A Typhoidical Experience

Some diseases are worth having an experience. Typhoid is certainly one of those which keeps in us a lasting memory of the unfriendly bacterias who have conquered the forts of internal defense systems in the body.
It started in me with a slight shivering and fever. I took a day's off at office assuming to be normal fever. But hospital checkup made it clear that I was infected with Typhoid. It was then a week's stay back at home having only rice water as my stomach is fully disordered and no scope of any digestive mechanisms in place. My fever came down to normal from 102F a week back. I returned to office and continued my rest of days with work, and having food at restaurants.

Meanwhile, the colonies of bacterias had started recovering and was aiming for a second attack to break into my body defense systems. It happened after couple of weeks- me falling sick again with typhoid fever. Typhoid took me more than I cared for. Only after two weeks medication and rest at home, I came back to office work.

Now I won't allow the tiny tiny bacterias for a third attack. I care well for my food and drink only boiled or bottled water. I hope my body has acquired enough immunity to build the damaged fort walls for protection against any such unfriendly incomers.

Right mail at the Right Time gives you too Good Responses

If you had an old school friend whom you are not in touch with for a long time and then you send him a mail of Birthday wishes exactly on the fine morning of his birthday. It's going to bring happiness in his soul.

That's exactly what happened when I mailed all of them in my batch on the morning of Oct 16th - the first anniversary day of OctFT2 batch which was under my batchownership. I got too flattery mails praising my gesture and then there were circulation of good wishes mails. This photo was taken by few of batchmates in Infosys Bangalore when they decided to find time afternoon for a group photo to remember this day.

Touching moment

I felt touched after I saw this photo. It was taken when few of us, 'Soften' volunteers had gone to 'Chaya Devi Ashram' which is a home for oldage and orphan children. I had taken my mandolin and played couple of songs like 'vande mataram', 'mere sapno ki rani', 'jana gana mana', for the old age people there.

The photo clearly shows the glitter in the eyes of the old man and a shining lonely teeth in his mouth. Sometimes you don't realize the beauty of a moment unless it gets captured in the four borders of a photo. This is a clear example for that!

Daud - for a cause

We had a mini Marathon in our campus here in Infosys, Mysore on Oct 16th. It was to raise fund for the social forum, 'SOFTEN', now involved actively in helping the needy.

The event was a huge success with infoscions gearing up to run along. As a surprise, Anil Kumle, Sunil Joshi and few Ranji Cricketers were also running this fun marathon.

I too was involved in a way to this event in designing banners and posters for promoting it. This image shows a 6x3ft large banner designed by me, which was hung in the campus for the event.

The First Touch

Imagine you are exposed to different varieties of art forms while you were a school kid and you happen to like an art passionately ? Probably the life and career chosen would be different now.That is exactly what United Arts Society is trying to do. They help bring in artists from various forms of art - fine arts, theatre, dance etc and conduct interactive sessions with school kids during weekends and thus wake the artist in a child.

I am happy to be part of the 'First Touch' programme held in a playschool 'Kidzee' in Malleswaram, Bangalore to expose school kids to sessions of fine arts (norton collage), basic theatre art and dance as well. The day started with few kids who had registered for the programme turning up at Kidzee with their parents in the morning. The first session was to help the kids make a 'Nortan Collage' which is japanese creative paper design art made by cutting out pieces of paper and sticking it on a chart without throwing away any bits of paper. The kids loved thinking hard to make a design out of the paper given to them and finally after an hour we could see some creativity pasted on the chart paper.The next session was about basics of theatre performance by Vineet (one of founders of the society) and it involved fun games to teach kids the lessons of observation, concentration, attraction and voice modulation. The final session was to teach kids basics of dance with couple of artists asking the kids to follow their movements as they danced.

On whole it was a fun filled day for the kids and for us too, and the idea of waking up talents in kids to help them enjoy art forms better with a series of weekend sessions would be the future plan of United Arts Society.

To know more, visit: http://www.unitedartssociety.com/

Let me play Sitar !

I struck with this not so normal idea of learning sitar after I read about a professional sitarist Manoj Mukherjee in Mysore. I went to his residance near Jaylakshmipuram and was quite taken by the artistic beauty of this fine hindustani musical instrument.

I have now started playing my first 'Sa-Re-Ga-Ma' moving my fingers hard on the long strings of sitar. My sitar master taught the sitting posture for playing sitar and he insisted on my attire to be kurta-pyjama. I was happy to accept my sitar guru after I offered him a thali of coconut, bunch of bananas, beetle leaves, agarbathi and guru dakshina, after which he wore on my right index finger the 'mizrab'.

