Quiet Zone - I found it.

After a few months of roller coaster rides, I am back to ground zero enjoying peace. When I say this, I am quite aware that in a week or so, I will have to climb again for another ride. But experience gives me the feeling, that I will start enjoying the rides and the scary part is over. Future rides are to give me scary moments, but I intend to apply them to come out successfully.

Pakistan floods, Disasters in Haiti, Wild fires in Russia, Chinese landslides, Recession, Shrinking Moon, do we have any good things going around?

It depends, I see we that have'nt started the world war-3 yet. Hey thats good news! Really is there something nice going around? I guess the ash clouds have gone, recession is not in the headlines anymore. Mr. Brown & Bush are names forgotten. Tony is giving 4mil back!!! Obama is setting up AfPak office. Infosys has been referred as chop-shop (I agree, but that should have been generalised to IT/BPO services companies and not single out infosys, also highlight US does trade with such chop-shops!). India chose to support Pak by offerring $5m (Do you know India off'd around $20M during the earthquakes?). So lots of nice things going on.

I started going back to my Kriya yoga setting aside my thoughts on Sri Sri, Nityananda et. all. Yoga is something that's been there for eons and one who shows light to you is a Guru and one art of living follower a young lady trusted me a complete stranger and guided me back into this yoga. So she could be a guru too. My search goes on. Incidentally another lady (not sure if she is young) from Srilanka has given me a few thoughts to think! I wrote to her and she responded very interestingly. So the search continues... the term 'search' reminds me of google. Would google seek the truth for me? Thats what Eric Schmidt intends to (refer his latest speech).

Another google thingy - I got a HTC desire a phone that I wished four years back. Though I had my requirements, HTC or Google never took them from me, but delivered one! With its help, I am back at my social networking. I spoke to quite a handful of my friends across the globe last week. It was all the way from India, Singapore, Australia, Europe and the US. (I don't have any friends in China or South America - worrying).

Anyway going back to the topic: Inspite of a 3 year old constantly needing my attention, (not to mention my dear wife too), I found a quiet zone, however the irony is this zone is filled with blood, pressure and a lot of knots - a zone you can find too. However I cannot reveal that! You got to find for yourself. Om Shanti!

‘It’ has morphed into ‘She’

New Year has been quite hectic for various reasons. Partly health and rest other stuff. MBA has been keeping me on the hooks too. But that was my desire, so can't blame it. What has been highlighted very clearly is investment on health. I have not done much in the last few years. When I came into UK, I was around 67Kg and now just above my BMI. I don't prefer new year resolutions, anyway this year without even wishing one, I lost a few kg coz' of Noro. Then the flu… I did want to do a bit of jogging and I am now planning to start it soon. My son is just blossoming and he takes a bit of time and fat as well. His naughtiness doesn't get on my nerves, but his whining does. He has been like that only in the last few weeks very simply coz' of his health (at least my wife says so, I think it's his new found habit, trust me not from my gene). I mentioned about my missus, bless her. She is driving it carefully and has been affected by the cold as well. We keep debating about the health if it's because of humidity or poor investment or laziness or too much 'eat-out' or is it because of her cooking style etc. etc. I think it is because of the investment in health.

With spring around the corner, I wish to spring back to good health and wealth (!). Yeah I bought a new car – Kuga. My first new car, first SUV, a first Ford (as if I had hundred diff cars before), a first diesel, a first six-geared (I once forgot to use the sixth gear for quite a few miles in the motorway) and a first 'Chill' colour. The colour of 'Chill' reminds of a conversation I had with my friend and his wife. It was a discussion on the colour 'mauve'. It was a funny discussion though… Both are strong opinionated and hence you can see how the discussion can go. But it was nice and finally we gave up that a colour 'mauve' did exist! So what's this 'Chill' colour? It's a mix of silver, gold and gazke. Gazke is a secret ingredient very similar to what my wife uses in cooking. So looks like Ford has added 'Gazke' to its SUV colours and has made it special. Anyway if you really wanted to see the colour in person, please go to a nearby showroom (don't come over to my place – coz' the car would have been old and you really cannot see the 'Chill'). We took the 'Gazke' added Kuga over to temple, garlanded it and welcomed it to our family. It has become 'She'. Now you know the title of the blog. My dear Honda Accord was given a warm send-off, however 'She' did not turn into 'it'. By the way, we do we feminise ships, cars, buildings, counties? I am not a female chauvinist. I don't know why? I will tell, I am a happily married man and I am still enjoying life (though I had to put of my sanyasi plans – not coz' of latest revelations on Sun TV). May be opposite poles attract each other and since the car attracts me, psychologically I am associating with an opposite polarity. I don't know if Freud has theories about this.

In the meanwhile Sachin hit a double in ODI, as like with many, I had a gut feeling that day. I preferred Dravid coz' personally I liked Rahul's style (No I am not talking about the Rahul who dines in huts and travels in Mumbai metros). He is not around in the media these days. May be he is swimming somewhere with fishes showing his human side to him. I tried showing my human side one day by dropping a coin to someone in Paris airport (what was I doing in Paris, that's for a different day), but no media channels cared for me. Anyway I teased our Tharoorji on twitter; he did not fall for it. He has got a clout in twitter but not sure if he will be a Rahul. Anyways enough of my thoughts…

PS: The insurance company and creditors recorded the 'Chill' Kuga as 'Silver' J

Who controls me?

