Edge of the Seat Thriller

If you think that this post is about some thriller movie that I have seen recently, you are mistaken. The heading reflects how I feel each day when I drive my new car out to drive to office and back. It has been couple of weeks since I got my new car, a Chevrolet Spark. Though car is pretty good to drive, driving in the chennai traffic is like riding a bumper car.

I had been driving car for the past couple of years, but this is the first time I drove in chennai. I think only another driver can understand the plight of the a driver in chennai, or for that matter anywhere in India. Some of the things that I noticed which makes a typical Indian car driver

1. Jumps signals.
2. Jumps lanes.
3. Rushes towards your left side in the signal and take a diagonal turn and park right in front of you.
4. Keep honking if someone is ahead of you.
5. Never give way to an ambulance, and speed up like anything as if you are an escort.

And the worst is the bikers. I am biker myslef and I have driven the same way as anyone is driving today. Only when I sit in the driver's seat that I see how irritating the bikers are when they whiz past you from your left side or when they squeeze in a small space between your car and the road divider. I have been in to couple of accidents when I was riding a bike - which was no mistake of the car driver. When ever I see a bike in the rear view, those accidents come to my mind and makes me nervous.

But I understand I would be driving fine until I have a tiny fear in my mind about driving in the city. If I ever overcome that fear factor, I am sure that would be day my car would get it first scratch.

Slumdong's Oscar and the Post Mortem

When I was with my previous company one of my senior colleague used to say that we Indian are always good in Post Mortem. What he means is - if there is problem he spent the whole night to solve, his managers will question him about the problem and try to understand the root cause, but they never take any steps to prevent the same problem happening in the future. They keep on talking without any solution at all. Eventually that problem would be forgotten when the next one comes. He used to say that post mortem is common with almost all the Indians, they love to discuss something without any logical conclusion back and forth.



I remembered the conversation I had with him when I was watching the debate of whether India could take credit for the "Slumdog Milloinaire" oscars. Slumdog is basically a movie out of a Vikas Swarup novel about a rags to riches story. A R Rahman and Resul Pokutty won Oscars for their work in the film. The film went on to win 8 Oscars in total.

As soon as the Oscars are announced, a debate was started by most of the TV channels - whether India should rejoice about the oscar got by Rahman and Resul. I really don't understand what is so sentimental about it. Rahman got the oscars for the Music and the song, Resul for his sound mixing. It is not one of Rahman's best, but the fact is, it is the best out of the nominated ones. Rahman and Resul got their awards for their individual brillance in a global stage. We should be rejoicing. Getting nominated to Oscars is a collective factor. Although many mediocore movies have got the award before, more than one award would be given only for deserving movies. The fact that the Slumdog got 8 oscars is itself says that movie was loved by many, atleast among the judges.

I am sure if not Slumdog, Rahman would have done it with another international movie soon. Even I don't think Slumdog is a great movie and all, but it has a feel good factor and optimism. May be in this gloomy recession, many might have felt the optimism touching. Let's not post mortem their success - let us just enjoy the victory and glory of Rahman and Resul at the global stage. A big bow to both of them.

Going to a Government office:

I have never been to a Government office baring a couple of times for a Driving License and for a EB registration. I have heard lot of stories and seen movies depicting the aristocracies that happens in a government office. Well, I had a first hand experience of the same for the past couple of weeks.

If you move to a new place in India, you can realize how difficult it is to get a Address proof. I never worried about that until I got married. Three months ago, I submitted my application for a Family Card in the Civil Supplies Department. They did their duty well, they came for inspection to my home, they verified my identification and my wife's - told me that I will be getting the card in a months time. Within a week's time I had to leave to US for two months and I totally forgot about the family card for two months.

Once I came back, I went to collect my card to the office. When I went there and showed my receipt for my application form, that employee there too around 1/2 an hour to search for my family card. I am not saying that to criticize the people there, I just felt very sorry for them for the way they are forced to work. They have a office of about 2000 Sq Feet, with 15 people to work. The amount of people they handle would be around 500. Without any computerization, with only paper and ledger for tracking things, it was pitiful the way they are working. They have 30 - 40 years of paper work in that place and if a paper get lost it will become next to impossible to get a lost paper in that maze of papers.

I thought my plight was over when I got my Family Card. But they had printed my name, my address and my Ration Shop id wrongly in my card. When I went to the inspector with that card, he was very sorry. He said it is their mistake, but he cannot help, since changing anything in the card would have no effect in the database from where they print the card. He asked me to submit a affidavit again for processing for the corrections in my card.

As I saw, I could not see only the lazy government official at the office, but only pitiful people, who even if they want to help hundreds of people coming to office cannot do so because of lack of modernization, lack of people. I think it is the duty of the government to modernize and sophisticate these offices and the employees to help people get better service. I see crores of Rupees being spent on the modernization of the politicians vehicles and their security, but these people are working like this for ages without any improvement. I would simply brand this neglect as cheating the people.