I am hoping to get along practicing better on sitar with its calm tones of music spreading into my mind each time I strike the strings.

the boys, girls, grandmas and grandpas are well

We had a visit to the orphan boys, girls and the grandmas and grandpas staying in the Chaya Devi Ashram orphanage in Jaynagar, Mysore. The Infosys Foundation, which works for social benefits, funds the ashram and we, as part of SOFTEN, also supports them in some ways.

We were only four, but our appearance brought smiles to the faces of the inmates, and the children were happy to play around with us. I had brought my mandolin and I played few songs including 'jane-gana-mana' and 'vande-mataram'.

The oldage grandmas who live there seem to be cheerful even in their age. I was surprise when one of them enthusiastically shouted 'mere-sapnom-ki rani kaba aayega' when I started with the first line of the song in my mandolin.

We left the orphanage on a happy note and also visited 'sneha makkale mane', which is again a home for orphan kids taken care by a NGO.

to know more about chaya devi ashram : http://www.hohinc.org/chayadevi.html

onam 'pookalam' at infy

I found myself plunging in all my efforts to bring out a good appreciation for the Keralite festival of Onam at my work place in Infosys. We, a group of malayalees put our head together to come up with an attractive onam 'pookalam' (flower carpet) and we agreed on the idea of a Mohiniyattam dancer placed comfortably in a typical 'mudra' gesture on the middle of a colourful rainbow of flowers.

The full completion of this wonderful flower carpet demanded lot of efforts - buying sufficient flowers from city, getting valuable petals out of flowers spending enough manual labour, late night drawing of the mohiniyattam dancer picture, running for chopping plates for beetroot so that it could used to border the picture, laying of different coloured flowers exactly in the drawn design enclosures, cleaning floor after flowering, lighting lamps, etc

The flower carpet competition was held between teams in various office buildings of infosys, and it was a great feeling to work hard towards completing it on time. Though we didn't bag any prize for our pookalam, we knew we had a good onam at office with our pookalam being watched with smile by everybody around.

Wonderful Weekend at Trivandrum

I had a most memorable weekend after a good long journey with my infosys enr colleagues to Trivandrum to attend the marriage of our colleague Ajeesh. We started in two tempo traveller vans on Friday evening 4pm from Mysore and reached Trivandrum on Saturday morning 8. We went to the popular beach Kovalam where we enjoyed ourselves in sea water pushing each other into water, throwing balls, racing against each other, throwing mud etc We then moved back to our hotels after having good orange juice in one of those leafy beach restaurants.

I went to Shri Padmanabhaswamy Temple evening where I awe struck by the temple architecture and the divine greatness of deity of lord vishnu in anantha shayanam. The same day dinner was at our team lead Rajagopal's residence at Trivandrum.

Sunday morning we turned towards the marriage hall where Ajeesh - ShriLakshmi marriage function is to be held. We stayed there till all of us finished marriage 'Sadya' with three kinds of 'payasams', and then started our journey back to Mysore.

We reached Mysore today morning 6:30 after a long journey not boring though because of the occasional stops we had to have yummy food, played 'rummy' and watched movie in the van.

Help for Independance from poverty

We were happy to be part of a Social Service today on the day of independance to our country. There's a charitable organization called 'Operation Shanti' which is helping to needs of destitute children and helpless people in the streets and its volunteers are actively involved in Mysore.

The SOFTEN (Social Forum to Enable Needy) group in Infosys connected to 'Operation Shanti' volunteer Tracy in distributing old clothes and serving food to the destitute woman and children, today morning near KR Hospital in Mysore.

Today's programme started from Infosys Campus, Mysore where we loaded boxes of clothes, blankets and shoes to the van and we, a group of nearly 40 SOFTEN volunteers starting off before 8 in the morning towards KR Hospital in Mysore city. Tracy and her friend (both of them foreign volunteers of 'Operation Shanti' working in Mysore) got along with us in their car with containers of food. We were pleased to see Tracy interact with the street women and children who had assembled on the foot paths in front of KR Hospital. We then served Idli, Sambar, Chatni, Kesari bath to all of them sitting on the footpath. The food was served by infoscions and it was a totally different experience far too away from the daily jobs. After the food, we started distributing the set of blanket and old clothes we had brought in the van. We then moved to 'Nava Jeevan Foundation' Centre and gave them the boxes containing remaining clothes.

