A listening ear...

While working in my previous company, I was posted in Chennai for three months. The office was located sixty kilometers south of Chennai city. I was staying in the company’s guest house nearby office forcing my schedule to guest house-office-guest house and nothing else. The day of diwali was approaching and I had got reservation only in a sitting coach in a train departing late afternoon, after all diwali is one such occasion when members of the family get-together.

My journey to the railway station would take little less than two hours and as planned, I left the office at 1pm. I had to postpone my lunch and board a bus to Tambaram. It was hot afternoon and I managed to get a seat in a few minutes next to a man in his late forties. He started talking…the way he grew-up in a family of sculptors, the reasons that forced him to come to Chennai, his two year life in Bangalore, the way he entered the welding practice, the way his college going son was sucking money to pay his mobile-phone expenses, the way everyone in their family rejoices during diwali, the importance of real work and so on. Slowly the conversation was heading towards rail-wagon and steel industry perspectives and opportunities/risks for the SMEs in this industry.

After fifteen-twenty minutes of this talk he became silent. He was looking into my eyes, smiling. A minute of pause and then he sadly expressed the way his pay-hike was hurt by crooked middle management politics and the way the word ‘recession’ has ate their bonus money paid before diwali. I smiled and I said him that this was the case everywhere, be it a big IT company or be it a small foundry and also said some few words that seemed to spread warmth inside his soul. Ten minutes later, his place came and before parting he thanked me for hearing to him and also a special thanks for my smile!

Meeting this man with no name and the conversation left me questioning myself. What people need from relations is a listening ear and a soul, and most of them think different. In the past paced lifestyle people have been drawn into a maze of unknown and fear that causes them to shrug off whatever is not them. Many hide their faces from their personal responsibilities as a friend or brother-sister or spouse or a parent as all these do not pay off in pecuniary terms or does not satisfy their dirty-ego. They consider this act of theirs as correct and thrust them unknowingly into their next generation as well.

It rained...

A sudden drop in the temperature this morning, I woke up at 4.00 am to a mild breathlessness in me. I thought of those two people whom I knew only by their names. My friend also woke up around that time hearing to my wheeze. He had the same thought running in his mind too. Surrounded by a pod of grave silence, our minds were wide awake with a cacophony of thoughts.

Suddenly the clouds rained with a roar, drenching the dew damp roads…no thunder, no lightning, it just rained its soul onto the earth. It rained its way into the gravity of the silence, roaring into our thoughts, shattering them and created a void within.

The rain not only penetrated the soil, it penetrated into me and restructured my priorities, my view of life and my love for it. Like a tap closing, the rains stopped in twenty minutes. An hour later the sun rays pierced and made itself felt through the fog. I know for sure that the Sun will shine…shine for me, my friend, and those two never met acquaintances.

Love...

You do not love someone...you share the love of YOUR life with them...

(Felt and penned during my recent holiday vacation in Penang)

The dragon fruit venture @ Penang

Never seen color and never seen shape, I and my mom were drawn by the colorful fruit at the entrance of Penang’s market complex. Curiously my mom turned to our friend’s daughter and asked how the fruit tasted… the answer was that she had never tasted one! We were surprised by her answer as she was born and brought up in Malaysia. Now I and my mom were determined in exploring the pinkish red fruit. Our friend’s daughter helped us as translator between Tamil and Malay language as Malay accented English was difficult to comprehend. It was priced 8RM per kilo and the fruit was weighing close to 650 gms…


Suddenly our friend called…and we set aside this venture and proceeded to the left side row of shops… Fishes with exotic colors, half alive squiggling in the plate were splashing the water in all directions. Next there were silent squids a dozen in a plate, moving in a very slight jerky fashion…next were 3-4 baskets of shellfish, prawns, crabs and some other creatures all snailing their way to the top of the basket. Leaving this there were the normal pomfrets and other sea fishes as well. Our friend ordered the fish and we were out. Next row of shops were all selling eggs…normal chicken eggs were brown in color! Till then I have seen only white eggs. There were smaller light blue colored eggs, even smaller dotted eggs…I gathered from the Chinese vendor that the eggs were of a bird called ‘kaadai’ in tamil, he tried explaining to us in English, later Chinese accented Tamil.


Way back, again the pink dragon tailed fruit caught our attention. This time we enquired the next shop where it was priced less by 2RM and immediately we paid and shoved the fruit into our bags. The shopkeeper lady action was very hasty in selling the fruit… maybe that was her usual way. Though our friend assured that the fruit tastes good we were a little bit cautious and bought only one fruit. The fruit was called as the dragon fruit.


Back home we relished on the tasteless? Less-sweet? fruit along with ice…even then, our friend’s daughter did not want to explore this fruit. The reddish pink flesh with embedded black seeds was so good to see that you would want to relish the entire fruit. It stained our tongue pink and the feeling was so divine and wholesome. I would recommend tasting this fruit given an opportunity.

