9/29/2004


my grandfather Posted by Hello

9/28/2004


my naughty little cousin abinaya Posted by Hello

thats me Posted by Hello

that is me .... Posted by Hello

thats the state of my vest after a mini wrestling with my cousin sister Posted by Hello
GREAT FUN @ HOME

I had a real blast at home with my cousin sisters who had come home.One of them,Abinaya is in her 6th standard …and other , Aishwarya is in her 11th……Both had come home after a relatively long time. My little cousin is an extremely active and naughty girl…..just as any other girl of her age,but her acumen at this age seems remarkable. I played shuttle badminton after a long time with her and also ended up playing Wrestling with her , to the result that she tore my vest…..after a protracted struggle to keep me down…on the floor till the count of 10…(.lookup for the picture).

My other cousin Aishwarya had come to learn some maths and she …has an amazing sense of responsibility ,when it comes to keeping the house clean and helping people with household work.What I couldn’t’ clean in 2 years (My room of course ) was done with her help ….in quick time.

What really moved me ….was what my grandfather told me about his life. I felt sorry for whatever he underwent without actually showing up…his difficulties. He told me about how he was a bread winner for his family at the age of 16-17 and his life in the Indian army in Jalandhar and Lahore.
I was surprised how he actually hid his feelings about the various difficulties he had faced …..and for the first time he actually spoke his heart out to me ……..as earlier I was considered as a kid in the family, but hey…..all of a sudden when I have got a job…he feels I am more mature so decided to vent out his story…..about how ungrateful certain people were..after he had helped them….

I listened to his story …..imagining a malgudi like place in my mind as the settings…..

It seems strange that 10-15 years back , getting a job was perceived as “manna from heaven” and one used to settle for any salary ….and there was life going on at it’s own pace. People had time 4 everyone and the men generally used to settle down life after working for 7-8 years generally at 28-30 and marry ….and had a vehicle .(a rickety bajaj or lambretta ..as in my dad’s case)at 35 would bring down a great sense of achievement surging through their veins and they used to feel great when they used to get promoted….before they turn 50 .

But today things have changed tremendously thanks to the IT and BPO industry …and have flooded the market with jobs.Each software engineer makes a minimum of 15000 to start of with and by working for two years he can easily amass quite a wealth on his own to build a house or a plot of land and settles quite early in life by 23-24 and actually breaks down if he dosent earn a million by 25 or isn’t a managerial level person by 28-29…..So technically speaking he is ready to have his family by around 24-25……

On the agenda tonight …….I am quite busy Watching movies since I have to return two movie CD’s to my cousin’s tomorrow….I have to watch the last part of the movie KOI MIL GAYA(2003) and KABHIE KABHIE(1976)…but watching can b strenuous, so I may store it to my hard disc.

9/26/2004


that's kartik kannan Posted by Hello

thats me capturing myself Posted by Hello
I have got a new MOTOROLA C 650 color mobile with MP3 support and camera.The phone seems a good value for money considering the fact that I got it for 8.5 k . This phone burnt a hole 8.5k deep in my dad's pocket. I have given it a HUTCH connection.I maintain this mobile apart from my RELIANCE mobile,which i plan to push it off to my dad, once he comes back to chennai. I feel really releived at having got Bangalore as some of my friends and relations are in that place and i can go and visit them rather than making shuttle trips from mysore.

I have attached a pic taken from my mobile camera .......
FINALLY.................THE WAIT ENDS.........

Infy has finally given me teh joining date and order......and guess what it's in bangalore !!!! just what i wanted.....thank goodness i am not having training in mysore.So i guess i should book my tickets to bangalore at the earliest.more on the infy news later......as i have some errand jobs to do for my dad...........