It was a half day engagement for all of us. But it helped us to be aware of being useful to the society we live in. Let this message spread wider through similar initiative in future.

to know more on Operation Shanti: http://www.operation-shanti.org/pages/msp_solution.html

Chak De India !

It's too great a feeling of patriotism and passion for winning that gets into our minds after watching the film. Finally Kabir Khan and his team of 16 girls has shown us what it takes to win world cup hockey medals with honour.

The film is loosely based on true story of Indian Hockey player Mir Ranjan Negi who proves himself as a coach by winning Manchester Commonwealth Games of 2002 for Indian Women's Hockey Team after being blamed in 1982 for the loss to Pakistan in Asian Games final.

Shahrukh khan did well in the role of the team coach Kabir Khan and all of us loved him for the right spirit that kept the momentum in the film going. Apparently this Yash Raj movie directed by Shimit Amin, doesn't have even a single frame which is re-shot. It's the first time I am watching a movie fully dedicated to the spirit of patriotism through sports.

It's worth watching and I would like to watch it again!

Gurukul Magazine Released

I am happy to come up with a good design for the Infosys internal e-magazine for the trainees. I had it in mind to be as sleek and light as possible, so I made this front page which is both colourful and simple.

The e-magazine was released yesterday and I am pleased to get good feedbacks. The 'Team Gurukul' was a team of four including me and we sorted out and added the contributions from the trainees including articles, poems, sketches, photographs, quiz and an interview with Venkatesh Prasad which we had taken earlier when the cricket team came to Infy Mysore campus.

Mahishasura Statue - static recognition of Mysore

This statue of Mahishasura with his big moustache, sword and a snake caught in his hand, is one of the pictures which I associate with Mysore because I remember in my school picnic seeing this photo prominantly in the tourism post cards of Mysore.
I had visited Chamundi Hills and Zoo last weekend and was happy recollecting the times when I came here as a school kid along with our teacher. That is when I realized one thing - there are few key aspects to a place which get fixed on to our mind thus giving a face of recognition for the city.

Such key recognizing features as temples, statues or monuments will remain as it is for a long period of time. It is these aspects which bring in to ourselves a feeling of relativeness with respect to various changing factors in our lives. Now for example, a school kid sees this Mahishasura statue now and comes back after 20 years to the same statue. Most probably it would be in the same shape as it is today. This brings in a good feeling of how life changed from the day he saw this staue for the first time as a school kid 20years ago to the present day because he is able to bring in the relativeness between the changing and the static.

The movie blast called 'Shivaji'

Oops.. Rajni did it again ! it's a wonder to watch him transform to a powerful king on the screen, conquering the hearts of the viewers with his energy and style.

It's never late to catch Rajni alive in the theatres.. most of the fans must have watched it several times by now.. though a fan myself (not hardcore), I watched the movie only last weekend in Sangam theatre in Mysore city.

AVM productions, Shankar, Rahman and ofCourse the Rajni magic did the trick to attract the thickest of the crowds to the theaters even here in Mysore inspite of being a tamil movie, which shows the unity of Rajni admirers !

want to know the interesting infos of this movie ? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479751/trivia

lesser social space for an IT professional

I attended the marriage reception of my friend Hridish's brother in Bangalore on Friday night.The function was held in a hall and I could see pleasant faces of all the relatives and friends who came for the marriage reception.
I was quite taken by the thought of importance of marriage in a person's life. It is a testimony of one's presence in a society. Here I could see that majority of the invitees had a good relationship with the parents of the bridegroom, but I am not sure how familiar was the bridegroom to his relatives since he was abroad in US.This brought to me the reality that many of us in software profession seldom have any relationship with our own relatives back home nor share a common social space with them. It happens that a software professional is busy working in Bangalore that he is not bothered to keep his social relations back home alive. But for the presence of parents back home, most of the s/w professionals do not have a social relation buildup. It happens with many that they meet their own relatives for the first time in their marriage only!

My new Honda Activa

Finally, I was happy to get the touch of my new Honda Activa after waiting for more than 3 months ever since I booked for it.

I go to office with my new friend and I am feeling like a free bird zipping along the road. I chose activa for its cuteness - I could go along without hassle of changing gears as in a bike, keep my helmet under the seats and have smooth ride with a comfortable sitting posture.

