Update after a long time:

I has been more than 6 months since I have wrote my last entry here. Very few people have been able to make a come back blogging successfully after a long break. I really hope to join the successful ones - lets see how does it goes.

India Wounded:

It has been 2 weeks after one of the worst terrorist attack against India, the was one of the worst 3 day. It is nothing new for India to face a terrorist attack, what made it worse is that it dragged for 3 days with people watching in horror as the brave commandos and the police were fighting the terrorists. All the previous incidents would spread across the country only in the aftermath of the incident, but in this case the whole country was watching it live and in horror. It was horrific to watch the videos of the terrorists shooting the innocents and fighting the Army. I know Mumbai will be on its leg in a day or two, but the city is never the same again. Until the government and the security agencies prove to the people that they are really vigilant, taking necessary and sensible step to curb this menace, I think people is not going to feel safe in Mumbai. I think India had one too many lessons in terrorism and should have taken steps to keeping its people safe. Hope the new Home Minister does something to improve it.

The most logical outcome of this 3 day ordeal was a huge public anger against the politicians which was evident on candle vigil that happened on all the major cities across the country. I sincerely hope something really good comes out of this anger, some real leaders emerge instead of the current uneducated, bureaucratic, rich politicians.

In the Silicon Valley:

I have traveled to California for a project for 2 months and will be back in India by 1st week of Jan. California is an amazing place with great weather and it is just perfect for run. Though I have traveled on for a project, the general mood in Silicon valley is gloomy and very tense. There were lot of lay offs in the past one month and company's are generally struggling to survive. If at all the Auto Makers, (GM, Ford and Chrysler) did not get any bailout packages, US will head to a huge depression which might take years to come out.

My work here isn't that great either, but my stay is absolutely wonderful. I have been staying with my cousin's family and we have been traveling around a lot. It feels as if I have been for vacation rather than work. It has been two years since I last met my cousin and she was a just overly excited to show me all her favourite places in the country, I just have to reminder that I am here for work.

Trip to Los Angeles:

The week before Jaswanth was to leave to India we had a trip to Los Angeles. It was a great trip with Arun, Arun(#2), Jaswanth and Yathin.

Me and Arun at Universal Studios

Arun, Jess, Me and Arun

At the horror House

Arun with Pricess Fiona

Jess and Me

Most interestingly, Yathin is Jaswanth's friend from School and they have not met in the last 14 yrs. Everything in LA seems to be so huge and for anyone being in LA for the first time will feel surreal.

Trip to Lake Tahoe and Reno:

My Anna's family and me went to Reno and Lake Tahoe for the Thanksgiving weekend.






It was my first trip to a real casino and a gambling. I lost some $300 that night, but it was still fun.

Fearless Mind:

I have read this poem a number of times, still every time I read I feel refreshed.

Mind Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

From Geetanjali by Rabintranath Tagore

Adrenaline Rush...

I did a uphill training in chennai today. Wondering where is the hill in chennai to run, we run over the bridges and call it uphill training ;). I ran like hell today.t Initially I was running slowly till I reached the bridge and then I pushed myself to the limit. It would be the fastest I would have ever run. My fellow runners when they saw me sprinting were cheering aloud. I did the speed slow routine couple of times over the RK Salai bridge and the Alwarpet bridge. When I reached the endpoint and stopped, I could feel the blood pumping in my head. Wow.... that felt so good.

I remember when I was in school we used to play a game called Kings and Queens, where the player with a ball have to hit the fellow players with it. We used to run like hell to avoid getting hit by the ball. Usually at the end of the game, I used to feel the blood pumping in my head. After so long I felt that today. Feels great.

Amazing Rescue...

In today's high competitive world of media, once in a while there will be a real human drama that will make your heart warm and feel good reading such an article. I saw one such news today. A two year old girl, Vandana, fell in to a 45 feet unused bore well and survived for 27 hours before being rescued. When I first heard the news yesterday, I felt a twinge of fear, since I remember a similar kind of news in which a boy who fell in to an unused bore well died after 36 hours continuous rescue effort. But this girl seems to be a strong survivor. Indian army was called in for the rescue operation. A parallel bore well was dug, 1 feet apart for the rescue personal to go in and free the girl. The rescue team was able to keep the girl alive with gulgose, water and oxygen for more than a day. Truly amazing story for the girl for surviving 27 hours of ordeal and for the rescuers to take such a risky and complex operation to save a little to girl. Hats off to the rescuers and to the people those who helped.

Read the full story in the following link.