Happy new year to all! Its been a nice start to the year with snow and all the nice stuff. But this means the work is going to pile up and replay later. Its just that goal post is slightly moved... Ah about the title of this post: I am being controlled for sometime now by someone... Normally i always drive things (note: I am not a control freak). There are always situations that you can't control but you have ways to manage and get along... Guess who's this someone who is trying to outsmart or in other words keeping me in toes? No not my wife or my manager or my neighbour or my parents (they relinquished it long back)... as i mention my parents, you would have guessed, its my 2 year 2 month old son! He is all pervasive and omnipresent! The one who keeps me fully on toes, I plan something, he keeps coming up with new challenges... I have run teams of different sizes and challenges... This guy is a one man transformation programme. One thing for sure, I am getting better every day and gives new meaning everyday... He is oozing energy and i am sipping it rather than tiring out... I understand his dynamics and learn to interact with a two year old, i should proudly say 'he controls me now' not in the actual sense of controlling me, but he is just shaping me up as well as getting chiseled! Life is a beauty...

Fall or Autumn - time for "Insight"

If you have noticed, my summer has passed like a whirlwind. Be it office, family or at my Uni, I have worked very hard and 'smart' to deliver. Riding many horses at the same time has been a challenge, but I am getting better by inches. Fall or Autumn is a season of insight to me. Why do people have many words for the same thing? How could I do better? I know my goal, but there are many paths... which one should I choose?

A few years ago, I asked my dad (who is a staunch believer in God) about polytheism and his view on it...Hinduism is a way of life or a religion of religions, so practising a way is such a challenge if your roots belong to it. His view was quite simple. Let us say you want to go to destination A and if it has 10 routes, travelling by route 1 for 5 miles and route 2 for 4 miles and route 3 for 3 miles won't take you to A. But all routes do take you to A. All roads lead to same destination. The message was 'You have to choose a way AND stick to it'. Very important is the AND clause. I have been riding many horses but not many paths, but I am now at the junction of many paths. The situation reminds me of Robert Frost's 'Road Not Taken'. I have to choose one! Languages do have different words for same thing, religions have many paths to same God. I choose simple words to describe complex things, so is simplicity the best option? A conjecture.

Family tree is getting rusty, the roots need my support or do i yearn for support from the roots? A Banyan tree symbolises my position. I am an 'aerial prop' trying to reach the roots and not yet there, but will be there one day. Is the prop supporting the tree or the prop wishing to take support from the root? Science says that these props become trunks and are indistinguishable. But thoughts question the logic "the props do they support the roots or take support by growing to the roots?"

Don't get me wrong, I am not melancholic, this is an insight into the path that should be taken. I am strong, sound and resolute to achieve! Readers have asked me on the absence of thoughts, actually they are never absent, just silent.

So what did i do the last fours months? Assignments for the Uni, family time, extended family time, moving houses. Ah! that reminds me that i am sitting in a developed world where it has taken 2 months for the telecom company to provision a broadband for me. I am not joking, in fact i should say it has taken me 3 months. I called TalkTalk on Aug 14th to mention i am moving houses (I moved on Sep 20th), they disconnected me on Sep 10th and i got my broadband on Nov 3rd. What a service! I called, tweaked, poked and finally gave up! you have to win some and loose some... I ordered a slow mobile broadband and ploughed through my way...Life now is a bliss with the super fast 4Mb broadband!!!

I imagine what if one day the internet goes down? (post for a different day)...

It's been four months

Last four months flew. May, June, July, August have gone like a wind. I watched the Indian general elections, some great cricket by England, return of Dravid, best of all was a five day trip to Scotland. In the last six years, I had reserved Scotland for a special occassion and i chose to spend it with my family. I enjoyed driving to core, the sceneries still stand in my mind. Mountains, lakes and pure nature, yes pure nature. We stayed in a wooden house, and just behind the house the rivers from the glen ebbs, sand gushes into the valleys. Such a sight and relaxation. One day we walked up on the Glen Navis and interestingly i tried some of stunts and got caught into a swamp and had to jump of the marsh by leaving the shoes and trekk up bare foot.

Big news is in the four months, i completed two of my courses in Global Energy MBA@WBS in first class but couldn't secure my honours which was a big disappointment. However with the commitments to family, busy work schedule and guests as well as a good summer, i focused and made hay! I also started getting up early to play Tennis daily in the morning. This brings my memories from Neyveli where i started my tennis but never excelled in it. I tried many sports in my schooling, but focused into Volleyball later and played some good games. I remember that our school rarely won matches in south zone tournaments, where we had won the first round but lost the next and turned back home. However we set trends and i still do in my own ways, in things that i do... I always cherished tennis but could never play to the level. This summer has opened up the avenue but long way to go.

In a fortnight we are moving home and new opportunities await.

Skanda Save our Souls

I wish I was not part of this global mess and the Tamil nonsense going around. In my previous post, I mentioned that I shall write about SkandaVale, my trip and my feelings, thoughts. I am so sad at my heart and thoughts when I look to the images of sea and human sea in North east Sri Lanka.

I wanted to express my thoughts as how Skandan or Lord Murugan a Tamil God is reigning in Wales (Part of UK), where as Tamils have been led into this gory war. We had a lot to say about us as a race (though I strongly condemn any race based support or theories); Tamils were the one to write best of most subjects and today we beg for food and shelter.