I got my registration number and it's KA-09, EK-8844

My interview with the Indian Cricket Team Coach !

It was a wonderful feeling to sit beside Venkatesh Prasad, the new Bowling coach of Indian Cricket team, and ask him a few questions of my choice!

Every one of us were feeling lucky to see the Indian team bowlers having their fitness camp here in the Infosys Campus in Mysore. Being part of the internal magazine, we decided for an interview with Prasad and Kumble for the next edition. And we took the appointment with Venkatesh Prasad after his fitness session afternoon, and I was lucky to be the interviewer. The talk went about 20min and the questions I asked him questions ranging from his feeling of being in Infosys campus and his cricketing experiences.

small scale BPOs ?

I was quite impressed by my school friend when he started his own 'small scale' BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) centre, which is first of its kind in Calicut.

Calicut is relatively a small town and there are no big industries except for educational institutions like IIM, NIT and the medical college.. Last time I went home, I decided to visit my friend Maneef's computer sales shop. As we talked along, he took to me to his small enterprise - a room with a network of 10 computers with young girls and boys employed by him to do IT work for a client in Bangalore.

The system works this way - there are few companies in Bangalore which takes contract to analyse surveys taken by different companies. The forms are paper copies which are filled by public for various matters. If there are 2 lakh paper forms, it is impossible for anybody to get information out of them within a given time frame.Hence there are softwares to take the scanned soft copy of the form to collect the data by matching the fields in the form It is a simple job but time is most important as the data has to reach the concerned firm immediately.

What my friend does is quite simple - he takes the scanned form from a company in Bangalore and with the help of his employed boys and girls, he collects the data out of the form, send it back to the company. He process nearly 600-1000 forms daily and he is paid for that.

I was just wondering if some similar effort is taken to divert unskilled IT jobs away from hubs like Bangalore where operational costs are higher to small towns like Calicut where the costs are much lower, there is certainly a chance for 'Rural Delivery Model' !!

The Amazing Spiderman

I liked the third edition of spiderman series for the one differentiator - spiderman turned black ?

This element of curiosity has helped it to hit the box office in the very first week.

The movie starts with the her0 Peter Parker(Toby Maguire) basking himself in the success of Spiderman being praised by common city dwellers and his plans of proposing to his girl friend Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). But unfortunately spiderman is adversely affected by a black coloured symbiote from a mateorite.

Towards the end, spiderman manages to recover from his black covering and fights against the evil with the help of his friend Harry.

One good line which I remember in the movie is in the context when spiderman fights his new enemy who has the power to transform into powerful dusty man, the spiderman flies on to a building roof and removes his boots to pour out dusts , he says " Where does all these guys come from ?!!"

wonderful weekend

My weekend was full of travel. See this !

Friday 7pm Mysore -bus- 1am Calicut.

Saturday 6:45 am Calicut -train- 11:45am Cochin.

Saturday 2:45pm Cochin -train- 3:45pm Cherthala.

Sunday 3:00pm Cherthala -taxi- 4:10pm Cochin.

Sunday 4:50pm Cochin -bus- 10:05pm Calicut.

Monday 12.05am Calicut -bus- 5:45 am Mysore!

I went to my friend's home in Cherthala to attend his brother's wedding. We had a good time there with a get together of nearly 15 of us who were together in b.tech life together in rec calicut.

I bought my Dream Phone - Nokia 6300

I was looking for a mobile with all the fancy features available today but be economical too. Finally I found my perfect choice - Nokia 6300.



First thing that attracted me was its slim size and its bigger screen. It has mp3 player, fm radio, 2 megpixel camera, video recorder, voice recorder, email client in case you need to browse net, internal memory of 128mb expandable to 2gb, bluetooth, applications like converter, world atlas time, calendar schedular and overall a cool thing to be in pocket all the time.

I bought this new set for 11k, and that's pretty economical with its world of features.

feeling different without a mobile !

It was unfortunate for me to loose my mobile last sunday. I guess it must have been taken away by somebody in the mad rush to get in the bus at city bus stand.

For the last couple of days I'm without my mobile and I am feeling odd - no alarm to wake me up in the morning, no missed calls, no sms and not reachable to any of my friends..

But I am now having the consiousness of 'non-traceability' without anybody to call me no matter where I am. Its a good feeling. Try keeping your mobile for a couple of weeks in your cupboard and walk free without anybody to trace you!