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/twoyearold-rescued-from-45feet-deep-pit/62018-3.html

A tribute to the Immortal:

Everyone wants their hero's, idol's to be immortal. One such person to me is Rangarajan popularly know as Sujatha in tamil literature world and the cine world. He expired last week after a brief illness. An engineer by profession, he is a multi faced personality. He is widely respected in IT, multimedia, literature, cinema and many others. The depth of knowledge he poses in each of the field was amazing. He introduced sci-fi genre to the tamil readers in the 80's. One of his most popular work, "En Inniya Iyandira" was a story set in future where the world will be ruled by robos and computers. That was the first novel I have read in tamil. There are time when I have read magazines just for his article. Tamil cine industries most talented directors of this era, Mani Ratnam and Shankar both preferred Sujatha for dialogue's in almost all their movies. As I see Tamil literature world and Tamil has a lost irreplaceable genius. He is an immortal with his words and lives in the hearts of his fans.

Following is the tribute written to the great man by one of the writer friend of mine, reproduced here with permission.

SUJAATHAA... ....

My respects to the man.
Sometimes had his hands on my pen.
Sometimes had his words on my mouth.
Sometimes had his chair on my brain.
Sometimes had his laws on my books.
Goodbye, my man.

Natarajan Srinivasan.

Credit card Trouble

I had a shocking experience with a credit card company recently. I don't mind naming the company, it is SBI card. I have been using it for about 2 years till now, and though I was not happy with their service, I was using the card regularly. The problem started when one of my check I have given for the SBI had bounced. I had dropped the check for SBI credit card, well before the payment date and am really not sure of the reason the cheque bounced. But when I saw the next month statement, it was stated that my previous cheque had bounced and they had add some amount as a fine for the bounce and another amount as a fine for defaulting the previous month. The highlight is the reason they had quoted for the check bounce. It said, "Insufficient funds". I was totally pissed off when I saw that.

I called the customer service and asked why have you quoted the reasons "Insufficient funds", also, I said I wanted a copy of the check that had bounced. The customer service person said, she will dispatch the mail immediately. Since the person sounded as if she had dispatched the bounced cheque copy to me, I totally forgot about it for some time. The next week I got a call from a SBI person, inquiring why I have not paid the bill. Only then I remembered about the bill and said, I have not received any copy of the cheque I have requested, and asked what happened to that. The executive said, she will check up and call back. But she never gave a call back that day. I again made a call the next day to inquire about the copy of the cheque. I was bit frustrated by now, and was in a aggressive mode when I made the call.

The most surprising thing I found when I made the call was that the executive was talking to me with none of my history. When I asked whether they had dispatched the copy of the cheque, she said yes, and when asked about the address the copy was dispatched, she was telling some address. I was so pissed off and started shouting at her, and told immediately to transfer the call to the manager. Without even responding to my query, she had cut the call. The total number of calls they made to me and I made to them would be around 7 to 8 and none spoke like a professional. One lady even told me harshly it is not their responsibility to send the copy of the cheque, and I have to check with my bank.

I was not sure at that what to do. I dropped another cheque minus the fine amount of the previous bill. I am just waiting the another call from the company so as to tell them how unprofessional they are and cancel the card. I am not sure what should I do about this kind torture these company's give to customers. I was just wondering is there any law which will enable me to sue this kind of incapable company handling the operations? I will also tell them to learn some lessons from their bigger counterparts like Citi and ICICI. Not that Citi and ICICI are giving a great service, but at the least they are more professional than SBI credit card guys.


I felt relived and happy after cutting the card in to two.

Auroville Marathon:

At last, 8 months after starting to run, I have completed my first official half marathon at the event conducted by Auroville on its 40th anniversary. A big thanks to Chennai Runners, who has a big chunk in making a runner out of me, especially to Ram, Hari, Ramesh, Vidyuth and Narayanan. I knew Auroville will be a fantastic place to run and I had been training for the past two weeks for that. The travel from chennai was arranged by Karthik and we had a comfortable journey to Auroville and reached around 5.30. Auroville as expected was a serene and so pleasant. The food and stay was comfortable and the arrangement was great.

The race started by 7.00 the next morning. Ram started his Full marathon quest an hour earlier than us. It was the first trail that I am running outside chennai and it was exquisite and challenging. 90% of the run was on forest and barren lands. The uneven surface very challenging to run. I started my run very slowly, infact I was the last one to start from the start line. I continued at the same pace for about 40 minutes. I increased my pace after the first water point and I could lot strong runners struggling in the uneven surface. Good that I paced down myself initially. The volunteers were fantastic and crowds at the water point were great. Though I had a couple of walking breaks in between, I finished the run in 2.36 hrs, which is a pretty good one to me. I am sure, if at all I attend the next Auroville marathon I will be attempting a full.

A very satisfying and enjoyable run for me. The above photo says it all.

Innocent Questions:

It is quite amazing some of the questions the kids asks there parents these days. Some of the them will be really be amusing, some annoying and Some of the questions will forever be echoing on long. I heard one of such questions from my nephew Adhi, a seven old.