Googling throws light on the innumerable benefits of this fruit (also called Pitaya) and I was surprised knowing that this fruit belongs to the same family as that of ‘Queen of the bight’ bloom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitaya

The golden girl...

Recently this ad caught my attention in one of the Tamil magazines. I liked this photo for its composition, lighting, mood and the dark colors. The deep crimson red amidst a yellow lighting, and the dark oily green blouse, all give emphasis to the subject. I liked the model's pose flaunting an immense joy in her smile.

The only better thing that could have been done is the position of the hand bangles...the current position makes her wrist look thinner.

Coffee cravings...

A sudden craving for coffee erupted in me yesterday…the craving happened to be so deep that I could feel the black bitter taste of coffee decoction spreading down my throat. I barged into the office pantry and filled myself a cup of coffee. I felt like a kid satisfied holding a lolly pop. But that satisfaction turned into rage when the coffee tasted insipid: it was mere caffeine washed hot water. The anger turned into a sort of unfulfilled wish. The effect of bad coffee had actually created a void in me.

Post lunch and a project meeting, the craving digging deep inside urged me to walk out of the building. Engulfed in a blanket of moist and warm air post a lash of torrential drizzle, I strolled to the nearby food court. Sipping the coffee, I felt the sugary bitterness spreading down the throat, filling my senses. A gush of fullness shot from the stomach and I could feel goose flesh! Finishing the exciting cup of coffee, with the bitterness still clinging on to the palate, I stood up enthusiastically. Walking down to my office, I remembered my favorite verses from Pablo Neruda’s love sonnet XVII “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul”

PS:

The moment I blurted out saying that I am not happy with the coffee, rudeness crept in the voices of the pantry manager as he was defending his premises: the ‘I am OK’ sort of behavior. I felt like laughing loud...and suddenly remembered a saying that you cannot wake someone who is pretending to be asleep!

The forest route via Masinagudi...Paradise now, In future??

The route from Bandipur to Ooty via Masinagudi is a must visit for nature lovers...if possible on a less polluting bike or a personal car. You can spot wild elephants, different species of deers, wild buffalos, species of monkeys, peacocks and if you are lucky you can spot a leopard. For the binocular eyes, various bird species also call attention. The route via the forest has something for people who adore nature and this was the reason I stressed on a less polluting vehicle.

Till now, vehicle movement was restricted after six pm. Now with pressure from all traders, bus route and tourism operators, the forest ministry has lifted the ban effective this month. This is really a case of concern for environmetalists, wildlife enthusiasts and also local public as well.

The ban earlier was imposed by the Karnataka state government to protect wildlife and the natual reserves in general. The recent action by the central forest minister will cause ripple in those minds who are really concerned in conserving nature. How much money was presented to the ministry is a question for which answers are known only to ministry high officals and those vehicle operators involved.

Equation churning engine...

My friend just now introduced me to a computational knowledge engine christened 'Wolfram Alpha' (www.wolframalpha.com). Computational... what!!!??? leave it...lets call it as maths engine for short. It can do any mathematical computation for you, be it simple differential/integral or be it complex equation solving or be it any engineering equations (Seeing Butterworth and Chebyshev filters in the help page took me to my college days though I do not remember even a bit of it!)

Based on 'Mathematica' as the back end, this tool is really powerful, though slow. The aesthetics of the web page gives a scientific feel. And by saying this I do not mean it is only for the scientific/engineering community. It can even display the nutrition information of food stuffs, give out medical information of drugs, do a host of financial functions and also provide nutshell information on sports, history and many more.

Now that we have got one more engine in this world that churns out solution for equations, its success lies in our success, our idea engine's success or our mind's success. It is diligent in its part and the ball is always in our court to smash...

69 minutes, 10Km, 26th year :)

I completed the 10Km run in 69 minutes today... This run was a non stop one with a walk of 200 meters after the 6th kilometer. Felt happy by this achievement, that too on a day when I enter the 26th year of my existence in this world

Golden vines...intertwined with her thoughts

Golden vines intertwined with her thoughts...

I loved this still in the recent Tamil movie 'Sarvam'. I liked the lighting, background, her poise, costumes...amazing.
Kudos to the cameraman and costume designer.
Overall the background music score by Yuvanshankar was good.
Camera at most places was the bokeh type shots where the focus is on the subject with the background fading; this was a little annoying to me. And the next major was silhouette shots mostly with blue or red backgrounds. One shot was with the sun in the horizon...
The sets and lighting of the hospital shots in the first half were too exposed and swallowed the subjects unless the costumes were dark colored. In one shot, the same white color costume in the above picture amidst the hospital white background was too bland.

