Soporific Aloo Posto

Last Sunday, I had visited my friend and colleague. Later I happened to lunch at their place. Authentic Bengal cuisine, really tasty but a little bit soporific...guess why? It was because of the poppy seeds added in the preparation. I had a typical Bengali meal comprising rice, dal, posto and boiled okra with onions.

'kao hnyin rice' or the 'Kavuni arisi' -- The Burmese connection

People hailing from chettinad area or those who have a Burmese connection will know about the sweet purple porridge made out of a special variety of rice...The 'kao hnyin rice' from Burma. Any ceremony in Nagarathar community is incomplete without this dish. In those days, people returning from Burma, used to pack the 'kao hnyin rice' in sewed small gunny bags. These days you get it here locally, but it is a bit costlier. Its pronunciation has just transformed into 'Kavuni Arisi' (Arisi means rice in Tamil). but not the way it is prepared and relished...

Processor implantation

Today we went to our contract assembly House and got our cute-girl's brain implanted by a healthy one. Electrically she is fine...waiting for her to wake up...

In an effort to save my beloved

Today was the hectic day.
Tring tring: A phone call conveying that the electronic board is hung.
In-situ explanation by the team member: “I heard a spark and I turned off the system”
Immediate conclusion: Power – Ground short
I suspected capacitor damage surge current / ESD
I wanted to restore the small cute baby to life: I de-soldered the capacitors.
Hope this would bring her back to life.
Nope :o(
Still EEPROM was in system: It was healthy
My cute girl’s processor is gone.
Indeed very sad to admit that she was not given the basic ESD care.
Hope this is the first and last of such errors.

Right Handed :o)

Being right handed means skilled...but being only right handed practically means you are disabled. I thought of this while dressing up for office yesterday using the right hand alone since I burnt my left hand touching the silencer of Bullet-thunderbird. If my hands would have been modular then I would have just removed and kept it aside. Now I am feeling better.

Pictures, pictures and more pictures

I never knew that I could take good picture using a camera. I really loved capturing the moments of nature. Today I spent uploading them in flickr and tagging them, so that I can share the same in my blog http://www.flickr.com/photos/12072181@N00/

The road to Satyavas…the beach resort

Early morning the entire team was busy making preparation for our stay in the beach resort which is an hour drive from our place. Mom and two others planned for the grocery items. My sis was busy packing our dresses; I was packing my things :0) . Later we went out to buy those. I helped them pack the grocery in a compact way. We all loaded the items including our extra beddings onto our Toyota – Qualis. We lunched at the dhabha-express restaurant. We went to the resort along with Satish and Lakshmi who are volunteers of Vasantha memorial trust at Chennai. It was a pleasant drive then.

(Un?)educated Crowd

Last week Saturday, I was in Chennai along with volunteers of Vasantha Memorial Trust (http://www.vasantha.org/) for what else other than helping in arrangements for a concert rendered by Visaka Hari. The average age of viewers exceeded 50. And believe me, managing them was a huge task. My sister was at the token counter and had a very busy time. Educated people coming for concert behaving like this leaves me thinking about a situation where I need to manage a mixed crowd; I suppose that would be much easier. I got to hear the vocal concert too. It was nice.

Some more pictures...

These are some more pictures taken on last Friday 14/09...

These are near the food court

a more closer shot to get a feel of the flowing water

Bridge under water

Everyday commute to office, we cross a 10 meter bridge constructed across a sewer canal. The bridge submerged in water last friday due to heavy rains in Bangalore. The water had gone more than a meter above the bridge.

More scary was the flooding of a small canal in our campus. The entire food court was sorrounded by water and the scene was terrific. This reminded me of the mighty Brahmaputra flooding every year in Nazira, Asssam

Project deadline for Archana

This world revolves on deadlines...be it anything.
Even God has got deadlines :)

My college friend Archana has her own deadline of delivering a baby by 19th November this year.
My best wishes for her successful delivery of her project named 'Baby' and I express my hearty congratulations to both Archana as well as Lijesh in advance.