As a humanitarian disaster is awaiting, I am going to blame no one but just us. 'Thirukural' classic couplets of wisdom - were from Tamil, many many works and many many achievements were part of our tradition - Today we are what we are. This goes for any set of humans - when Gandhi showed us the way of peaceful protests, we took war, when People gave us chances, we ignored them - when others followed our theology, we threw them away, when world benefited from our experience, we shut our eyes and ears to our own folktales - so we are where we are today.

Please let us stop blaming others. At this hour, I wish history repeats again - Similar to the Kalinga War, let us see the carnage we have unleashed on ourselves, let us become the king Ashoka and seek peace.

I quote from the Edicts of Ashoka (Rock 13):

"Ashoka had seen the bloodshed with his own eyes. He felt that he was the cause of the destruction.

Ashoka's response to the Kalinga War is recorded in the Edicts of Ashoka. According to some of these (Rock Edict XIII and Minor Rock Edict I), the Kalinga War prompted Ashoka, already a non-engaged Buddhist, to devote the rest of his life to Ahimsa (non-violence) and to Dhamma-Vijaya (victory through Dhamma). Following the conquest of Kalinga, Ashoka ended the military expansion of the empire, and led the empire through more than 40 years of relative peace, harmony and prosperity.

Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Priyadarsi, conquered the Kalingas eight years after his coronation. One hundred and fifty thousand were deported, one hundred thousand were killed and many more died (from other causes). After the Kalingas had been conquered, Beloved-of-the-Gods came to feel a strong inclination towards the Dhamma, a love for the Dhamma and for instruction in Dhamma. Now Beloved-of-the-Gods feels deep remorse for having conquered the Kalingas."

The country of waterfalls...

Everyone looks for a refreshing break and a few really get the refresh. Software & Hardwares have a refresh cycle of 3 years, used to be 10 a decade back, 5 a few years back and now the companies want to refresh hardwares every three years! As usual my thoughts wander...

Easter breaks have always been kind to me, for a few years in row i spent that break in city of love and life - Paris. This time we drove to the country of falls - 'Brecon Beacons'. Mellte river near the village Pontneddfechan humbles the boulders and trees as well as the men who visit the place. Experience is something you can try to capture using photos and words, yet when it is real it can be surreal! Welsh names and sounds can be a lot harder if one is not exposed to the language and i am one among those that are unexposed. The image next to the write-up is the H shaped severn river one on M4.

For a start we toured around a small hilltop in opposite direction searching the falls. Our understanding of the maps was completely wrong and we figured out the right direction. Finally we drove to the spot and started trekking. The river was quite subtle and it was more like a brook. By then I had already mentioned to my partner that that brook would be the one to show wonders as a waterfall. If you keep trekking you will find a lot more fantastic falls. Its just that with a 17 month baby on your shoulders, you will pause and think twice to trek more; simply because you need to trek back to your base camp :)

The water and nature just humbled me and remained me again what mother nature is (btw why do we not address nature as father nature?) A small brook more like a dripping pee slowly gathers to become falls. But on the way the brook crushes the trees and big mountains to twigs and pebbles. Can we protect and preserve it for our future?Late in the afternoon we proceeded to tour around the national park and headed towards the brecon information centre. The drive displayed some fantastic mountain views and we just sat there in the car with mouths shut tightly but minds wide open with awe!

The next day we planned for SkandaVale. I need to do a separate post on this and indeed needs a post on its own, as i have a lot of thoughts around that trip. A bit political as well...

"He is just a Phenomenon"

Sharad is a great guy, he has some fabulous records under his belt in the domain that he works. He is a regular guy to the office, doesn't crave for attention, at the same instance not a push-over - he fights for what he believes, a cool head and has been a saviour many times in his 13 long year career. He took roles what his team demanded and gave 200% always irrespective of what others said. People around him wondered if he had any emotions at all.

I will pose a scenario; Imagine you give 200% to your team and sweat every bit, yes literally sweat to success, but you have a contemporary in the office who is just a genius and hogs the limelight; still you do your job and give your best - isn't that a great character? One day he was given the top job in the office and he takes that as well with humility and leads through a difficult time. When every thing was going well, (not really well though - results weren't as expected but not poor at the same time) he threw the hat in, but did not quit, and went back to be a soldier and still led from front.

Isn't he a great example for leadership? C'mon imagine if you go through such a shiny career, can you keep cool head and can you be composed in such a way that people wonder if you are a wall or a man? This man is a big big role model for me. Words can't describe this guy, he is just a phenomenon.

I take the occasion today to salute him as he reaches yet another milestone in the office! I am sure you will be interested to know him.

Click here to know more about Sharad

Great Saved the world - Job done!

Many of them mocked, I was one among them. But the world leaders apparently agreed to save the world. This was an apprentice, where everyone got HIRED! As i moved through the traffic this morning, I imagined how it would be if Sir Alan Sugar made an episode with the G20 leaders fighting to be his apprentice. The French president did not play ball, same with the German chancellor, Chinese were ready to help but wanted them as the project manager for all the episodes and make the Chinese currency as the bill to pay the winner, Indians as usual talked about policies and procedures, Obama in his usual style patted the browns, allowed him to lead the team, but stole the limelight when the draw was announced and everyone of them were Hired to play the BANKER! 

