had worked its wonders. But there was one thing he was thankful for, she had always been there, every single time. She had mothered him and protected him through the tough times and he knew he would do anything for her if she needed it. As time goes by, some things change but some things are built to last.

Three days off

2005-12-04T01:59:00.000+05:30

He sat there, staring at the eight ball. The ball sat there, frozen to its spot. Frozen like everything else was. Like the little stream that flowed no more. When it gets as cold as this, everything freezes. You get stuck if you touch a metal surface, you're rooted to your home because its too cold to walk, and your life becomes white, monotonous. Frozen.

Bright Sunny Winter Day.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saw "Adaptation" yesterday. Weird little movie about a screenwriter who writes a screenplay about a screenwriter(himself) trying to write a screenplay about a screenwriter(himself) who is trying to..
Movie was funny in phases, and was brilliant at parodying typical hollywood thrillers. The screenwriter tries to write a script without the typical ingredegents of a hollywood thriller and starts to write about himself. But he ends up putting in car chases, sex and drugs into it because that is exactly what happens to him as he's writing the script.

More pics:

Transition

2005-12-02T02:47:00.000+05:30

Forensic Accountant

2005-11-27T11:50:00.000+05:30

Was watching the news today and there was apparently some unusual activity at the stockmarket according to a Forensic Accountant. Didn't know there was such a job in the world which made being an accountant actually sound like fun.

One more comment: actually two, every morsel of indian food is worth its weight in gold and the reach and popularity of indian movies in the world cannot be underestimated.

Snapshots

2005-11-25T03:26:00.000+05:30

After eating Indian food at a Chinese restuarant in chinatown, Calgary

My First Solo cooking adventure on this side of the Atlantic

A day in the life of an engineer

2005-11-21T13:50:00.000+05:30

Murphy's law (also known as Finagle's or Sod's law) is a popular adage in Western culture, which broadly states that things will go wrong in any given situation. It is most commonly formulated as "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." In American culture the law was named after Major Edward A. Murphy, Jr., a development engineer working for a brief time on rocket sled experiments done by the United States Air Force in 1949.
-Wikipedia

When things go wrong , one thing usually leads to another. Every action is intricately linked with its causes and effects that when things go wrong they go all the way to the disaster level. A bolt, a roll-pin, lack of grease, lack of attention, dont give a damn...the list is endless. The smallest errors cause the biggest disasters.
One wrong thing leads to another and before you know it you're diving right into disaster, swimming against the insurmountable waves of 'failure', swimming in an ocean of failures.

There are these days in the life of an engineer when you just hope that something, anything will go right. You sit there angry and bitter with your equipment, with yourself and wait fearfully for the next thing to go wrong. You jump at every unfamiliar sound until there comes a time when you cross the threshold of fear and don the armor of bravado and turn into a firefighter. Nothing scares you anymore and everything brings smile to your face. Soon that phase passes and you enter the stage where you just wanna go home and sleep.
All in a day's work!

I'm Back..?

2005-11-19T22:54:00.000+05:30

It's been a while. I have spent the last few days attending Company talks and interviews, writing mid-terms- I still don't know which was worse. The interview days meant, getting up early, making sure I was clean-shaven, having a quick shower and being off by 7.30 or 8.00. It would then be a day of endless interviews, Pepsi and coffee, sandwiches and Pizza that you progressively grew sick of.

Now, I am at home, enjoying the food and the rather pleasant Chennai climate. It's good fun.
I have also wondered why people think it's necessary to have shave before the interview. I mean people were aghast that I had come to one of the interviews without shaving my day old stubble but honestly, I didn't see the point. Shaving is a very boring, painful and monotonous job which involves careful handling of a blade on your face on a sleepy morning- better stubbled than mauled!!!

There are people writing the CAT tomorrow and it takes me back by a year to what I was doing the night before the test. I think I was asleep by 10.00 p.m. after spending the evening on the phone and watching some vague movie on Sun TV. I didn't really know how much of a chance I stood.... since things have worked out, I can say anything I want to :).

I have hence completed my usual quota of rambling... hope everyone who reads this is doing well.