'~Day' for Origami

‘~ Day’…We have special days to associate with almost everything. Few years from now, all 365 slots will be filled; we will then have a day for remembering all days and probably add more days to the year to satisfy our quest for special days, the ‘~Days’. Leave aside the future; scanning the present calendar of ‘~Days’, two days are marked for Origami「折り紙」. Let’s not envy origami for snatching two days in the calendar, let’s ponder the reason.
U.S. and U.K. calendars allocate October-24 for Origami. It marks the birth of Lillian Oppenheimer, who popularized origami in the west. She pioneered in spreading the art and science involved in origami starting from 1950.
In Japan, the story is different. Japanese consider origami to be one of the highest forms of art and celebrate November-11 for origami 「折り紙の日」spelt as ‘Origami no hi’, which is also the ‘Veteran’s day’ or ‘Remembrance day’ for them. This was the day when ‘World War-1’ ceased and the peace treaty was signed. It is referred to as ‘Sekai Heiwa Kinenbi’ 「世界平和記念日」meaning ‘World Peace Memorial Day’. Apart from these 2 x 24 hours, there are special origami seasons spanning from four days to one month followed throughout the world.

The above is yet to be published. It is written for our internal Japanese magazine

Best Wishes Prasanna

It is one year since we had started learning Japanese, and already two of our peers left the company...Today was the third person quitting. Prasanna leaving us, makes the 'Mapu' gang(The nickname for gang of 3 persons in the class) with just one lone person. Well I wish Prasanna-san all the best for his masters degree in Italy.

Faces of River Cauvery at Shivanasamudram

We witnessed the two faces of River Cauvery at Shivanasamudram on Saturday. Both equally beautiful, equally furious and equally powerful. Yes, Gaganachukki and Barachukki are the two places where the river expresses herself.We could reach closer to the waterfall at Barachukki, but we could only have a far glimpse of her at Gaganachukki. I bowed myself to their mightier spirit and quenched my thirst. The water soothed my throat straight from the water fall; yes, I kissed them perhaps.

This is Gagana-chukki falls in ful might

Close view of one of the twin falls at Gagana-chukki

This is Barachukki taken at a closer angle

Kudos to Monish.I.M for these pictures

Energy of Pure Devotion

I experienced the energy of pure devotion at the Melkote temple. Mesmerised by the rich voice of a person, I stood motionless. I could feel a gush of energy trying to conquer my consciousness. Amongst people who sing for the sake of singing, than for the real inner peace, the person who sang the song was a real gem. May his prayers come true.

The song made more impact on me as it was sung in my own mother tongue Tamil.

Real price of food is happiness

The real price paid for the food at any shopping mall, is to see a lot of kids at the place. Though disgusted at the quality of food at the food-mall-BSK 3rd stage-Bangalore, I felt a ray of happiness seeing cute kids, wearing colorful dresses and looking at the bright lights with their huge eyes wide open.

Good to Great...

Last week, I and my team-mate visited the newly constructed floor on phase-2 of our company at Global Village Tech park. Dedicated just for the campus minds, The floor comprises large lecture halls and three big informal-meeting areas. Amazed by the way the floor was furnished, we entered a small room where some newly joined minds were expressing themselves with some crayons on paper. The height of comedy shot us when we saw books like 'Who says Elephants can't fly' and 'Good to Great' there. More worse is when these young kids read the books, understand them totally in their own perspective and impose them on the way we work. I have seen many people, who read all sort of these books, and speak a lot as if they run the company. In fact, they just try to cook their appraisal. The more funny part is when a person actually applying the facts to their day-day activities are complained by their managers that they do not speak like this...

Work More, Indian IT industry...!

I am amused by the Indian IT company’s decision to increase the working hours per day and also include Saturday as a half-working day, just to counter the increasing rupee. Everybody wants themselves to prosper and not the nation as a whole, that’s the reason, why India is still a developing nation. Click on this link to see what one of the leading newspaper has to say <Work more>. By the way did the companies let us relax when the Rupee was depreciating?

P.S. Many big names in the industry, allocates the work of 1 person to 10 person, thereby diluting the work, but billing them, so as to increase their revenue. Also, the fresh Indian minds out of college want money to spend but not work!

Project, but no scope of develpment :(

It is one month since I have updated my blog :(
Project work, what else...
whenever I get free time, I used to blog then, but now it has changed
This new project has no scope of career development at all...
i am hoping that the scenario would change...

Reminiscing sweet memories

I am hearing to the song clips that used to be telecasted in Doordarshan (The Govt owned TV channel in India) when we were young. The desh raag, Mile sur mera tumhara and many more... These have switched on the play button of the sweet memoir video :) Not only me, almost all my friends feel the same. It would have been more nice if I had got the video clips of the same

Life: fast forwarded...

Waking at 8:10 today morning, the entire life was fast forwarded ; The entire 1 hour starting from 7:15 to 8:15 was compressed in just 15 minutes. I was in the bus stop at 8:30. Though I missed my bus (route-20), I boarded another bus which came next. Really fast that I could not believe myself when I felt that I was going to office at 8:30

Kudos Srikanth.D.N...