Imagination helped me brighten up! The answer is pay the trillion now and grow the debt; If by any chance the plan failed...(Believe me, I am an optimist)

"Ring a-ring o' roses, A pocketful of posies. a-tissue!, a-tissue!. We all fall down" 

G20 - Garbage 20 "£$€¥₩руб"

The G20 was originally set up as an informal group in 1999, following the financial crisis in Asia. Their aim was to encourage international co-operation between finance ministers and central bankers. This summit in London potential costs amount to £20m, where as the one in Japan costed $285m (2008) and the Germany costed €92m(2004). THIS IS THE HIGHEST SECURITY EXPENSE in BRITISH HISTORY!

For an argument sake, if these summits had happened over video conferencing facility, we would have more money to spend today. Background work could have happened as it happens today and the key heads could have sat across the table before a best possible high-speed video line and all these money we spend could have been reduced to a pittance. People would have faced no hardship as they go to their day jobs, petty shops would be kept open, execs could have worn their suits, most importantly, Mother Nature would have been more green! Consider the emissions from the flights to & fro between the 19 countries to UK!

Ok At least let us wait to see if the result is positive; the overarching feeling is this summit will be a flop :(

Proceeds of dogs sales, don't bark!

That's a proverb in Tamil; What the old folks mean is if you sell a dog, the cash proceeds don't bark... i.e. you may steal a dog, sell it and no one would know the source of the income... Proverbs seldom turn false. Yesterday i witnessed it. Liquor tycoon Mallya bought Gandhi's personal artifacts in an auction, gifts to Indian government! Gandhi who stood against three things, drinks, deceit, non-veg food would have definitely disliked Mallya buying his artifacts in the auction. He was so anti to drinks and a liquor baron has bought and gifted the items to government but has done so coz' he is Indian. Bull!

I think its one another publicity act... My blog titles that thoughts never belong to one individual and the writer in the article i linked above, has expressed a similar view on this subject. or is it the hundredth monkey phenomenon?

Its New Year Today

Happy new year to all. (Today Jan 21 2009) The official new year starts for Obama followers! Hurray Obama has taken reins, not to worry everything will be hunky dorry from now on - No it won't be - at least to me. I was away on a trip home, came back, fell ill, got the boy into day care, fell ill, got better, fell ill, son's not liking the day care, son's the agenda on my mind and until he settles not even Obama for the matter Osama can help me. O! Rama can you?

Torn between the pros & cons of day care, the pros & cons of modern style of parenting, the pros & cons of traditional ways of parenting, I am all cranky, in fact cranky than the boy himself. So can Obama save me? That's how our 21st century brains are. How could we dream of one man saving the world for us? it could be he is infusing hope blah blah, but fundamentally the human mind is so conditioned that they have tried out many forms of government and have gone back to Monarchic ways.

Until the day we all, i say again - we all understand that 'team works' its going to be Deja vu even in 521st century. I don't deny his raise to where he is, what he has gone through - to be honest his meteroic raise has infused hope in me too (blind)... I will be a slave to him, if in his 3rd day of the office he makes a law to get the bonus back from fat cats. C'mon on one end the bankers have taken all their bonuses and made their money. Economy is doomed, the ordinary man is asked to work again! The UK spends millions sorry billions sorry trillions in getting the banks back, instead if they had given 200,000£ to citizens with good credit report with a surity that these citizens should make more money and invest in banks, we all would have invested in houses, cars, better stuff and the economy would be in better state; whereas now our money (from taxes) is invested to insure our own mortgage repayment protection plans!

Can we all grow up? O!Rama bless Obama, Osama & Citizens of MamaMia world.

USA Ba(rra)ck to monarchy!

I always have a different view of events around me. Sometimes the view is a pretty nasty one, sometimes its crap. I was waiting up to 1 AM this morning to follow the events around the US elections. Will Obama Barrack win? By now everyone knows, actually most of us knew even before the results.

People always work their questions against India and keep comparing India to some of the western nations. I wrote an email once to a group of friends requesting them to compare India with US. I think they have many common things. (will write about that another day) I think India - the largest democracy has followed a much better path of democracy - there may be a lot of blips but things happened in India at a different level. India had PMs, Presidents from minority community, represented by the opposite sex and still the representation continues. Western countries that talk about equality and human values, rights actually have not followed.

"America was a democracy in name only," "It's only since the mid-1960s that we've had this experiment in a multicultural and multiracial democracy." - Click here to see the views.

When i see the emotions, the expectations its all just on one person - Obama? How many people know him personally? really how many people really understand what he stands for - he may be a good orator, but how different is it from Monarchy? A man/woman from queen's family who is well trained (or at the minimum, grown-up in the climate) in the game of politics would lead the country, it didn't matter if he/she was a good, righteous person or not. This man he kept flaming the colour and displayed qualities of a leader; cried at the correct moment - well enacted to the path of victory. Can he deliver? Time will answer...

But if i look at the mob frenzy, i could only conclude that this madness is no different from Monarchy except people choose their leader. Will we have a day where no one leads and people just live?

Lifestyle East vs West vs West - are you having fun?

I used to say to my Indian friends that all whites are not whites! (not in a racist sense). Generally in east, any white man is considered English i.e. Brit. This confuses a lot of people who step out for the first time to either US, UK or Europe. Nature has made some differences in the human race, though we all have commonalities. Go east or west, the animalistic behaviour is same... Every one has both Yin-Yang in them.