Greek and Mongolian

2005-11-10T11:34:00.000+05:30

Some real food at last. After a few months of Canadian food which basically means tasteless food which all taste the same, I had a couple of decent meals. One was at this Greek restaurant in Airdrie, which was not quite to my taste, but it was real food. Learnt interesting fact: Melbourne is apparently the biggest greek city in the world after athens, now dont ask me why that fact is on this blog. Just look at the title for this blog.
Now for the good food and great dessert (nothing tastes as good as a free decent meal). I suppose I liked the meal mainly because you got to choose the ingredegents that go into the meal and you get charged(or whoever is paying for it gets charged) by the weight. So that basically meant that I had a meal to my liking whether it was mongolian or not. It probably was actually cooked in mongolian style, but anyway, I felt so good after that good meal that I decided to post despite having tons of work and an inviting bed beckoning behind me and a half drunk cup of coffee in front of me. Which brings me to my new word for today, not that I have one everyday. Kahlua.

The pictures are by the way my way of introducing my camera to my blog. Here's more:

Waiting for the Sun

2005-11-09T12:23:00.000+05:30

At first flash of Eden, we race down to the sea.
Standing there on Freedom's Shore.
Waiting for the Sun (3x)
Can you feel it now that spring has come.
And it's time to live in the scattered sun.
Waiting for the Sun
Waiting.... Waiting.... Waiting.... Waiting....
Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - hear my song
Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - tell me what went wrong
This is the strangest life I've ever known.
Can you feel it now that spring has come.
That it's time to live in the scattered sun.
Waiting for the Sun.....
- The Doors
-------------------------------------------------------------

The spring time of your mind is when it awakes.
In morning of summer its awake and intelligent
In the afternoon the creative juices start to flow
And in the winter it freezes up. Slumber.
Mind numbing slumber.

Silent Spectacle

2005-11-03T08:18:00.000+05:30

On Deepavali day, the first of november, the day after halloween, instead of the usual explosive fireworks that I've been used to, I stepped out dressed in three layers of clothing to feel the soft thud of snow flakes against my face. The first snowfall of the season in Airdrie. There's this saying about snowfall, the people here claim. That snowfall is great for only the first fifteen minutes. But actually it felt pretty good for a lot more than that, especially for someone who has never witnessed snowfall before. Atleast it gave me something to be cheerful about. So what if there are no fireworks(not that im really a fan of fireworks), atleast there was some snow. But Im guessing that very very soon, I will be back here cursing the snow and winter when I have to work outdoors as a part of my job. Its been close to a day since it snowed and it is still white outside(will post pics sometime soon). So I guess ill just enjoy it for as long as I can.

Before I sign off, Warning: Do not watch Flightplan unless you're in a group of people greater than five, out to have fun watching really bad movies. And heard from a cab driver here about this film festival of world worst films in Newyork. His reccomendations were for "Terror in Tiny town" and "Attack of the killer tomatoes".

Reruns

2005-10-31T11:16:00.000+05:30

Its the its-been -a-year post for this blog and actually my first post on this blog is apt for a re-run. It goes:

Thats about the best I can describe whats to follow. I shall follow the following method of basing all posts on a single crystallisation of thought and thereafter just Ramble On.

The Path to Insanity

Confused,nomadic vision i sought
Spiralling towards the horrific insane
Journeying upon the train of thought
A trip down memory lane...

A trip down memory lane...

And Hari, you'd better post something..

People

2005-10-26T06:33:00.000+05:30

For a strum of my guitar
A breath of stale wet air
Sweat, heat and the smells
That I've grown up with.
The sounds, the clatter of
bat on ball, the sweet flow
of uncouth words from
ill-spoken drivers of the
yellow three wheeled
monsters that crawl
through the dense smoke.
And the smoke that chokes.
The train that trundles along
its course with people of
all ages and all sizes
of all types and smelling
all differently. People.
People everywhere.
For a moment with the
people I care for. All of them.