Target 50K / Week:

For a serious runner under a marathon training, this would seem too little, but for a novice like me, to do a 50KM per week would be something like a dream. I have done this almost a year before. But now, with absolutely no training for about 9 Months and overweight of about 10Kg's, being married and a baby on its way, I know it will be huge task.

Still, I have started running positively yesterday. I did a slow, small distance run of about 3Km near MCC and waited to see whether I would do it again today before writing a blog entry. Good that I went to the run today too, 1KM more than what I did yesterday.

What I am planning to do now is to track the running distance and timing I do online through my blog and google docs. Let us see how good my determination is.

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.

Tamil Radio and RJ's

The other day I was listening to a FM. It has been a long time since I had a chance to listen to one. 10 minutes in to the program I was wondering whether I am listening to a Tamil radio or something else. Out of the 10 words of a sentence 6 are English and only the rest are Tamil. I agree language is only to communicate and if some one communicates the meaning properly. But what is the meaning in running a Tamil radio with the RJ's talking as if they learnt Tamil recently and talking with an American accent, actually it was disgusting. Either they could try to stick English fully or make an conscious effort to talk in Tamil rather than kill it. Then I realized that it is not the RJ's talking in the mix Tamil and English, but also the people whoever calling them are trying to talk in the same.

I cannot actually decide who is at fault here. Is there some thing wrong with our language? or we as a people are at fault. Because I think we have started to mix up English with Tamil without even realizing it. Hope I don't see a day where I will longing to hear something in Tamil.

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Time Travel:

I was on the plane back to India and was browsing through the flight path from the video panel. There was a link which showed the various timezones available. I was traveling from Minneapolis to Chennai, which has a time difference of about 11.5 hrs. So I would be traveling losing time since I am traveling forward. I was just wondering whether this is time travel. If you are traveling form Chennai to MN starting at a Friday Night 2.00 PM, and you reach MN on saturday evening 4.00 PM, you have actually traveled 26Hrs, but you have gained 6hrs :D. Looks like time travel isn't???

Ok, that was crap, but what do you expect from a guy whose flight got delayed for about 10hrs and struck in Amsterdam??? During that time I visited the Museum at the airport. A war was fought on the place where the airport is there right now, and they have arranged a small but interesting museum out of it. The photos I took there.

Snow Snow.....

I have never seen snow in my life and Hopkins was full of it. The whole town was white. Since that was the last weekend I am going to spent in US, friends took me out for shopping during a snow Strom. Though it may sound odd, it seems going out during a snow Strom is a normal thing there. Some of the icy photos I took during my stay

First Taste of America.

My first taste of America, I would say it tasted good. Some of the things that had me awe struck in US

1. Road Network - What a fantastic network of road they have is really amazing. The roads are so complex even local resident cannot claim that he knows all the route. It is quite orderly, broad, completely marked.

2. There is something that is making the people here to go by the rules. Am not sure what that is, I have not seen a single time anyone violating a signal at all.

3. All the people seems so nice here. At least the ones I have met. For the majority of my stay here, I had been walking to me office. Who ever sees in the road, they used do a gentle nod with a "Hi There" or ""Morning". Even in the office, my colleagues and Peers are aggressive but appreciative and really kind.

4. The funny thing in US, the people you get a frown on seeing you are the fellow Indians. Whenever another Indian sees you, they are the ones who does not smile at you and they will look at you as if you have come from India to snatch his place in US. I got this cold look in almost all the places I went, particularly, If the guy is with a girl he would just kill with his look.

5. The climate : The average climate at the place I stayed (Hopkins, MN) would be around 0. Though I liked the climate initially I cannot say I enjoyed when the barometer dipped to steep negatives. Right now, when I am trying this the climate is -14 and there is a snow storm outside. I think I would be able to tolerate harsh summer back home than a climate like this.


6. Went to Mall of America for a weekend, and it was fantastic. My friend took me along with his friends and their family. There was a kid in group who was the hero of the trip. I could easily say that as the best time of my stay in US. It was great fun and the mall was awesome.

7. Food was one thing that everyone said that is going to be difficult for me. But I had luck in my side, since the friend I am staying with is a fantastic cook and he even tried teaching some of his cooking to me(though he failed). I never had the food trouble some of the first timers used to have.

8. Night Life: I guess no one sleeps till 2 or 3 in to the night on the weekends. I had a taste of that too on some days, clubs, theaters, bowling, shopping, chat's with friends..........

Over all it has been a wonderful trip, though short, it has been great. I enjoyed this trip, and I would not get hesitate to take up another chance to come here.