Perfect Stranger

It was a good thrilling movie with a surprise truth revealing climax at the end.. The name 'Perfect Stranger' brings in the feeling that the character of Halle Berry is searching for the stranger who has killed her friend, hence fakes herself to work in the advertising company of Bruce Willis hoping to get evidence against him since he was close to her friend.

As the movie progresses, the evidences against Willis become obvious and he gets caught by the police. But Berry's friend finds out that it was she herself who laid the trap against Willis to protect herself from the law for the murder of her friend.Berry's friend had witnessed her mother murdering her dad while she was young.

It was a yet another murder when Berry kills her friend after he tells her the truth and the audience calmly watchs that her neighbour witness the act.

'Gurukul' published..

Quite Exciting ! I managed to bring out a good design and theme for the latest version of e-magazine for trainees of Infy, Mysore.
The theme of cricket struck my mind since cricket world cup was going to be watched closely by all and anything related to cricket would spark attention. The best thing about this theme was the crickety names i found for the links.. like 'Pavillion' for homepage, 'Bouncers' for campus pulse, 'Outswing' for articles&poems, 'Straight drive' for trainee interviews, 'Captaincy' for management interview,'Gallery' for sketches&photos,'Howzzaat' for quiz, 'First Innings' for archives, 'Dressing Room' for gurukul team...

Apocalypto - truely 'raw'

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

This Mel Gibson movie is about ancient Mayan civilization depicted as highly barbaric and violent, which ultimately leads to its decline.

Truely speaking, one would feel emabarassed by various scenes in the movie including violent looting of villages by tribal attackers, rituals of cutting off heads and raw blood spatting violence.

The movie runs behind the hero 'Jaguar Paw' who tries to escape from the killing hands of attackers to save his family and to regain back his hunting grounds of forest.

Ek Anek - DD1 nostalgia

This sweet little cartoon was telecasted by Doordarshan long time ago and most of us would remember the nostalgic old DD1 days..

Holi re ..

It was quite fun with our department celebrating the festival Holi in a colourful way.

We assembled in tea area on Friday evening, played with colors and sprays and had gulaabjams. Many of them were smeared in color and sureesh said while taking photo "take snap of our Id card too for identification!"

I had a green tilak and looked pretty in colors before I washed my face in restroom.

Mookambika Temple

Mookambika temple is one of the finest templest of south India, situated nearly 128km from Mangalore. It is believed to be one of 7temples created by Parashurama and the place was visited by AdiShankaracharya long ago.

One of the best things about this temple is its calmness and divinity of the place. The sculptures on the temple walls are extensive and radiates a divine glow.

I felt blessed and filled with joy after visiting the temple last weekend with my parents and sister.
I was really awe-struck with the fine tradition of temples in our culture and is looking forward to visit other fine temples.

for more infos: http://www.indiantemplesportal.com/karnataka/devi-mookambika-temple.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mookambika

One Year in Infosys

I joined Infy last Feb 20th in the batch of Feb06LC1 trainees. Now today we finished 1 full year at infy. The year was quite eventful - training of 4 months, my posting in E&R, taking a couple of classes, being batch owner,bit of project work,.. it was great experience.

Now let me surf the highs and lows of the tide that kept me moving for the past 1 year..

To begin with, I never imagined I'll be joining Infosys though I got the offer letter dated Aug 2004 (that was before start of my final year in college), because I had already decided to join Ingersoll-Rand (it's a mech mnc). As being an Electrical Engineer passed out of a prestigious college of NIT Calicut, I decided my career would suite 'core' rather than 'software'. That's how I joined IR Wadco plant near Delhi.

Infy send a mail asking me to join in Dec though my original joining date was Aug23, '05. I never responded. As my work progressed in Wadco, I began to realise that my profile was more of managing workers to keep then engaged and assembling panels for machines. It was far different to my expectations, where I was dreaming of designing cutting edge technologies in electrical and electronics. I decided to take a call - join infy now ? I chanced on a mail sent to infy requesting to send me a joining date. I was very happy, (bit nervous too about resigning from Wadco) after I got the mail to join Infy Mysore for training on Feb20,'06.

I landed on mysore on Sunday evening, Feb19 from Bangalore after getting my relieving letter from IngersollRand and to think, I was jobless at that point of time. I guess its the same experience for all freshers joining infy - the registration desk outside maingate, sumo drop till reception, first time in golf cart till hostel room, and then a jump inside the room for the awestruck scenary of the infy campus through the window of full fledged ac room!