Last week one of my family friends had been here from US, on an official trip. We met after long time - should be a few years. As it happens the topic turned over to US vs UK vs India. I mentioned in my opening statement about a confusion which people normally have. At a point in my life, I had that too. Fortunately or not, I lived in US for a considerable period of time and i moved to UK. I had this assumption, that whites are whites and continued my lifestyle as i would do in US. Later i understood the people dynamics of UK and things look different to me. I was chasing all along up to that point, then stopped for a brief period, started thinking! - I am a think tank :). I still chase, but do it smartly. That's what UK has done to me and i immensely thank them. Part of journey, some people realise there is a window to world only when the journey is about to end. In my case, I am very happy that i have found the window quite early. This is my earnest attempt to people around the world to stop them and think for a while... Its not about which is better, but about why are we here (in the Planet Earth) and what is better?

The question is, should we as an animal, enjoy as well as earn bread or should we work hard and yearn to enjoy?

In US to be a part of mainstream is a still a dream for many though the country by itself is termed as 'land of immigrants'. Where as UK has worked well in this particular aspect where irrespective of race, the polity is present (remember Yin-Yang is everywhere in UK as well). Having said that, i have observed that if your mind-set blocks you cannot be part of mainstream anywhere in the world, even in your own home turf. Raised in an Indian conservative background, turning into a liberal through experience, I can vouch for Britain's multi-cultural-ism, albeit they work hard to preserve the native culture and traditions as well.

When people talk about the US, they talk about rule of law and freedom of thought as fundamental constitutional cornerstones. How does it apply to a common man is a question one need to answer. Calling itself a secular, democratic and capitalistic country, US questions Obama's religions. Why/How does it matter if he is a half-Muslim? But the largest democracy India has got itself elected a Woman prime minister, president and a president, a prime minister from religious minority... US intervenes in Ports authority and such deals, but calls itself truly capitalistic. On the other hand UK has sold its key energy component to EDF (French), Water, airports etc have also been taken up by non-UK companies. These policies have impact on common man as it gives him price differences and quality of service.

Today people have forgotten some fundamental principles of politics and what it means to be a socialist, a communist, democrat or a conservative...

As i normally do, it would look that I have digressed from the topic of lifestyle. No, there is a subtle and strong link to the principles of governing party and the subjects of that government... coz' 'As the King So the People'. In terms of lifestyle i feel and think that UK has got a few fundamental things pretty much correctly and the US has got those on the wrong end. Especially medical benefits, benefits from national insurance/social security, holidays and lifestyle. (these views are subjective but will turn into objective as you go up the chain of philosophy).

Sometime back in FT i read how George W Bush spends one-fifth of an year in vacation and his subjects take just 3-4% of an year as vacation and in UK it is little tilted, the subjects take 25-30 days an year and the Prime Minister spends 40 days an year. India up to the 1970s followed some key aspects of British culture, now trots a lot on American footsteps... Work hard 5 days and spend the rest 2 days crazy... as things changed in US lifestyle rather work-style, work all 7 days, little family time etc, same followed here, Importantly Indians from software background have started following the trend.

End of the day we have forgotten that our base is from animal and some of the animal instincts take a beating and turns evil into the society and an increase of animal behaviour in the society... It all comes to our mindset, be where ever you are, stop for a moment and think, ask yourself are you having fun and enjoying in planet earth?

Happy Diwali To All

India is most often referred by western world as a package of surprises and puzzles. We have many things that are rich in value which we ourselves don't know. Before i continue further, let me wish all readers a happy and prosperous Diwali. Across India and world people celebrate Diwali day for quite a few reasons. Some call it New Year, some say it as Narak-Asura's demise day and a day for celebration of good winning the evil etc. North of India celebrates Diwali on the New-Moon Day and it's a start new year. For South it's tomorrow or the 14th day of the lunar cycle. Unity in diversity.

Some of Indian festivals have many reasons for celebration, but the common underlying theme is to celebrate and share with others. One such in South of India is observed during the full moon of summer - April and it's referred in our literature as a festival organised by the then Pandya king to revive the economy. What a simple but fantastic lesson for the economic sector today. The literature's notes that he ruled with Madurai as his Capital and the economy was in bad shape; so he came up with ingenious idea of organising a festival during the summer full moon - 'Chithra Purnima'. All newly wed couples were meet in the river bed of Vaigai and spend the evening with all fun & frolic. Obviously newly weds, so would spend a lot money in meeting the demands from their spouses... So a way to channel money out!

Diwali is a time when money rolls literally rolls in India out of all sections of Indian society. If your ignore all the religious reasons, this one reason is indeed a great reason to go out and have fun. I will pick up this thought to another blog one day.

Today it's more of Diwali. I spent this evening with a few friends and we talked about our Diwali celebrations when we were Kids. Traditionally on the day of Diwali, we used to wake up early hours around 2:30 to 3:30 and the whole family would place all the sweets, savouries, new clothes, fireworks and a spicy Diwali medicine called 'Legiyam'. This is a mixture prepared out of different spices and ghee. Since it's festival time, we would obviously eat a lot and will get into gastric related problems. The aforementioned 'legiyam' is a medicinal mixture which will cure the gastric problems. Given that all the sweets and savouries have a lot of sugar, ghee and other saturated fats, you are sure to get a bit of Indigestion at the very minimum.