There are people who do things differently...One such person is D.N.Srikanth about whom, I read in yesterday's newspaper. Financial situations forced him to take up the job of a bus driver in Bangalore City bus corporation (BMTC). Now he makes sure that his six trips a day from the city bus stand to Peenya Industrial Area is an intellectual experience for his passengers. He does so by having a small library in the bus, which comprises daily newspapers and some books. Also he makes sure that the water dispenser is filled every trip, so that his passengers need not worry about thirst parching their throats. I am really out of words in praise of him...All the best Srikanth for your future...

Provide oppurtunity for fishing, We do not want fish!

Any one born on this earth would want to move forward and at least want others to exclaim that they are forward in their thought or action. India is the only country where the reverse happens. The masses here want to move backward...backward in their thought and actions. The riots happening in the state of Rajasthan are a perfect example. People from a community have indulged in violence want themselves to be included in the backward classes of the society. The reason behind this can be attributed to the people, the politicians and the political system. Being recognized as backward in the society gives them a lot of reservation in schools, then in colleges, then in government jobs, then also in their successive promotions. People here want to move forward (moving forward in earning money, designation and fame) not by hard work, but by reservations. The government is giving them fish, rather than providing them the opportunities to fish, and that is what majority of the people want!

Unplanned Weekend

Friday evening, my friend Shravan called up and we planned to meet for breakfast on Saturday. Saturday I woke up at 10.00am and met my friend at the Barista at 11.00am. Later we were at a mobile-phone shop to buy a phone for him. He bought a Nokia-E61i.He called upon Srivatsav, CEO of his company as he knew the owner of the shop. We planned to call him, so that we get some considerable discount. Since Srivatsav was nearby, he dropped in; though not much of discount we could get, we got the phone on credit :o) We lunched at the Dominoes-Pizza house and went to meet Shravan's friend Raghav, who works for an American company as Sales manager. Daniel, who works for PVR-cinemas was also there. We had some clean fun then. Plans for Sunday's movie was spoiled as we could not get tickets for the movie we wanted to see. Later we opted for other movie which was screened. Well this weekend was unplanned, but turned out to be a good entertaining one.

Nazira, now and 16 years before...

Nazira is a small town in the Sibsagar district of Assam, India. This was the place where I spent four years of my childhood; in fact I studied till my second grade there. Now, 16 years later, my father is again extending his service in Assam…the district renamed to Shivsagar, is fully grown into a big city with lot of hotels and cars. My mom and sis are spending their summer holidays there. Today they had gone to my father’s workplace, an oil rig in the forests of Assam. They happened to pass by the town of Nazira. Now Nazira has a shopping complex and lot of big bungalows .Then it used to be a lifeless town, whose major population belonged to the ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation). Even now it is the case, but the local people had become rich now. The shore of the Brahmaputra’s tributary which once used to be deserted is now full of shops and crowd. I still remember the sight when the river used to flow brimful. This is gonna be a memorable visit for my sister, who was just a three year old kid then. I missed this trip due to some expected work in Bangalore :o(

Did you have a big cake in your mouth...Mr.TechLead?

People always want to save their own skin. I experienced this last Friday. Important issue, on which a decision was made along with the technical lead of the project last week, was not communicated to the project manager…and this lead to all problems. The mutual trust I had with my peers is shattered :o(We were closing the design phase on Friday. When my project manager darted with the issue, I came to know that the gap in communication. The technical lead was also present at the scene in the next PC terminal. Well Mr.Tech Lead, Did you have a big cake in your mouth then? From now on, I think even an issue of the size of mustard needs mail communication.

Brilliance...Burning Bright

After my usual visit to the temple last Saturday evening, I went to Jayanagar 4th block shopping complex. Of late I spend my Saturday evenings at this place because I like to see the bustling city life here, I love seeing huge crowds of people enjoying their weekend. I relished on ragi roti (pancakes made of certain variety of cereal), a local delicacy. In the fast food corner, I met my colleague Poornima who had come there accompanied by her husband Shyam Sundar. I proceeded to my favourite coffee shop nearby that served traditional South-Indian coffee. Sipping my coffee, I enjoyed the sight of wide variety of people bustling. Meanwhile I happened to notice two bright young boys enjoying their ice-cream. Later we got introduced…The two boys were amazingly brilliant; their brilliance shone in their eyes. I really like to see such people. Good luck boys Pratap and Santhosh. The return walk was a tiresome one perhaps.