The next 31/2 months were unforgettable - i believe its the same with all the trainees joining infy, the bicycle ride in the morning, boring (for me) classes till noon, food at FC3, a bit of sleep at my room, back to labs for assignments, hurrying thru assignments, most of the times not being able to complete, preparing for module tests, nidhi (sitting next to me) who was expert in old question papers, vishwesh and few others who were cool, used to make fun of me at the online module test because i'll be the one who screams "It's Come..", final Compre, waiting for results in trainee portal, waiting for postings, heena who was our pm in post project (she also bagged best trainee), few others waiting for compre and orals like the brave sayuri, few who left the batch in between like harshad, vishal (he used to say "manju, I'm proud of u" without any reason), good bye days when everybody left one after other to pune (sameer, swapnil, heena, ankit,..) to mangalore (sajitha, swathi), to Trivandrum (vivek, aswathi,romul,.) to bangalore (saikat, vishwesh, sonia,..) and mohali, chennai, hyderabad infy dcs.

I feel myself lucky to join E&R (Education & Research) wing here in mysore infy. Within next few months, it was a wonderful experience.. myself in a single cabin with my name on the door, laptop for my use, taking sessions (to think that i was sitting on the other side few weeks ago), being batch owner, attending to trainees (i had a case of girl trainee crying to me in my cabin!), announcing results, arranging batch party, being asked for signature on the book presented to best trainee, being gifted with presents from trainees, going for project evaluations and the joy of being an educator here in this great GEC (global education center)..

Finally the day came - Feb20 which completes my one full year in infy campus here in mysore.. I came to office early and send wishing mail to all.. then it was a soup of congratulating mails ..

a bit nostalgic - "Mile sur mera tuhara..."

Let's go back to the times when doordarshan was the only channel. "Mile Sur Mera Thumhaara... tho Suur Bane Hamhaara.." was one unique video by prasar bharathi, which showed the unity among diversity of our great country India. Watching this video would sure touch some nostalgia into our minds ..

Here is the Lyrics :

"Mile sur mera tumharaa, to sur bane hamaraa....
Sur kee nadhiyaan har disha se behke saagar mein milee...
Baadalon ka roop lekar barsen halke halke...
Mile sur mera tumharaa.. toh... sur bane hamaara..
Mile sur mera tumhara...

Chaain taraj tahin nyay taraj
Ek but baniye saayen taraj

Tera sur mile mere sur de naal
Milke bane ek nava surtaal

Mile sur mera tumharaa....
To sur bane hamaara..

Mohnja sur tohi desa pyara mile jadein
Geet ashaanjo madhur tarano bane tadein

Sur ka dariya bahte saagar me mile
Badlaan da roop leike barasan hole hole

Isaindhal namm iruvarin suramum namadhakum..
Dhisai veru aanalum aariser aarugal
Mugilai mazaiyai pozivadu pol isai
...Namm isssaiiii....

Thik thakida thathikakidA....thaka thimi thaka junu

Nanna dhwanige ninna dhwaniya,
Seridante namma dhwaniya..

Naa swaramu nee swaramu sangammamai,
Mana swaram ga avatarinchey

Ente swaravum ningalude swaravum
Otthu chernnu nammude swaramai....

Tomaar shoor moder shoor srishti korook oikyashoor...
Tomaar shoor moder shoor srishti korook oikyashoor...

Srishti hok oikyatan

Toma mora swarer milan srishti kare chalbochatano

Male sur jo taro maro, bane aapno sur niralo

Majhya tumchya julta tara madhur suranchya barasti dhara

Sur ki nadiya har disha se behke saagar mein mile...
Baadlo ka roop leke barse halke halke..
Oh...Mile sur mera tumhara tho....sur bane hamara...

Mile Sur mera tumhara
To sur bane hamara tho sur bane hamara
To sur bane hamara"

Valentine's Day Cake was Delicious

We celebrated valentine's day in a small way by having a big heart shaped valentine's day cake at our tea area, which was decorated with balloons, ribbons and heart shaped cuttings. Many of us in E&R, including seniors were all playing with balloons for some time before cutting the cake which was ofcourse creamy and delicious.

Really 'Blood' Diamond

This movie thriller made my nerve cells in my brain vibrate each other violently! Such was the impact of Edward Zwick directed, Leonardo DiCaprio starred action packed film set in an African country of Sierra Leone where the diamonds are smuggled for illegal exports.