Anyways once all the items are placed before God, then the parents would smear a bit of oil , turmeric, sandal and kumkum on the family members; When the mother smears the oil, she would say 'ashvthama, balih:, chirnjeevi' - its a way of wishing good health and prosperity to the person who gets smeared. Then the head of family lits the first firework to start the celebration.

Then everyone takes a good oil bath followed by a steamy hot water bath, and a powder from Shika-kai is used to wash the oil and cleanse. After such a steamy bath, we would all get dressed up in new clothes and dash off to burst fireworks and crackers. The whole thing would take an hour or two before starting of firework celebration. So we would get up at 2-3AM. These celebrations include sharing of sweets, playing fireworks together etc. We would see which house has burst the most number of fireworks, by checking the amount of cracked papers and rubbish from fireworks leftovers. We had fireworks such as the 'Train', Lakshmi, Bijili, Elephant, Country, rockets, 100 wallas, 200 wallas, 1000 wallas (these are for the upper middle class), sparklers, chakras, flowerpots and many many types of fireworks. This whole fireworks may bring a lot of noise and air pollution - but a sizable number of families lived coz' of this economic activity.

The celebrations went on for 2-3 days as a matter of fact, even starts a week early. Schools, colleges, parks, where ever people met, they talk about Diwali. Ladies would chat about the silk saris they would have bought, Men talked about the wallets that lost the rupees, still proudly mention the cost spent in fireworks or the special sweets their missus made. Children would talk in lenght about the new type of firework that would have introduced just that year etc etc. For more than a fortnight people talked just Diwali.

In a decade if i read/say this to my son, who is just about to be one year, he would say i am just lying! Coz' if you go in today to a Indian city, people wake up around 7, just crib about oil bath and smear a bit, would have bought sweets the day before, new dresses did not make a conversation - coz' people buy new dresses just for any occasion - a decade back, new dresses were just for a special occasion like Diwali or Pongal. So people take a quick shower with Pantene or 'Head and shoulders' shampoo, dress up, make a big fuss about diet and still have a plate full of sweets and savouries; Switch on TV and watch the shows whole day, do a firework just as a mark of formality. That's it... Call up people on phone and wish (or their ties would be less sought after and may be considered a liberal or a rebel)... Who cares about economics or the reason behind Diwali. So in 10 years down the line, if it becomes much more a Diwali in virtual world i won't be surprised.


Changes are always constant... But i still haven't lost the fun and frolic, even though I am home alone, i have taken enough pains to go out and carry out the celebrations - I wish my type of fun carries over and the next generation shares it as well. So Happy Diwali, Have a safe firework.

Baji Renamed

I renamed myself to a new Avatar - same qualities nothing change; I strongly believe that one has to chisel himself before he/she reaches the age of 21 - after that you seldom change. From today i am calling myself as "Think Tanker". Inspirations are from one of the blogs that i follow... Look at my blog site heading"Thoughts displayed here are not just mine some may be plagiaristic" - it's just not only thoughts, but could also be some ideas.

In an office off site team day i came up with an idea of getting electricity from space using satellites - i swear the idea came to me straight from my head - i never thought about this earlier or have even read about it. My team mates liked it and gave a pat for out of box thinking. Then i came home to search google patents - what i found out was one gentleman by name Charles.E. Davis had already registered one such patent in 1977!!!!!! that's a surprise.... Sometimes these happen... Is it a mere coincidence?

Btw the reason i mentioned it, is just to affirm that there is no original thought

Months of Rollercoaster

Usually the last quarter months of October-November-December are of huge importance for all cultures, ages, religions, artists; in short for everyone. Hindus celebrate Navratri, Diwali and other significant festivals. Muslims celebrate Ramadan, Christians celebrate birth of Jesus; Nobel prizes are awarded in this time of the year, Booker prizes to novels; Children celebrate the festivals mentioned above and winter sets in... A cycle that never tires most of us, but makes us work hard for the fun and frolic that culminates in the last quarter of an year.

Year 2008 will be remembered and quoted most often in History for one single reason - not that we had the CDH reactor testing or failing to test the Big Bang theory, not for the reason that Olympics was a great show, but for one single reason - the 'Credit Crunch'; As we talk about 1930 great depression and 2000 dot com busts today, we would talk about the brink of economic disasters in 2008 and how the world leaders got together(?) to 're-solve '(?) the crunch. The question mark is obvious in its placement as whether they really got together and who solved it? Actually did they solve it? Often i quip about project managers that they create an issue in first place and then they painstakingly solve it later to get the name and fame... Its a similar case here.

Greed breeds greed is a simple quote often repeated in many literatures. We seldom learn lessons and that's including me! Anyways that's a simple and foremost reason of 2008 problems. I also would blame it on IT. yeah CDS and sub-prime were all possible coz' of IT and if it were not to do with the power of IT services, the traders and analysts would have not come up with so many complex algorithms to trade and different products to trade as well. If that had not happened we would have not landed ourselves into Credit Crunch... I am just ridiculing IT that's it and not seriously mean IT as the problem for all the mess. People say you could use science for good and bad, religion for good and bad. I say the same - you can use IT to help you or land you in trouble as well. All these are tools which could be used in either the way...