Amusing human psychology - 1

There are people who would be friend only if you praise them…I am bewildered by such people. Since because a person has wealth, you can’t bend yourselves to their wishes or agree to what they say… this is another category of people which I am seeing right now in front of my eyes. Really amusing human psychology right! These people would do anything to show off their importance. You need to be careful with such people.

First Circuit designed in my career

The first circuit I designed in my career is something that I would never forget in life…The solitary moments in the company when I designed it, early morning around 6.00am…The beauty of the datasheet…the versatility of the design guide…the CAD notes…the intriguing decoupling caps and so on…and also the exclamations received from my peers on seeing the design. Though this happened some 5 months before, today was the day of the design closure and launch to the next stage of the product cycle, so I would be busy placing my designed circuit on the board :)

Fry your Brains

Today, the feel of working on a Saturday was relieved. Our team members went out for a Movie…’Bheja Fry’ at the PVR for a Morning show. The film was clean fun and was a nice movie to watch. It is about people who really fry your brains. The movie had nothing to express, but was a comedy movie. The 2.5 hours passed like few minutes. Later we had lunch at the ‘Sahib sultan’-Forum. The ambience of the restaurant was really good. Now I am sitting in office after an hour of strenuous drive back, though my manager drove the car.

Ramya, The new word for joy

‘Pogaatha Ellai Poi vanthalum, punnagai seyyum oruvan…Neethaana?’ goes the lyrics of a Tamil song. The verse can be translated as ‘the one who smiles even after returning from horizon…Is that you?’
Ramya, my cousin sis is a perfect example of this verse. The moment she sees a new person, she wears a smile. I was in CBE for the past 4 days with her and here in Bangalore now, I miss her

Case of semiconductor

I got a product-line CD from a Japanese company. I was thrilled to see the way the word semiconductor was interpreted. The word is a series of 3 symbols Half, Conduct/guide /Body.
Really amused by the way words are formed :)

Raja alias Kolaikaaran

Raja, Or Kolaikaaran (Means Murderer in Tamil) as we used to call him in college is in Indian Air Force now. He will be in Bangalore for the next 1 year or so. I spoke to him yesterday. Speaking to your old friends after a long time is always a thrill. I wish him best of luck in his forthcoming exams and his future service for the country.

Operation U43

It was a crucial moment for all of us. A pre - testing was blocking everybody’s time. The operation required to remove an organ (IC - U43) completely from the PCB board. Knowing that I had to remove an IC that is very small with lot of veins (traces) running adjacently and lot of vital organs lying nearby, I relied upon the skill of our lab technician Manjunath BV. With lot of effort we first isolated the vein junctions (the PCB pads) from the IC pins, this was the most difficult as the veins were so close to each other by 0.5mm. After about 40 minutes of hard work, finally we isolated the entire organ about (7mm by 7mm) from the body…the IC from the board.
The operation is a success…The PCB will be given a small test injection (probe) tomorrow before the full test is carried on it.

Incandescent bulb gets a hanging order!

Australia issues a hanging order for incandescent bulbs. The order would be executed by 2010. The order is issued after the allegations that they emit more heat than light...Fluorescent lamps would light Australia after 2010.
Even then, wearing a red hat, I would say, if the fluorescent lamps are not disposed properly, they would be deadly again.

For more on the order
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6378161.stm

Watashino tomodachi Rakushimi san wa Nihon-jin ni Naru :)

My friend Lakshmi is travelling to Japan the next week. I am excited, though I am not going. I intend to go soon.
Watashiwa Nihon-ni iku tsumori desuga watashino tomodachi Rakushimi-san wa iku koto wo kiite ureshii.

The AVEO experience

Today I flew the Chevrolet-AVEO for a very short distance... It is my friend Naren's car. However the experience be, I cannot compare that of my first love with Suzuki-800.

Case of Gender Changer

Today, I had to shuttle between my cubicle and the electronics lab situated on the first floor. Meanwhile I noticed a innovative naming of a connector adapter...Oour SW team had a DB-9 male-female adapter, we call it the adapter. [The male/female terminology in connectors is used to differentiate the mating connector parts]. it was written on the adapter as "Gender Changer"... The name particularly amused me because of its different style of naming

The WEEE man

The WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) has created a WEEE man, fully out of trash electronic appliances. This is set to create awareness among the people.

3.3Tonne...This is the amount of e-waste generated on an average by a UK citizen in his/her lifetime

Bangalore, India contributes 8000Tonne of e-waste annually.

Electronics engineers are you noting this?