The film tells us the story of Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), whose village is torn apart by revlutionaries and captured to work in diamond mines from where he tries to escape and meets Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) in prison, who was caught smuggling diamonds. Danny wants Solomon to find a hidden diamond and in turn promises to find his lost family.

I liked the role of DiCaprio very much in this movie for his wonderful performance. Both DiCaprio and Djimon are nominated for actor and supporting actor Oscar Awards.

Nothing goes on a bandh day

We were forced to stay indoors yesterday as all parts of Mysore logged off in protest against Cauvery water distribution orders. Infosys had earlier declared holiday for yesterday and so the day was a complete rest devoid of any work.
Thanks to Aunty, I was able to have food even when none of the hotels opened. I was just wondering how the tourists in mysore managed to eat food yesterday.

Surprisingly First !

My friend Vishaal and myself came up with this peice of cartoon to participate in a competition in 'Perspective 2007' held in his MBA college. Surprisingly, this was selected first !

Pune Chala Mere Dost

My roomie, Hridish or Gunny as we call him, got transfer to Pune Infy for short term and left Mysore today.

'Mumbai se Aaya Mere Dost' ho gaya 'Pune Chala Mere Dost' !

Now that Gunny is nearer to his home Mumbai and is looking to complete his ME from his college there, he must be going to feel much better there in Pune..

'Seemandam' function

I was lucky to attend the 'Seemandam' function of my friend's elder sister. I was not aware of such a rituality involving the relatives of the preganant woman, believed to comfort the baby yet to be born. The function is found only amond brahmin communities and it involves poojas performed by pundits. The woman and her husband collects rice grains in the pallu as a token of blessings showered upon them by their relatives.
The function ended with the sadya to all those who attended it and giving away of home made sweets and coconut in a small bag before leaving. The whole function gave me a feeling of pride in being part of rich traditional indian culture.

Serena Williams beat the Russian queen ..

It was dominating tennis played by Serena over Sharapova to win this year's Australian open championship.
Though Serena didn't have much tennis at international level for some time, her experience in the tennis court spoke for her and she grabbed the Cup within in no time after 6-1, 6-2 win over Maria sharapova.
I enjoyed watching the tennis of power from Serena, wondering how she manages to hit the ball hard onto empty corners..

my Mandolin

I had decided to start learning a musical instrument and had gone to Mahesh who teaches Mandolin, Guitar and Keyboard at his place in Devraj Urs Road, Mysore. I didnot know what exactly a 'mandolin' look like until Mahesh showed it to me.

I decided to go for it - it had a cute appeal, of being small and artistic. I bought a brand new mandolin for 1750Rs and got it tuned and was ready to learn for first time any musical instrument.

I learned to play the fundamental scale of S-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa-Da-Ne-Sa' by pressing my left hand fingers along the frets and using my right hand to strike the string with the pluctrum. It was a fine learning to bring music out of few metal strings by pressing my finger hard and striking it in rhythm.

the movie 'Guru'

It was a smashing style statement from Abhishek Bachchan. The Mani Ratnam movie was just the perfect one for Abhishek to showcase the character of Gurukant Desai and for Aishwarya, I have not seen her as beautiful as in this.

The movie is both a drama - of that of Guru rising from rags to giant and a mature love story - of that of Guru and Sujatha who goes throught the ups and downs of life.

I liked the movie very much for the great style in which the movie builds up, the feel of power of achievement built into the audience thru the character of Guru and the fight of a man against all odds. The role of Mithun Chakrabarthy, Vidya Balan and Madhavan also added to glitter of the film amidst wonderful performances from Abhishek and Aishwarya!

Video conferencing with Ankit Fadia

Ankit Fadia is a legend by himself, one of the youngest computer wizards known for his extensive explorations in the world of hacking.

We had a video conference with Ankit at Reliance Webworld at Devraj Urs road in Mysore. He gave us a short introdution to hacking, and the need to tighten the security of cyber world.

He has already authored 6 books for guidance in hacking and by enrolling in the course offered via Reliance webworld, I have received them and I hope to expose myself to the wonders of hacking.

Planning for a Social Cause - 'Soften' Meeting

Few of us, the members of SOFTEN (Social Forum to Enable the Needy) held a meeting today to discuss the planning of imparting vacation classes for class X students to equip them better for their career ahead.
The action plans included identifying the governments schools in Mysore, selecting few interested students, bringing out a short course aimed at improving their English and analytical abilities and delivering the course effectively during their vacation time.
SOFTEN aims at helping the children with poor financial background to come up with good education and career and if steps like this if implemented well would gain good appreciation.