Personally i am in a rollercoaster as well; I am home alone with my family off to India for a month's break and i would join them in a few weeks, but at the moment I miss my family - very odd statement given that i have been a family man only for 8 months... yes i miss them. Sleepless nights, winter setting in all adds to my woes... I plan to go enjoy my photography and other hobbies that i would like to persue in this time of anonymity.

The roller coaster continues...

Ram + Ayan - Path of Rama.

I have been very busy on all counts - family, official, personal... I have often observed that when i am busy on one facet of life, somehow it spreads to other facets and keeps me occupied... blogging is an activity that needs some special time... I just can't blog with no clear thoughts... i.e. don't want to blog crap things; one might read mine and say well you have got enough craps, why not add more?

A few things in the last couple of weeks - the financial markets, bomb blasts in my home country, debacle of labour leadership in my adopted country etc etc. People have blogged all over about these things and today my favorite topic is about my mother tongue - Tamil. My parents are here visiting their grandson and i have been re-living some of our past time moments and one fine evening i played Pulavar Keeran's kamba ramayanam (Click here to know more about it) discourse. I was born and brought up in Neyveli, TN, India - a planned city that meets prime % of India's power needs using lignite based combustion technology. Wiki talks about the culture of neyveli - a multi-cultural one.

During 1980s Tamil Nadu was facing anti-Hindi and anit-brahaminical, atheistic fanaticism. People who were in those buckets had to hide their backgrounds. Brahmins were attacked and their hair do (Kudumi) was cut off in aggressive attacks, and the fanatics bashed all hindi/sanskrit speaking people... Life was such and i was 4 or 5 then and hearing those scary stories was pastime. Anyways in such a climate Pulvar keeran stood tall for his pro-theist discourses and those were in Tamil. His oration on Kamba ramayanam was the best of all. Day before, we listened to one of his discourses on kamba ramayanam. That's the one that brought back the memories! Pleasant memories - every year summer holidays were usefully spent on listening to his discourses on various Hindu epics. The speeches were interlaced with academic references to tamil poetic and prose rules/grammar etc. an example - 'asathi aadal' is a subject area within a classification - 'samayam' i.e. Under the topic of 'Religion' this particular 'asathi aadal' is a style of writing the writers use to express his/her pleasure/displeasure to God as he would do it to a friend that too in a mocking manner! As and when possible ,he would relate such academic references and imparted knowledge to the youngsters like me, hence our Tamil flourished.

On the contrary, the fanatics who adopted aggressive anti-hindi positions spoke rubbish tamil interlaced with uncultured and un-parliamentary words. But children like us who listened to Keeran's speeches have our tamil living in very good states. That's true - my tamil is better than most of the tamilians around and its just not in speech, but in vocabulary, capability in understanding very difficult proses etc. Though Pulavar keeran is not with us today, I am proud to say his works have inspired and instilled some of the good things that i have today. (also to mention that during his discourse he presented prizes to kids who answered his questions correctly - i got one of his books signed by him in one such occasion and I still have it proudly)

I need to put down some of my thoughts on Ramayanam... Two key things from the epic. I believe Ram existed and he stood up for Monogamy in the times when polygamy was prevalent and was not frowned upon. In fact, his father the King who ruled from Ayodhi was said to have 60,000 wives and situation were so bad those days, that Rama had to stand up and live faithfully in conditions where one could have so many chances to be an infidel. He was the prince and a son of the powerful king, where no one could question him and he could have ignored Sita and led a 'happy' life; but he stood up for Monogamy and went in search of his wife.

In his search he had to cross the sea and he had a bridge to move into Srilanka. (Ram Setu aka Adams Bridge). In his times, the sea division between India and Srilanka could have been very less and he could have very easily built a bridge and one such floating stone is still found in a north Indian temple, where the record says the stone was brought over from Ram Setu when they returned to Ayodhi. This stone still floats in water and is living proof of Ram Setu. I recently saw this in TV. The bridge is a memoir for us to remind ourselves to be faithful to our marriage life. In the day of AIDS and other VDs, we should think about our lessons from Epics and make a point to ourselves.

Then i come to my second point - Ramayan means - The path of Rama - Ram + Ayan = Ramaayan. Ayan means path in Sanskrit. So we got to remind ourselves the path of Ram and the key message is to be in one marriage. In fact Ram was known for his three 'ones' - One Word, One Arrow and One Wife. He sticks to his word; Just needs one arrow to bring his enemy down; People would come up with this question why did he doubt his wife - Sita, when she returned from Ravana's captive. Rama's to that question are very much in detail. To keep a house at its best, one could sacrifice a member of the family and to keep a county at its best, a house could be sacrificed and to keep a state at its best, one can sacrifice a county and it goes on to a country as well. In this case Rama who stood for virtuous life heard a fisherman foul mouthing Sita as she was in Ravana's captive. Rama was taken aback and he had to keep his wife away to be an example to his state subjects. To do so, he thinks for quite a long and this though process is well documented in some forms of Ramayan. People who would like to understand these can well read those. So this was not a mere excuse for Rama to exile Sita, but a well thought and painful decision.

Two key messages from the epic - one to be a faithful husband at any cost and what all hardship he went through and the second much more insightful as to why he had to exile his loving wife and the one he loved so much! Contrasting but very meaningful messages... Could we think of any such acts in the world history?

Have you heard "book cricket"?