Priorities

2005-10-19T18:24:00.000+05:30

"... Avi Kremer, was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive, neuromuscular disease. He wrote an article in the student newspaper about how he had gone from dreaming of running a Fortune 500 company to wanting to stay alive long enough to marry his fiancée."

I saw this in an article I was reading about HBS. This got me pondering, how we never really realize what things mean to us till adversity strikes. After all the studying, working and the money, everyone realizes at some point that they might have got their priorities wrong. The things that we take for granted- family, friends are the things we go back to.

And this second excerpt:

"... Business school for many students is a life-editing process as much as an educational one. You are given the time to think about what kind of work you will find fulfilling. You meet and hear people from so many fields of business and with each encounter think, yes, I could be like this person or work for them, or please, get me out of here..."

This was something that struck me as being very true. Very few people seem to know exactly what they want out of this education... everyone knows they'll get a job that pays but which one of those jobs do they want. Questions like "Am I doing this just because others are doing it?", "Will I actually enjoy this?", "Am I doing it for the money?" need to be asked to figure out our priorities and I continue to believe ... enjoy your work and you'll be good at it. This place gives you a wonderful opportunity to figure this out.

PS: Here is the link to the article:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/49f9b676-e65f-11d9-b6bc-00000e2511c8.html

Pictures are worth...

2005-10-16T08:58:00.000+05:30

Quick...my hands are freezing

Go Flames Go...

Break Free

2005-10-15T01:09:00.000+05:30

Every once in a while, something happens that gives you hope, energy and a sense of relief. It's a break from all the "The most important thing I accomplished", and display of "leadership abilities" to plain old quizzing, exchanging trivia, talking about mindless things, taking walks around campus in the cool climate and sitting by myself, away from the noise of the party and enjoying the quiet. It's a good feeling when you have nothing to say, no point to make but write or talk just for the heck of it and ramble aimlessly.
This isn't a journal type of post where I detail my week or a post with current affairs and perspectives. This is a post I have put up to get some words out there.

Some Pics

2005-10-08T08:53:00.000+05:30

The Creator of the blog ... his passion

Da Guys

Intellectuals' Talk

Most Importantly ... The lady who made me post

Redneck Country

2005-10-08T04:44:00.000+05:30

When you have not slept two nights in a row seeing a crazy guy driving the wheels off an old piece of shit, early 80's car on dirt roads is real entertainment. His hub caps were actually flying off. This guy was in the ditch driving at a 45 degree angle as if he was gonna drive in the field to overtake the car behind us. And at the intersection he was doing circles in the dirt. Now thats a great way to start your day! Am on the drive back from the job right now. Had to leave at about 1 AM. Two hour drive and the job was done in about three hours. Definitely one of the sweeter jobs that I've been on. Just yesterday I got back from a 22 hour job. Managed to get a bit of sleep in the evening though.Im going through my training phase currently where I need to study and at the same time see jobs at the well site to learn the operators jobs. The fun part is getting to drive all around Alberta. The countryside is on the whole very pretty and for the most part pretty flat. There's apparently a saying in Sakatchewan(a bordering province) that you cane "see your dog running away for three days. So you get to see beautiful sunrises abd sunsets everyday. But I guess after a while you get used to seeing these things everyday.One thing I've learnt is to appreciate the sun a lot more. But I guess Im getting used to the weather gradually. Its all a matter of dressing properly and not getting wet. You'd better dress properly when its -4 outside with a stiff breeze and you're up on the rig floor. Hell, you Learn to dress properly. So its been pretty busy and thats the way its gonna be for a while now down here in Redneck country...

The Village

2005-10-04T15:20:00.000+05:30

1992

On the banks of the Kaveri. A serene setting... greenery flashing by, cows along the river, women with the clothes they wanted to wash, a tea-shop with some men sitting and reading the paper, listening to the radio. A large house in the "town" about 35 km from Trichy. Welcome to my yearly holiday. I hated it- being away to my grandparents' for 30 days with my cousins, aunts. Seemingly, with nothing to do except take a walk to the river every morning, play around in the school ground, read some comics in the afternoon, chat around with thaatha in the evening and go to sleep early- around 8.30 coz the day would begin at 5.00. 30 days of this every year.... the fresh air, milk from the cow at home, thaatha's empty school wiith the library open to us, a battered M80 and a Chetak in front of the house. Every once in a while there would be a real treat. We would accompany him to the fields in another really small village. The bananas and the sugarcane, the paddy and the coconuts. This part, I really enjoyed. The walk around the fields and the water all around us. He was really proud of the new under-ground sprinkler system covering the entire field!