Rain rain come again

Walking in the rain is one of the activities that bring out the child in you…and yesterday I felt like a six year old boy :)

Returning from office by the 8.15pm cab was really boring with people hooked on to their iPod or cell phone talk or on to their own dream world. Just 10 minutes before my stop, rain lashed with heavy winds and woke the guy who was sitting opposite to me. He woke up angrily and took out an umbrella with a heavy sigh and probably wished that the rain would stop.

The rain sprayed on my face with the wind and I wished that the rain would continue...My wish was fulfilled...

Walking some half a kilometer in rain, slow and steady…enjoying the water drops engulfing my thoughts; I remembered my childhood days in Assam. The monsoon sweeping the town, myself on the front lawn playing like mad in the rain, my mom tired of calling me inside and sitting on the portico with my younger sister, then a three years old baby. From 3.30pm till 5.00pm fully drenched in the rain, I went inside only when my papa came back from work…After having a glass of hot milk I was floating paper boats in the water puddles with my sister looking at them…

Really nostalgic thoughts…thoughts of my childhood suddenly flashing and flooding my thoughts after about twenty years…

Michael Crichton...!!!???

It is 5 months already and I am getting the news now!!!

A mail from a community within the company linked to a presentation on global warming by 'LATE' Michael Crichton...I was taken aback by this news. Is Michael Crichton dead? and now I googled it to confirm it. A smoker, he battled throat cancer and died at 66.
If the news is true, then why was I not aware of it? I may very well say that I was busy with my project work...and all other odd reasons for why I did not get the news. I do have a single reason why I should have known it... the author, whose 'Disclosure' made me lost into its storyline; the same author whose 'Airframe' was in line with my own interesting subject; the same author whose 'Prey' made me its prey for a week... Anyways I feel sad by the news of the demise, so late...almost five months and now I am thinking how linked I am with the world and its happenings.

We are ready with our next mission, Are you game?

A fortnight ago, Friday evening I and my friend KK planned for a long trip to Goa, then shortened it to Mangalore, further shortened it to Nandi hills followed by Hosur... and shortened it further: we spent Saturday at the office... Saturday evening, suddenly an idea flashed while returning home and we got down much ahead of our place...
We dropped into our senior colleague Y's place without any notice. We rang the doorbell and hid ourselves near the stairs and just gave him a surprise when he opened the door. We felt some 10 years younger doing this act...
We still felt younger by forming a trio: I, KK and Y's daughter Ria opposing Y. Munching on the ready-cook popcorn prepared by Ria, the trio strengthened by the tea that Y had prepared.
We helped Ria to finish off some school maths and here began the real action...
We forced Y to join our trio for dinner, and to take his car out on a Saturday evening, made him to eat pizza which he hates to the core. It was all fun that evening...

We are ready for another storming action and creating a trinity with Ria...but when it will happen? Any suggestions Y?

Springing Bangalore...

Fresh violet bud leaves sprung up on bare trees a week ago and now are slowly coloring up a realm that is somewhere above 3 meters from the road level... It is pre-spring season in India and the trees have started to turn green!
It is always a pleasant morning these days, waking up to cool morning wind and the lush green trees.I love those orange colored, brown dotted butterflies, yellow striped butterflies that wish me good morning...

It is good to forget, but not this soon!

With all the josh of my new electronic cards arriving, I forgot to share my 185 minutes to finish the half marathon in Mumbai last week. This one was better than my last one in terms of my post recovery time. The crowd cheer throughout our 21 odd kilometers was a real boost, we never felt that we were alone or we were stressing our body to its extreme. My running pattern this time was 8km non-stop run, another 8-9 km staggered run and walk the last four kilometers…

Post marathon, we had been to the Elephanta cave islands, thanks to my friend Prakash: without him, I could not have managed to see the cave islands. I had in fact seen Mumbai when I was 10 years old, but nothing has changed since then…the same buzzing crowd, the same spirit of living perhaps, only I was 15 years older than I was then…

It was a festival indeed and whole Mumbai was a part of it...Thank you Mumbai, see you next year at the marathon...

Real Work...

'I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine...'      _Ayn Rand from her 'Atlas Shrugged'

Real team work and fulfilling work starts when we understand the above lines in its entirety...

What do you say?

I am 24.60232717 yrs old !!!

Hey CK…this is not the right thing you have done…exclaimed my junior colleague during morning tea break. I was really amused by the tone he said those words. He was referring to my age I have put in the company networking portal.

Born in 1984-May, I am 24.60232717 years old as of today (This is what my computer calculated!). Now should I mention my age as 24yrs or 25yrs? Here started the debate…
Should I say my age is or 24.xxxxxx years then?

Whatever is, can’t we mention that I am always 16 + rest yrs as experience?

Lenses...

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." ~ Dorothea Lange (1895–1979)...
I saw this quote in one of my contacts in Flickr photo sharing site and felt how true these words are...

In fact, I welcome the new year 2009 by exploring an ocean of bits and pixels of frames shot by people world-over. A real satisfying experience that no words can express...

Wish you all a happy new year indeed.