After 1983 - the year when 'Underdogs' - Cricket team of India won the coveted world cup under Kapil Dev; cricket zoomed into the gullies of Indian cities, towns and villages. Most of the kids where playing cricket even in their sleep - when one was asked to go buy a packet of cookery item, he would catch the money, hit a six and walk to the shop, defend a short pitch or hook it as Kapil supposedly had done it in the famous Zimbabwe win (175*). That was one another topic which most of us talked. Unfortunately that one day match wasn't on telecast schedule and i hear there aren't many videos around the world.

So one could imagine the cricket fantasy of 1980's/90's and not to mention, after the advent of Tendulkar into cricket arena, the crazy wave hasn't set still. Given the cricket passion and fervour, all our minds were set on cricket. So we started playing cricket even in our classrooms but in a canny way. We used our textbooks to play cricket - which is unofficially known as 'Book Cricket'. We chose teams that we liked best and mostly all of us wanted to choose - India; no surprise yeah? The second obvious choice was West Indies, then England and other teams. So we had to first toss a coin to choose our teams, then toss again to find who played first. The rules were simple - a kid had to choose the team and if won the toss, then he would have to turn the pages of textbook, then look onto the left hand side of the book to score his run. If the page number ended in 2,4,6 then those were his runs, if it was 8 - a no ball and if it was '0' then the player was called out! If you took a couple of pages with no clarity in counting the run, it was called a dead ball! Interesting yeah?

We chose our own teams, we used to shuffle Gavaskar a opening player to 3rd or 4th if the opener got out cheaply; Sometimes the very final pair used to score double hundreds, of course never or very rarely happens in real cricket. Hat-tricks were sometimes happening too often, Middle order rarely stayed together - a cricket of whole different type but played with books! Teachers did sniff the mischief and severely warned us and sometimes had landed us in punishments as well. Like any other school student, we continued to play. The biggest asset of the game: at times you are bored and don't have a companion ? no worries, you could play on your own. A eleven man game played by single boy in fact for both teams, a thing which can never happen in reality. When we played in lunch intervals, the kid - so called the player would also provide an interesting running commentary as he flipped through the book's pages. A commentary of completely different kind; when games were stopped and restarted, either for the reason that a teacher caught us or for other 'genuine' reason, the commentary would resume with a reference that crowd got wild, hence the officials had to postpone for sometime etc etc. The imagination was there in each and every aspect of book cricket!

Interestingly after many years today i played a match in Pakistan (and hence the blog)- Ind vs Pak; India all out for 184 and Pak 78 all out. There was a intermittent delay owing to crowd reactions :) hey you need to keep the child in you amused yeah?!

Life in the UK!

I had to appear for the Life in the UK exams and pass to move on to next stage of immigration upgrade. This is a 24 question exam with 18 to pass; Years back when i lived in US, i had to appear for a driving test which was of similar pass requirement and i failed in the first attempt due to my over-confident approach - i basically failed coz' of naivety on 'the drinks' %. I had quite a few questions testing on the knowledge of alcohol percentages such as how many of wine equals how many beers etc... I am still not up to date on that section...anyways in this exam i did not want to take any chances - so i quickly did some copy paste to highlight the important points into pdfs and left it for last minute prep. Banking on my general knowledge, i took some five-six tests on the net and i got couple of them passed and failed in a few! You should now know, how i would have felt about the exams.

Most of my friends around knew i was going to take the exams - so that added a bit of pressure as well. Aha what a man who claims to be an IT architect right there worrying about an exam. But the approach i took to the exams rightly asserted my approach to any problem and resolving them - an architect approach - did a quick summary of all facts into a let's call it a 'notebook' and from there took an aerial view to see what's the 80/20 rule and where to concentrate...

On the test day my GPS - SatNav very aptly conked off! so obstacle no 1 - how do i master the roads in UK to navigate into Hounslow east? more of a challenge i need to be mastering if i were to live in UK - so i took the choice of 'Phone - a - friend' - called my friend who was learning his drive in the UK; remembering that i switched off the call to him and rang his wife for the road name - i wasn't sure if it was Huxley road or Kingsley road; Anyways 'Phone-a-friend' worked out; Then somehow managed my life in the uk knowledge drove to Hounslow east. Given the traffic conditions on a Saturday morning the traffic was slow, with both me & my wife calming ourselves, suddenly spotted the Kingsley road! - there goes my right indicator, a quick view on right mirror and make a hasty turn to right. Racing against the time, i parked in a lot and ran to the test centre to confirm the venue, then back to the parking lot to tell my wife and took care of the little one. Now i was more nervous than her - not coz' of the test but how do i take care of this young man? Apart from a few nervy moments - he was okay, only thing he was adamant that i carried him all along!! Also he poo-ed (i did keep saying that he will do that right after my wife left for the test). She quickly answered, reviewed and passed it.

Now it was my turn. out of 7 attendees, 5 of us from India, 1 from japan, 1 from Malaysia. The Japanese girl had applied some great efforts in studying for the test - i looked over her shoulder to find the whole book marked with pens, stickers etc etc. I then realised how tough it could be for a lot of people. One thing what i noticed was all the Indians were chill-out and quite clearly coz' the constitution and political system such as speaker's role, whips's role, cabinet, Parliament elections all are very similar to India's one (actually the reverse). But for people who are not that close to these things might be finding the exam quite challenging. I whizzed through the test in less then 5 minutes and got the pass mark!

If you need the notes - let me know :)