I was too young to wonder why the labourers on the fields refused to wear shirts or sit on chairs. They were deferential towards me and I was 8. I was too young to understand the troubled lives these men who depended on the lands led, the rains would fail and there would be no crops to work on. There would be floods and the same would happen. One of them stayed in our house in this other village. All I wondered was why I wasn't getting more bananas!!!

The school was his child. It was the only English-medium school in the village. It had about 300 students and classes till Standard Five. To me it was just another place in the town, a small place which didn't strike you as a school, coming as I did from the city. It was by no means small for the people around the area.

1996

I still didn't enjoy my visits. I could never get used to the mosquitoes- I didn't complain half as much about the mosquitoes in Chennai-, the toilets constructed at the back of the house. missed not having things other than DD. But, there were other things I enjoyed more. How we used to fight over thattha’s chair the moment he left the room. Every evening was more fun. The time passed by, talking about books – English, Tamil… Sanskrit even.

The fields were in trouble. The sprinkler system meant that the huge lands had to be sold to a single buyer and very few in the area could afford it. The way, things we do for progress, affect us!

The school had 600 students. Classes uptil Standard 8. New buildings, the concrete monster eating into the greenery. More construction to mar the beauty of the place… more children being educated.

The number of vehicles had grown and the greenery was reducing but somehow, I got the feeling that no one really cared.

2002

I realized what our visits meant to my grand parents. It was their break of the year, a time to be spent happily with their family. To be proud of grandsons and grand daughters being educated in the city and enjoying the comforts of life there. It was their time of joy after having brought up their kids in the village on a school teacher’s salary.

The fields were gone, sold to a buyer and so was the cow in the house, to the reaper. The motorcycles were gone too and so were the books in the house- to the school library coz thaatha couldn’t read so much any more.

The house had been re-modelled. There were signs that it was occupied by old people. The walking sticks were out. The backyard had shrunk.

I looked forward to these visits. It was my break from the monotony and noise of the city to the not so fresh anymore air of the village. It was my refuge every vacation. The walk to the river (river bed now) had a calming effect. But, I realized that my stay was becoming shorter every visit. I always seemed to have some work to get back to …. Not so important it turns out (in retrospect).

The school had 1000 students. Standard 10. Obtaining all the necessary licenses was a problem for English medium schools - officials applying the rules to suit their whims.

The man who worked the fields was wearing a shirt and the number of vehicles had increased but had any real progress been made?

I went back 2 days ago. Kaveri has water.

But things have changed. There was a concrete jungle awaiting me and the cellular networks, Cable TV and computers were all great- the old world charm was missing, the rural setting existed no more.

Am I being selfish and criticizing progress just because I don’t have a quiet and peaceful village for my vacation? Is the direction of progress right? Are the changes only superficial or has there been any real progress in the social sphere?

I need to study this some more coz this is a portion of India I’ll never get to learn about later.

Seven 'o clock, Friday Evening

2005-09-30T18:33:00.000+05:30

"The Interpreter" is quite a decent movie. A decent story-line and a cute heroine. It meandered on and on and with Sean Penn looking like he was totally disinterested in the movie, it didn't quite make an impact. Obviously, securing permission to shoot in the UN HQ is not everything.

I got free food today. A classmate of mine won the Aditya Birla Scholarship and she gave us a treat. Also, I have a team for the IITM open Quiz and am looking for one guy to accompany three guys from IIMB- the three are accomplished quizzers and are very likely to qualify (Wimpy, Beedi and Baada).

I spent the last two hours watching Desperate Housewives and I must admit that my initial fears proved to be unfounde. The show has got a great range of characters and this variety lets it explore a variety of themes from adultery, broken marriages, depression, nannies...