9/20/2004

TANHA DIL

Well Shaan's album does echo my feelings right now."TANHA" as in hindi means loneliness and at the moment I am just feeling that with no one to talk to. 60% of my friend's circle are scattered in different parts of India and the rest are waiting for employment/order.......like me . but atleast aren't as lonely as i am. I tend to get easily euphoric if any friend calls me on the phone or sends me an email/or replies to one .I may have been alome for the past 20 years or so ...but am feeling it the most only now.....with absolutely none of my friends to talk to....

I really feel this loneliness is pushing me into a dark chasm.......as life no more interests me....with me turning to be a recluse.......and sleep being my only companion.My reading habit has suffered and have so of my other hobbies.It's a life without any goals and all i do is just vegetate at home.I have learnt so much about life and people in general in these 5 months since college got over and probably I am not able to digest some things about reality....that has made me a silent guy lost in my own thoughts .with MR.PESSIMISM marrying TANHAI and raising up a new offspring of pessimistic laziness in me .............I have got to probably re-examine my needs in life and set myself some goals .......to get out of this rut that I am in.....




9/17/2004

THE LORD OF THE LADDUS


I have always thought that Citibank's tagline"the citi which never sleeps" would suit Tirupati(Tirumala to be precise) more than any other Indian city,simply because the city is alive and bustling 24 hrs.I happened to stay in tirupati at my friend's(sudhir) aunt's place.The place even though deserted still housed a set of neat pillows and a rickety old guitar,which we guys took in our hands and tried to create music out of it.......(READ CACOPHONY).We had a nice time in the room where we were lost in remembering our college days and the antics that we did.Santosh,sudhir and I were from the same college while hari(a.k.a PG) was from our neighbouring college Sriram engineering college ,who did his ECE there. A lot of photos were taken thanks to Hari's camera phone,which did help us capture a couple of candid pics.....(courtesy-hari and santosh ...) .


What was even more suprising was the fact that paying the normal 50 rs ticket we got darshan at tirumala in just about half an hour and were out of the temple at 4 30 hrs, but it took us almost 40 minutes to get the laddus.......as one had to fight and wade through the semi-bald crowd to get a 2 rs cover for laddus and then go join the fight for the laddus itself.....But it's worth fighting for that unique taste of laddus they make ......!!!!


Tirumala has a lot of mosquitos ,thereby making it difficult for the people sleeping on footpaths and the roads to sleep.We tried ourhand at sleeping in various positions from 12 15am to 3 20 am as our alloted darshan time was 4 30 am and we had to kill time ..somehow....but instead the mosquitos killed us. What really irked us was the return journey in the train from tirupati to chennai.THe train supposed to leave tirupati at 10.05 started only at 11 and after that there were over 10-15 stoppages, the maximum being the 1 hour wait at Arakkonam......all due to some finishing touches being given to the pattabiram track as Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav was inaugarating a new "dedicated" track in a couple of days , coupled with the fact that some students of Jaya college in thirninravur were on strike,bcoz trains dont stop near their college...Due to this I finally reached chennai at 4 pm.....(just imagine being 3 hrs late in an actual journey of 3 hrs ,so -to -say 100% late ).


IMPORTANT INFO---ANY VELTECH STUDENT WHO IS VISITING THIS BLOG , PLEASE SEE THIS AS AN INVITATION FOR THE INFORMAL GET-TOGETHER HAPPENING TOMMOROW AT MARINA BEACH...(OPPOSITE TO THE MARINA PLAYGROUND )AT 3 45 PM . if any help regarding how to reach there is required pls call up Achut.P(28444361) OR SUDHIR(28441372) OR MYSELF AT (22580934/32695453).

R E C R U I T M E N T N E W S
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I heard VERIZON is planning to recruit ppl with knowledge in c++ ,java and unix.U can attend their tests by attending the job fair at loyola college on the 25th and 26th organized by the TIMES OF INDIA group. This news was given in today's ET(economic times).PLS CALL THESE PPL AND FIND OUT WHTHER THIS IS FOR FRESHERS B4 REGISTERING THERE.