Friendly Weekend

This weekend was pretty fine with me and I did a few things like enquiring about purchase of a new Honda Scooter, bought a drawing board, went to Tojin's Place, went to Dinner with few friends of Tojin, went to Devraj Urs road with Narayanan, stayed at Tojin's saturday overnight, went for a film 'The Guardian' at Multiplex and enquired about a mandolin class in city... wow.. that's lot of things in two days ?? apart from lazying around and sleeping !!

'The Guardian'

The movie gave me a wonderful experience for its breath taking picturisations in ocean and the story of a great moral Coastal guard.

The story is centered around Randall (Kevin Costner) who is an expert coast guard rescuer training the new joinees at the United States Coast Guard's Aviation Survival Technician (AST) Program and Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) is a hot-shot candidate for AST who is ranked as a top competitive swimmer.

The movie title is introduced by a mythic tale: People lost at sea often claim they feel a presence lifting them to the surface, breathing life into their bodies waiting for help to arrive, "The Guardian".

I feel lucky to play Tennis

I feel lucky whenever I go the wonderful blue tennis court in our infy campus here in Mysore. I throw myself hard into the game and doesn't feel exhausted because I love playing it.
I played yesterday night at the my favourite court with a chinese girl named Amilie. She was enthusiastic and new to the game. With my limited playing for last 3 months, I was able to help her play better tennis.
I was, as always inspired of playing under flood lights in a calm and cool night, running after the ball and trying to improve my returns !

"Learn from Zakir Hussein"

Myself, along with other faculty of E&R were exposed to seminar presentations by few experienced infoscions anchored by Satheesha. The seminars were on topics 'Software Development- A practictioner's Perspective', 'Experience Sharing- Grass Root Reality and Expectations from SEs', 'Latest Trends in J2EE' and 'Being a Global Educator'.

I had quite a few take aways from the seminar on 'Being a Global Educator' where the speaker explained the 'Learning - Teaching' Model with quadrants of Let Me, Help Me, Tell Me and Show Me, which is now expanded to Challenge Me, Connect Me, Prepare Me and Check Me.

The presentation also had few minute video of Zakir Hussain performing on Tabla, which the speaker said was a role model for all of us because of the basic principles of 'njaana','upaasana' and 'anushthaana'. Njaana was the process of gaining knowledge which the performer might have done for several years, Upasana the practice, which too essential to be in right tune and finally Anushthaana, which is the actual performance.

I was quite impressed realising that Zakir's Hussain's Anushthaana of his magical fingers on Tabla for a few minutes was the result of years of gaining Njaana and Upaasana.

Travelling into the New Year

I was on my way to Mysore along with my friend Vishwesh, travelling in a Semi Sleeper AC ksrtc bus when the New Year bell rang at midnight. But the ambience in bus was not silent; there was a group of few who were singing and clapping all along. The songs they sung included broken film songs, customised malayalam slang songs and mappila songs.
I am not sure whether my friend was liking the songs being sung by them, but for me they were inspiring and refreshing for the new year.

Around Calicut in an Autorikshaw - same place coming more than Twice !

I had my friend Vishwesh at my home in Calicut for attending the marriage of our batchmate Sonia. So our first task at hand in the morning of an perfectly fine Sunday was to buy a gift for her wedding. We started walking searching for 1) shops which are open 2) open shops which can sell us good gift items.
Though we managed to buy a big wedding card, we never found any worthy wedding gifts after roaming around Calicut City in autorikshaws from one point to another and then back & forth different points in city. We finally decided to have a big basket bouqet of flowers as our gift item and it clicked.
Here I am sitting in the Mananchira Square park area of Calicut, while Vishwesh clicked me with his camera mobile.

My Batch Mate's Wedding

I had a wonderful experience of christian wedding at a Church in Calicut where my batchmate, Sonia wed George. It was for the first time me attending one of my batch mate's wedding or any colleague's wedding for that matter. Me, Vishwesh and Aswathi was present right over through the wedding in church and the reception arranged in Calicut Towers hotel.
I felt the entire event to be quite well with sonia appearing like an angel in her christian wedding attire beside her groom in front of the holy priests. The food at the reception was a bit more than delicious with fish fry being my favourite. Me and Vishwesh had gifted the couple a big basket bouqet and big wedding card to make the occasion quite big!