I have working friends. I have always wondered what work would be like. As i talk to these people, I wonder how these companies function. I mean, Does it make any sense to have your people sitting around all day and assign them work at 7 pm, when they're likely to be at their least productive? I have wondered the same about B- schools. We rarely seem to do anything during the day. The day is spent attending class till 1.30 pm and that is not very long (max 3 a day). The campus is half-dead from then till about 4.30 and by the time productivity rises, it is dinner time. No wonder people work till the wee hours of the morning. It is true that there is work, a lot of it at that but it can be managed on most occasions but then I have been promised a glimpse into hell during my next term.

I was wondering this morning- for the first time in a long time, I did not bump into anyone I knew at the theatre yesterday. People are at work, they've left the city. They have moved and it feels weird. It seems like I'm entering a phase of my life where things are going to be changing, continuously. It is nice to meet new people and engage with new surroundings but every once in a while I'd like to see that familiar face you can look at and seek comfort... knowing all is well and you haven't become that old yet.

It's all games

2005-09-29T14:44:00.000+05:30

It is another lazy afternoon and I face the prospect of sitting at home through the day, doing 'nothing' at all. Am learning quickly- sleep comes at a moment's notice and broadband takes care of the rest of the time. Ironically, I spend more time in thye virtual world here than I did in my hostel.

I was out with Anjana and Prashanth last night. It was good fun and I broke a glass for the first time in God knows how long!!! I have been reading Three Men in a boat- it's a funny book.. maybe I'll post a review when I am done.

I have not had the time to post my views on major sporting events of late. Since it's always more pleasurable to discuss fall from grace than grace itself, Federer shall take a back-seat.

1. Ferrari have struggled all season and Schumacher hasn't looked half the driver that won seven world titles. Are his racing days over? I don't know... I refuse to make that call coz I thought Sampras should have retired a year before he actually did- inspite of the consistent US Open performances of those years.

2. I was betting on Australia winning the Ashes and winning it quite comfortably. The first test went the way I predicted the rest of the series would go. After every succeding test, I would say, "It's only a matter of time before the batting line-up hits form." Gilchrist didn't look half the player he is and the batting never performed together. Is Hayden's career over? Is Martyn finished? Will Clarke's even begin ?- for all the hype I must say he is nothing that special. McGrath's injury was the worst - the Aussies would've pulled off something if he had played. Wonder how Warne does it. Enough has been said and written about him- he is the Maradona of cricket. But the most worrying thing is that the new crop of players don't seem a patch on their replacements - infact they don't even seem of international quality.

3. And Ganguly. Hmm... what shall I say. I don't really like the guy. I believe he doesn't merit his place in the team as a batsman. He is afraid of fast bowling and his days as a fine one-day player are past him. and so are his days as a good captain. Getting Chappell and Ganguly to patch up is a bad solution- either Ganguly must go or Chappell must. Ganguly has had his moments of Salman-like glory and his best days are behind him. He might as well retire before this goes any lower.

And now am off to do some reading and some movie watching.

"Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need-a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you..."
- Jerome K. Jerome

Musings

2005-09-27T23:35:00.000+05:30

The end of another day. Time is just passing me by... another day that I can look back to and say, "What happened ?"

I came back thinking that the 2 week break was the best thing that could happen to me. I met three good friends today. It was great fun and bought back memories of time gone by. But at the back of the mind, there is a feeling that something is missing, somethings have changed. Wonder if it is me. Have I undergone a radical change. It is true that I have done more than my share of dancing but I can't notice any major change of character.

I drink coffee nowadays. Don't know why that's significant but...

I went to the libarary today. Wanted to read a Cussler but couldn't find one that I hadn't read. Got myself "The Transmission". Am also reading "Three men in a boat"... seems interesting enough.

Find myself logging into the internal messaging service at IIMB atleast twice a day. The place grows on you. I had my Finacial Accounting exam on the 22nd. We were given the TATA Motors Annual Repost and had to study it cover to cover and answer 30 Qs on that in the exam. Ever heard of Social Capital? The things that people do that really make you want to belong. A senior of ours, A CA, sat and analysed the entire report and spent hours teaching a bunch of Fachchas, who know nothing at all about accountancy it turned out, what to do and how exactly to approach the paper. We all owe our grades to him.