My sister and my Brother in law had planned to go to Thirupathi for their 10th wedding anniversary. They had purchased ticket for a special darshan early in the morning by 2.00 AM. So I called them up
around 8.00 in the morning to wish. I was talking to my sister over the phone after wishing her, then suddenly she started lauginhig out aloud. I could hear Adhi talking but could not hear properly. When I
asked about that my sister told, that it is a long story and not for the phone. She invited me for lunch, and told that we will discuss that over the lunch.

When I went there, she narrated me the following. In my newphew's world, there are only 3 languages, Tamil, English and Hindi. So he was confused when he heard a different language. He was some what terrified with the rough crowd inside the temple. He kept on asking why there was not any tamil written around the temple. His mother explained that they are in another town where they speak a language called telugu. So he took it as a game to find out places where it is written in Tamil. After finishing off the darshan and coming to the room came to her and asked "Mom you told that these people will talk in Telgu right?" his mother replied "Yes". He asked again "Then how will the God in the temple will understand what we pray in Tamil?". That was when she broke in a laughter over the phone. When I heard this even I started to laugh hard.

My sister told me about one more question Adhi asked before leaving to temple. They did not inform Adhi that they are going to temple until the last moment since he had a half day of school. So when my sister explained that they will going to a place called Thirupathi, he asked why they are going there. When she replied that they are going for darshan of God, he shot back "Come on Mom, you have a room full of statues and photos of God and why do you want to go a temple and pray. Isn't it enough that you do your prayer from here, why do you have to go there? She was dump struck for some time and gave a usual parental answer to go and ask his Dad the same question. I guess no one will be willing to answer this question :-)

The Kite Runner:

Recently, a friend of mine presented me with the novel The Kite Runner by Khalid Hossaini. It had been a long since have I read an English novel. While giving it to me, she had warned that the book was pretty heavy. The story is a narration by Amir, a young boy of 11 in Afghanistan. The narration starts before the occupation of Afghanistan by Russia. The core of the novel is the friendship between two boys, Amir and Hassan, the unassuming love of Hassan for Amir and Amir's betrayal of Hassan's trust. The novel travel's to US with Amir and his father in the middle of war, but Amir was living the guilt of his betrayal. Amir returns to Afgan in an attempt to wipe out his guilt and make it up for his mistake. We would be seeing the destruction caused by the war by Russia and the Taliban through the eyes of Amir.

The novel beautifully describes the peaceful times in the Afgan and the ugliness of a needless war. The main focus of the novel was the effect the war has on the children of the country, the kind of mental trauma they go through. Though this book may not be in my all time favorite list, I rate this book highly. I would recommend this book to those who could read heavy subjects.

Gaza Breach:

Some of images that occupied my mind for a couple of days. People of Palestine rushing in to Egypt to get their basic needs of food and fuel. Egypt on its part has acted with humanity by not stopping the Palestine's to get the most important commodity, the food and fuel.







Suppression of basic needs is a crime. My personal take on the conflict, violence by Palestine is justified as long as the Israel suppression is in place. Until the time either side is going to stop the violence peace on the region will continue to elude.

An Unique Election:

This years US election is an unique one. It is going make history for sure. Even before the election race began there was a feeling that this election belongs to the democrats. As it seems me, that the real contest is between Hillary and Obama. It will be historic whoever wins this election. For Hillary, she is the first woman presidential nominee and for Obama he will be first black presidential nominee. Both have an enigmatic presence, a crowd pulling charm and seeing them contesting for Presidential Nomination for Democrats is like seeing Agaasi and Sampras in the height of their prowess in the semi finals. Presonally I would like to see a lady president as the most powerful person of the world.

I have a doubt, if at all Hillary wins this election and becomes the president what will Bill Clinton be addressed, First Man ;)

Starting a New Year....

I have always wanted to start a new year in a positive note, but never been able to do so. One way or the other I always ended up screwing the new year day. This year I was pre determined to make it great. Luckily for me my running mates came with a simple plan of doing a 5K run at the Elliott's beach, and a breakfast at Murugan Idly shop. My last good run I had was in September 2007 when I did a 28 KM in 3.20 Hrs. I got injured, traveled to a non runnable place and here am back at my beloved chennai and was trying to run for the past two weeks. Trust me, the most difficult is getting back to your usual self in running after being in a prime form. It was painfully difficult for me, but I was advised by a friend not to push too much, but to take it easy and run regularly.

For the past 2 weeks I was trying hit the road daily and I was doing it. But the run was still painful. Today run was a total surprise for me. There are about 14 of us today for the run. I completed the run in about 30 minutes comfortably with Ram and Hari running with me. I guess the main difference was running with the group. It was great fun to meet the guys after a long time.

As I was about to finish the run, I was thinking about what would be my goal in running. The most satisfying thing would be a "Runner for Life". That's a huge dream, but that's what I want to be. I sincerely hope that I could be one.

It feels so good to start the year on a great note.