“Heart is a hardware subsystem, whose firmware comes as a part of Human1.0 – Self learning neural firmware.
Love() is a function call that is called every now and then…Valentine’s day is just a SW additional patch….
Looks and wealth are just testing platforms/boards…
Go for the full system, not looking at how the test platforms are, but at the quality of Human1.0 as a whole ”

This is my quote :)

What you say people who do not want to disclose anything... Shall we call them Mr.O?
Well I have a Mr.O as my colleague. We work as a team. Suddenly our Mr.O did not turn for office. I waited for 2 days...an important issue was pending for his approval. Later I asked my boss..."Where is Mr.O? Will he turn up tomorrow to the office?” The reply shocked me...Mr.O is getting married and will be on leave for the next 2 weeks. Meanwhile an issue pertaining to a 3rd party contract came up :( Finally I resolved the same with the help of the contract party themselves and also progressed in my work as directed by my boss. Today Mr.O is back and is shooting idiotic questions. Let’s Face it CK...

"Mr.O was on leave indeed, but he got married? I never knew it :)"

Pages from My Diary (13 August 2004)

On our onward journey to Goa... 'Masterminds of KCT' as we called ourselves, the 2001-2005 ECE batch of KCT...


The sky was still dark and calm. Our cell phone was changing towers every ten seconds. West coast express from Coimbatore finally rested and observed silence after about ten hours of hard work, on the railway platforms of Mangalore. Our classmates got down the train, most of them still half asleep. I was then enjoying the chill breeze that swept the station. I went down the platform in search of a coffee shop and finally found one. Coffee was served in stainless steel cups in the traditional way. Our onward journey train berthed in the same platform, but on the other side. Sipping my coffee, I saw a group of people towing a huge trolley carrying mail bags to Goa and loading the gunny bags in the brake van of the train. The city was experiencing its doses of south west monsoon showers. Our train was also drenched in rain. We all somehow managed to settle inside the train.

The WC express was then towed to the railway garage. Along with some of my friends, I admired the huge diesel engine of our train KR-2, comprising V-type configured engine and a huge radiator. The engineers were checking the diesel level, oil level of each engine, air pressure level of the hydraulic brake piston, and several other parameters. The train started off, with a cloud of black smoke slowly vanishing into air. Leaning out, I didn’t express much enthusiasm for the first ten minutes, until the train encountered a tunnel. Many of my friends then wanted to share the doorway, to enjoy the nature. As an ardent lover of nature, I decided to shift my compartment. Till Udupi, I was in that compartment and observed many things.

The golden fields were flooded with water and were shining in the morning sun. The moist rocks too were golden in color, reflecting the energy of the sun. The entire route to Goa was a blend of nature and man made tunnels. Even there was provision for the water to drain via guiding streams along the entire railway track. With very brief stops, the train proceeded on its way. I was longing for my next cup of coffee, when the train stopped in suratkal station. But I didn’t want to get out of the coach, I just drank some water and noted down these events in a bit of paper. Finally I got a fellow passenger in that deserted coach, he was venkatesh, working as a coffee boy on that route. To my astonishment, he was from Madurai. Sipping my next cup of coffee, our train was entering a tunnel, perhaps a long one that lasted for about five minutes. While we were chatting, I came to know that the river which we crossed was nethravathi. Meanwhile we were crossing a tributary ‘Padu river’ with a sole canoe tied to a coconut tree swaying to its flow. At Udupi venki got down and I too came back to my compartment.

The sky was playing with its tricks on us. To our right, the sky was bright, but was gloomy to our left with rainy clouds. I was astonished by this sight, that rain started to approach our train from the left. In fact we could see the rain chasing us. The train was progressing in a constant pace not disturbed by the tricks of rain. Soon it started raining and the entire area was dark, as if it was six or seven in the evening. I looked at my watch which figured the time to be 8.45 a.m. The rains became heavy and visibility was reduced to less than a feet. Plains, river, rocks, tunnels, plains, rivers…Brrrrrrr. I fell asleep.

I woke up at Nirjur station and I stepped out to wash my face. My vision caught the sight of a tribal lady selling jasmine garlanded in a different fashion that we normally used to see here in Coimbatore. The sun was scorching now and I could spot some rare kind of birds. Two varieties of parrots, cuckoos, and three varieties of kingfisher and many more were spotted. I felt hungry and ate a sandwich of bread and an omelet hastily. After kumta station the scenery was not much pleasing, the roads met the rail often below the tracks. We were too tired of the journey. After Kumta it was Gokarna road, Karwar and CanaCona and finally Madagoan station. The nine hour feast was over and we were in Goa finally, but the Konkan coast experience was really a memorable one

(Early morning, 13th August 2004)