I keep getting the feeling that my quizzing- never great to begin with- has taken a major beating and with the likes of Swami at the insti, it's hard enough when you are at your best. I found myself so wanting in the previous quiz... my team answered just one Q in the finals. God!!!

I have about ten movies that I intend watching before I return to what promises to be a very tough term.

"Sleep- It is what you get when you have an exam the next day."

Sally

2005-09-25T16:14:00.000+05:30

He was sitting in the room, his head pounding. There seemed to be a void in some parts and a feeling of restlessness.

He saw her enter. The room brightened, everything went quiet. He could hear no one, he saw her and her alone. The vacuum filled his head. There she was- her quiet, confident walk and lovely smile on the clear face. How he wished she'd occupy the seat across him! She waved, the other waved back. She went past him... giving him a smile through the corner of he mouth, her eyes making contact for that one second. She kept going. Was every head turned towards her? She then seemed to stop... had she, actually? She seemed to have stopped fractionally longer near the other.... had she? He was mad at her.

He was sitting in the room, his head pounding.

Life and all that

2005-09-19T06:31:00.000+05:30

Its been a hell of a week here. Its almost exactly a week down to the minute since I got here. And we've had a week of training from the basics of the company to defensive driver training and first aid. W'e had a great time. A really nice group we have here. 5 Indians, 2 portuguese, 5 indonesian, a malaysian, 2 thai, 3 syrians and 1 egyptian. And we're all a bunch of funny guys. Pretty fascinating to observe the different sense of humor that each kind of people have, but then again the humour is pretty much universal.
Airdrie, which is about 20-25 minute drive from Calgary is a picturesque little town. And we managed to go out for drives on the gravel roads in the country during our driving lessons and it really is very pretty. The sheer largeness of the wide open farmlands is hard to comprehend. HUGE farms. And the rockies loom large on the western horizon. In an hour and a half you are straight into the mountains, which is where we are all going on Tuesday(that our day off this week). In the meantime we made trips to the Eu Claire market on Friday as a team building exercise and played some silly games at an arcade. Hell of a lot of fun. The Eu Claire market is bang in downtown Calgary round about Chinatown. Hope to visit again some other day when I have loads of time to spend. Downtown looks pretty awesome with the usual skyscrapers.
Work for now is just about laying the basic ground work for what seems like exciting and hard times ahead.

The weather here is pretty Sunny for now, but even so a little cold in the beginning for a poor old Chennaiite like me. Hover about 15-20 C maximum and goes down to about 0-5 in the nights. There's this nice little pacific wind which is supposed to warm things down when it gets cold. So the weather here is pretty unpredictable in the winter. It can go from -30 to 15 in the same day if the wind starts blowing. There are plenty of open spaces all around and when the sun is out you really long to go out and just be out there. I guess you need the cold to really make you appreciate the Sun.
Thats it for now, a nice relaxed sunday afternoon...
Maa El Salama, Boa Noite. Good night.

amo te..(that means i love you)... Boa noite(good night)...(Ni Hau ma)( how are you in chinese)

Thermal Shock and Sunrise Glory

2005-09-10T10:46:00.000+05:30

I dont know what I'll acheive in my life. I dont know if ill experience any culture shock. But Im pretty certain that ill experience Thermal Shock. I got my job posting in Canada and am leaving today for Bombay and from there on Sunday. Its close to a year since I've started this blog. And I dont see any reason why I shouldn't keep posting unless of course im dead/ dying of over work/ cold. Barring such occurences I should be back posting wondering about the spelling of the word 'occurences'. Its pretty hard to imagine how 'cold' feels. If you've lived in the tropical urban desert that Chennai's become you're bound to have trouble adjusting to cold weather. But i guess the real trick is not let the weather get to you.
You always hear about people riding into the sunset when they retire, but I can think of a new phrase for how I feel. Its like driving into the sunset. You wake up and fly out into the sunrise to greet the world. With every passing moment the light grows and you know more about the world. But after everyday there's darkness and then light again. A day has ended and a new day dawns. The cycle of light and dark goes on and on
The glory of sunrise, the glory of sunset, the revelry of evening and then blissful sleep.