9/14/2004

GOVINDA GOVINDA

I am heading northward for a trip to tirupati with my friends sudhir,santosh and PG hari....just hope it makes my day better ...as I am feeling really bored staying all alone at home for the past so many months. I have an early morning 6 20 train to catch....so i have to get down to packing my bags, for the 10th time since my B.E exams were over on 5th may . I've been 7 times to bangalore for reasons ranging from company entrance tests to watching one day cricket matches...once to hyderabad for the ORACLE walk in and of course up north to delhi,shimla,kullu manali.......for my trekking tour.
GOVINDA GOVINDA

I am heading northward for a trip to tirupati with my friends sudhir,santosh and PG hari....just hope it makes my day better ...as I am feeling really bored staying all alone at home for the past so many months. I have an early morning 6 20 train to catch....so i have to get down to packing my bags, for the 10th time since my B.E exams were over on 5th may . I've been 7 times to bangalore for reasons ranging from company entrance tests to watching one day cricket matches...once to hyderabad for the ORACLE walk in and of course up north to delhi,shimla,kullu manali.......for my trakking tour.

9/12/2004

COLLEGE NYABAGAM

It's precisely 130 days since the camaradrie of college life got over.....with the last exam of VB on may 5th...I somehow feel like being transported to the days of college life.

This is how my typical day at college wud be......I used to get up at 6 and quickly take a shower and get ready....pack my bag for the day ( not with books , but with the required playlist ....of cassetes ).switch on my walkman at 6 40 and walk up to the bus stand and after seeing a horde of engineering college buses plying wud... sight my bus...where the bus would come to a screeching halt after driving a dozen vehicles crazy .....on the road.My driver had a insatiable appetite for scaring the guts out of other people driving on the road.It was his version of need for speed ............

the next 1 hour would be spent listening to music along with prasanna who too wud have his playlist ....in his bag. On certain days when neither of us had our walkman's ,we had to put up with up the GANA PATTU the driver used to blaringly play...much to our discomfort in a set of really dumb screeching speakers which he thought was the next upgrade of a woofer sound system.On certain days when the driver was in a good mood , we would get to listen to suchitra ramadurai's sexy voice on radio mirchi 98.3 FM ...or sometimes doze away with the music ringing in our ears......which would be rudely awakened by the rush of students who board the bus at AVADI bus stand. That is the time when our bus would rest for about 10 minutes after filling petrol when our eyes start to ogle around in avadi , trying to find a ripe apple among the rotten lot.....Unfortunately the ripe apples :-) are pretty much less in the colleges in and around avadi.......

Then some time later all the noise would come to an abrupt end ....as the bus chugs along the college road ......stopping for all VT students to get down.......

It would take me quite a while to realize that college has indeed come and I have to remove the ear plugs of my ear and console myself to the fact that I have arrived at the doorstep of Hell.
It used to be long walk from the big gate to the main gate where the nepali guard used to scan us with his sharp eyes as if we were intruders entering a forbidden e-secure zone,checking our ID cards. Well sometime back my friend prasanna in 2nd year used to be regularly caught at the gates simply because the green color pant he wore and the colour prescibed by the college were marginally different.....and the other excuse was of course the shoe's we used to get caught for.Initially it was a mental torture seeing the guards off, but what suprised me most was that apart from the guards there were a horde of 6-7 idiots meant to check on our ID cards and transport cards......and those arseholes were called the "MEN IN GREEN" ....

Then it was automatically the toilet that we headed for, after which would come the best part, a 45 minute stint at the canteen.This is the place where the mama's met the machan's and so on , gossip would reach a crescendo at 8 30 am and would continue on till 9 am , the time when the classes were supposed to start.Our meal would finish at 9 :05 and we would amble our way...to the classrooms just in time , when the names on the attendance register were called .

I would somehow struggle shrug off a friendly cousin of mine called SLEEP until he came and cuddled ,cajoled me over....to visit his world daily ....when the classes were on. This ritual would continue every few minutes and.....just to be in the teachers good books , I would get up and ask her a question ...based on whatever crap lay in my classmate Achut's notebook...which was relevant(or irrelevant to the class) and lo....the teacher would feel that I paid attention to her.