Sportinion

2005-09-03T23:26:00.000+05:30

Ha! Thought that title might get you curious enough to try reading. Here's my opinion about certain specific issues in sports , based on my extensive couch-ridden existence over the past 3 months. I must admit its been a great learning experience and I'd like to solemnly thank my TV my couch. Its been great but sadly I think we must grow apart, physically. Sad that its coming to an end.

Ganguly vs Dravid.
The question is not whether Ganguly should be captain, its primarily a question of whether he can bat or not? If he can bat, he'll stay on or else he'll perish. But somehow its not that simple. Somehow the Indian team appeared more settled when Sourav was back at the helm. Perhaps that just familiarity and maybe all Dravid will need is time, to acheive that level of comfort with the players to his style of leadership. Captaincy is more or less a human relations exercise with all the strategies chalked out by a software effectively. The captain is defined by his interactions with the player, the coach , the media , the opposition and any one else who cares. Ganguly has shown the capability to inspire and thats what any future captain must possess as a pre requisite, should Ganguly's batting continue to fail.

Kimi Blows Up again...
Kimi Raikkonnen has had yet another engine failure. Hard luck. I guess when you're driving the fastest car you can't complain if the car aint as reliable as the other cars. But I guess the new rules introduced this year have put a premium on reliability and its shown up as the key factor in seperating Kimi from Alonso. The question is should RELIABILITY be the key factor in a FORMULA-1 race? Its like converting a 100 m dash into a marathon, a high speed marathon if you will.

Yesterday

2005-08-30T22:50:00.000+05:30

How often do we yearn to relive the past. People who've been close to death reveal that their life flashes before their eyes. Is that a fleeting image of the fundamental nature of human beings to reminisce? Yet since we cannot relive the glorious moments of our past, we look forward to our future with brightest hope. How often do we wonder about the what if's and what could have been's and yet settle for the what will be's and where will I be's. All our lives we yearn to relive our past or look forward to the future forgetting the ever present tense. We make choices with an eye on our future and with the weight of our past. If all choices are forward looking then what is left of the present to live?

Yesterday came suddenly....

Welcome the holy baby

2005-08-28T01:45:00.000+05:30

"Faster, faster, faster. Hold it, steady, steady... aah f****, steady. Faster now... not there. Yeah hold, faster, faster...."

Heading towards that singular point defined as success, people piled on top of each other. There's sweat, wetness and toil in the middle of the night and all for that one moment of pleasure.... the pot was broken and the twelve men involved were drenched in colour. The hostel block had broken all its previous records .... Janmashtami from IIMB.

Road to Nowhere

2005-08-25T09:13:00.000+05:30

The long road that goes nowhere
As long as I'm ahead of you
And he and you,you and you
Overtaking's the key
To where you want to be
Hop onto the road to nowhere
As long as I get there before you
Wherever that is, that you may be
Heading to wherever I lead
The great dance of followers
Following each other around
Wanting to struggle forward free
But not leave the guide behind
The dance goes on and on
But what when the music stops?

Idle Wednesdays, random thoughts

2005-08-24T12:03:00.000+05:30

I have not written in a long time (duh!). Have I been immersed in work and seeking self so hard that I haven't had the time to write something arbit? Well there are no depths to me. Why then, suddenly am I putting up this post ... I don't know and I don't know what this is about either, so patience!!

I made a trip back home last week. It was a nice feeling to be back. What is it that I actually miss about the place? That is a question I have been unable to answer ... it is just the feel, everything seems familiar the moment you see the board from the Chennai Corporation welcoming you. It is nostalgia - yeah, I had hardly been away 2 months before I came back home at the first possible opportunity nevertheless - and again, knowing as you enter that you get to meet family, friends and go back to the familiar bed.