Lunch was the most important period where i was fully awake......this was the period where all our gang would meet up at the canteen to lend our ears to the latest gossip and news about symposiums ,quizzes and of course discussions.Then there were the "guys " who would eat in the most peculiar manner. One guy would buy a lunch token and an incredibly huge amount of rice on his plate and 5-6 guys would put their hand in the plate wherever they got space to rob the guy of his lunch.........and munch on with other guy's lunch untill the clock struck 1 and a few minutes beyond.

The classes in the final year were a mere formality as the lecturer would spend more time with the girls in the adjacent row than on the dias.......and I had no complaints as i sneaked in time to work out a few quant problems ........and then again the cycle wud repeat in the evening with the same old bus journey .....plagued with the chennai heat.

Time just rolled by and 4 years went by just like that........


even now time is going by........just like that,whole day listening to music ...sleeping , chatting with the same guys on phone......the only thing is that the venue is different. quite glad to know that a sizeable amount of the class's intelligensia are employed.

prasad, Srivathsan(a.k.a STEVE): CTS
Achut, Joshy, kartik kannan(me): INFY
Anand, sheik, selva, jaffer, ananthavenkat, dinesh, tamilarasan, Jency, laxminarayanan: HCL
prasanakumar: IGATE/ISOFT
Nandagopal: YCS
venki: AOL
sudhir. b. k: TCS ...........and if i have left out anyone .......pls do lemme know

9/02/2004

OF TEMPLES AND IYER MAMI'S

Yesterday my day was spent well at prasanna's place at yelaahnka.The evening did end on a sour note with India's lack lustre performance at nottingham.Suprisingly we went to a temple yesterday in yelahanka as we just wandered around the place,bcoz I generally am not such an ardent devotee of god.I went inside the temple as there was no gumbal-sattham etc etc, no iyer mami......showing off her culinary skills like "pongal la neyyi konjam korayathu" or saying "kadavaullikku pannina abishekm amogam a irunthuhthu ".

I like temples that dont have these pretentious characters,who tend to project themselves as if God gave them an personal appointment.Some tend to show off as if they were the CEO's of the temple ,and as if the temple would never run without their prescence. Especially near my place in chennai ,where there is a temple bang oppposite my place ,where some people come there,mumble some thing(supposed to be sloka ::: thats what we are supposed to belive) and after chanting verses in favor of the god.........the iyer mami's get down to business "who's son is in the US? Who's salary has more zeroes in it? whose daughter is coming of age? whose daughter ran away.............so to say in short ...it's a mini kumudham-cum-femina --40+ chat show when any kovil abishekam,kumbabishekam or any relegious festival in the name of god is celebrated.

whats more.........this kitty party ends when they close the curtains where the GOD is kept bcoz these pernicious thoughts of the IYER MAMI's has irritated the GOD and he prefers some silence.....and wants to shoo away these IYER MAMI's by offering them some offerings of food and some spoilt milk (by the way........it's called prasadam ).

Even there a sence of parochialism and nepotism shoots up....as certain self-proclaimed closest-2-god- mami's queue up to get a double take on the prasadam.....and ask prasdam in a huge ANDA ...(as per our tamil slang ! ) for the family....(that's the official excuse) and go home and hogg it ......

Then there's this great debate at the end of it all after the gathering has broken up , as to whose prasadam, served was better....was it andha theru mami or pakkathuveetu paati.

Inbetween all this we youngsters sincerely hope that bcoz we have invested some time in seeeing god...he will give us a great return of investment by sending some beautiful iyer girl ...in the temple....

thats the way life is ...............
Thats why I keep off temples..........but i do love places that are quiet and offer u piece of mind or has a a great heritage about it. I am not any ardent fan of any particular god.....but just believe in the existence of a universal power above us.



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