At the end of the trip, deep down you know that you might have been bored spending that extra day but there is the feeling that you could have done more - made that extra call, spent another half-hour being up and catching up with family talk, taken another walk around the familiar streets and just been home longer.

The good thing about this place is that you don'thave time to stop and feel, to think, to analyze. It doesn't give you the luxury of time and I am thankful for that. There is competition - for that extra mark, for the bullet-point (life almost becomes a collection of bullet-points), for the ibanks and the consulting companies of the world. The aim is not to do well ... it is more often just to do better than the next guy. The good thing then is to focus on what you want and not worry too much - quizzing and playing, chatting around at the night canteen and aimlessly surfing the internet (knowing submissions are due in a short while)- as in the end all you need to do is to meet your expectations and when that happens, that's all you can ask for.

Have a class now and a quiz tonigt(yay), some Yes PrimeMinister episodes and some studying to do.

PS : Listen to 'Sunscreen' in the morning and this is how your blogposts will read!!!
"...the race is long and in the end it's only with yourself ".

Broadcast Rights

2005-08-17T15:49:00.000+05:30

Why do broadcast rights have to be exclusive? Why cant the telecast right be sold as any other product at a fixed price. That way any TV channel that wants to buy the rights can do so depending on what their estimate is, of the revenue that they can generate. That way, if there is more than one channel showing the same sporting event the viewer gets to choose depending on the quality of the production and the commentators. This seems transparent enough( maybe that is the problem). The number of people watching the match on the whole is going to remain the same. Therefore the revenue generated should also remain the same ideally and the competition will ensure that there is better quality of production too.

Madras under Attack

2005-08-13T10:36:00.000+05:30

Late at night on September 22, 1914, Emden quietly approached the city of Madras on the east side of the Indian peninsula. Once in range Emden opened fire on many large fuel oil tanks that the British kept near the city. After firing 130 shells the oil tanks were burning and the city was in a panic. Although the raid did little damage, it was a severe blow to British morale and thousands of people fled Madras, thinking that Emden might be planning another attack.

The day the city of Madras was attacked during World War I.

Equality

2005-08-11T14:16:00.000+05:30

Equality of human beings can only be an illusion. People are unique and inherently unequal. It is impossible to treat people equally and justly at the same time. Perhaps the only role society has is to define what are sanctioned modes of discrimination and not the abolition of discrimination itself.

This thought was triggered by some comments on my previous post. Men and women are different, and will be treated differently. And different means unequal. Absolute equality is would be destructive but perhaps only the word equality is a misnomer and is taken to mean something other than what it ostensibly means. Maybe what people crave for by asking for equality is less unequality. Although equality is on the surface a basic principle of all political ideologies it is the basis of the equality, the sanctioned areas of discrimination, that the different ideologies differ on.

Table Manners

2005-08-07T22:32:00.000+05:30

A guy and a girl are at a dinner table. They have an argument ending in a fight. Not only does the girl throw her drink on the guys face, she also throws the glass at him and a small plate with some good food in it. Although the plate and the glass miss the guy, they fall to the floor and shatter. In the meanwhile the girl gets up and storms off. And the restaurant owner thinks its perfectly fine to charge the guy for the food and the broken crockery. Not only does the girl get away with attempted murder she gets free food too. Unfair! A restaurant is such a lawless place. There need to be laws framed to regulate behaviour in restaurants.

Moral: whenever there is a fight, be the first to walk away..

Extremes of Opinion

2005-07-28T23:58:00.000+05:30

Blacks and whites are hard to find
The greys engulf my horizon
The greys are all I ever can see
Are the absolutes not real?
The darkness devours sight
and the whiteness blinds it
Looking for blacks and whites
Colours I no longer stop to see
Looking for blacks and whites
Blinded. I shall never see.

Ode to a Roach

2005-07-25T18:22:00.000+05:30

A cold cold morning
The sun clouded out
Still silence swallows
All in its path
Time stood still
As if it were alive
nothing left standing
nothing else alive
No food for miles around
bird nor prey in sight
Not over, not underground
But the cockroaches
They would survive?