The wonder that was India

The thought of a visit to a book shop makes me happy. It is as if, I love being surrounded by books, browsing through different titles, different section, checking out new authors, all being more fun than reading a book. Sometimes, browsing the cover pages of many books, gives an immense satisfaction of really gaining some knowledge, rather than reading one whole book (novels excluded).
With the same intention, I was there at landmark at Spencer's. I directly went to the special and new books section. Most of them were Sujatha's books. Though Sujatha is not with us, his words will remain for a long time. அவரை பற்றி எழுதுவது என்றால் தமிழில் தான் எழுதியாக வேண்டும். தமிழில் புதிய எழுத்தாளர்கள் வருவதற்கு, அவர் ஒரு முக்கிய காரணம். தமிழ்நாட்டிற்கும், இந்திய வோட்டிற்க்கும், அவர் செய்த பணி என்றும் மறக்க முடியாத ஒன்று.
Then, I moved on to other sections. As i was browsing, a name caught my attention. The book's title read "The wonder that was India". Curious to read what it meant, i pulled the book from the shelf. This was a History book, written by A.L.Basham. The title struck to me as an odd one. Why is the author saying "The wonder that was India". India has been a wonder, and it still is a wonder, and it will be one always. So just to know how the author justifies the title, i bought the book. Its a big book with around 500 pages, almost resembleing an old time dictionary. As i started reading, the title was justified in the "foreward" section itself (I could have read that in the shop itself, and kept the book back).
It seems, the author was totally against this title, because he too felt that it was not relevant. But the publishers said that this book was a sequel to other books on ancient civilizations like "The grandeur that was Rome", "The splendeur that was Egypt", and even this book should have a similar title. And so, India is no more a wonder according to the title.
I am currently reading this book (Completed almost 200 pages). I think my history teacher would have been very proud and happy, if she came to know that i am reading this book. Just like a typical history book, its taking a lot of time for me to move ahead. I completed 3 other books in the meantime, but this one is still going on.
But it is not as boring as a history book. The author has tried to present many interesting facts about the lifestyles of ancient civilisations. Be it the public political, economical details or the private life of a man and woman, the author has tried to throw light on whatever is known about those days.
A good read for people with a lot of patience and time.

Does the human race think??

I do not know what you people think, but Edward de Bono says "How the Human Race has never really learned to think" in a book with the same big title. In a book of about 120 pages, he tries hard to put down many a example to say that, what humans do is work on a pattern or recognition. The brain is trained to handle all things, based on patterns that are stored, including the previous experiences a person has had.
The first 30 pages went very fast, and at a point I thought I will complete the book in two hours (That would have been a record, considering my poor reading speed which is about 12 pages/hour). Even with such a poor reading speed I was one among the person who read a lot of books. But this was before i started working. Things changed once i started working. "I was born intelligent, but my job ruined me", kind of works for me (Hope my manager does not see this).
Anyway coming back to the discussion of human race, thinking, pattern and de Bono, after 30 pages I found myself asleep for about tem minutes. Then the book did not raise any of my interests and after struggling for 3 hours i completed about 80 pages.
I do not know how long more I would spend on reading this. The only thing in the book is some of the practical examples the author had explained about some simplex (simple-complex) problems. One more thing was about the general tendancy of human beings, sticking holily to the proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention". Even i am no exception. Currently I am into a maintanence project, and I do not bother about the system that is existing. It is really designed bad and pathetic, but since things are running, I do not give a damn to it. The author has pointed out this example only in the book. It was as if he was talking to me and telling me to do something extra (Just like my boss). This is generally called "Value Add". Frankly I do not know if I will follow this or not.
If the author by any chance reads this (Which is impossible), he would put a comment saying that, i had written this post wearing a "Black Hat".
Luckily, I did not spend money on getting this book :).

Odyssey

A journey that i took 2 years ago had stopped suddenly. Stopped for no apparent reason. The odyssey (thats how i refer to the journey), took a back track with me not able to balance my work personal life. But its the wish, desire and whatever one calls it, made me start this journey once again. And i badly want to continue this journey till where my legs and body take. Because, my mind can assimilate many places, but not my legs and body. And i am very happy to invite you all to join my ODYSSEY

New Year Resolution II....

New Year resolution…

New Year resolution? Again? People might think, it is already March, too late for a New Year resolution and early for a Tamil New Year resolution (Tamil New year generally falls on 14th April). This is a result of the “New Year resolution” (http://kuppathotti.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-year-resolution.html), I had already posted.
I am a person who strongly believes that a resolution can be taken at any time, but the important thing is to keep it going. Yes, keep it really going (I have flunked many of the resolutions that I had already took).
The “New Year” post I had put was just to motivate myself. Yesterday, in one book, I had read that “Tell your plans to your well wishers, then at least to show them, you will follow the plan”.
Unknowingly, I did the same thing.
But it turned out to be in another way. After reading that post, many of my friends were more inspired. I got a couple of mails saying that, the post was good and they too were going to blog regularly. Few of them had a blog and were not posting regularly, and others did not have one at all.
This made me realize the positive effects of something told positively. Once, Kalam had commented about the print media in India. He was presiding over a function hosted by a leading newspaper in the country (I am really not sure which one). He generally commented about the news that is printed in the front page. Mostly, they were about some bad incident that took place. When the reader starts his day with this news, it fails to boost the morale of the person. He starts cribbing about the world in general. If the good news, however small it may be, is put in big and bold letters, it will surely bring a visible change.
So, “Happy blogging” to all those who have started fresh and for those who are continuing their old ones. Spread the positive note and do your bit. It does bring a change.

Reel to Real

As i took the news paper in a hurry to have glance before i started for my office shuttle, the photo in the front page made me sit down. But time never stops for us. As seconds ticked away, i quickly decided grab a few minutes to read the article. It was the photo of Thanjavur Brihadisvara temple, and my recent visit to Gangaikondacholapuram had evinced an interest in the ancient temples. The story was about the tamil historian Kudavayil Balasubramaniam (http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/02/29/stories/2008022951100100.htm) in the Friday Review published by The Hindu. As i read through the article, i felt as if the character in my previous blog "proposal" (http://kuppathotti.blogspot.com/2008/02/proposal.html) resembled this person in real life. When i had written the post "proposal", half was true or rather i can say that i could map the characters to real life persons. This part was not so. The archaeologist i had mentioned was truly and completely imaginary till i had read this article. Though i had a hint that there will be persons in the real world just as i had mentioned in the post. But i came to know about it pretty soon.

Result...

I didn figure in the list of first three prize winners for the proposal writing competition :(.
http://kuppathotti.blogspot.com/2008/02/proposal.html

What now???

Its one week from my the time i posted my last post and its time for the next one and i swear i am dried out of topics. I was pre-occupied with many things last week that there was no idea that sparked out. இப்போ தமிழிலும் ப்ளோக் செய்யலாம் :). ஆனால் இப்படி செய்தால் தமிழ் மறந்து விடுவோமோ என்று தோன்றுகிறது.

சீக்கிரம் மீண்டும் சந்திப்போம் .

Proposal...

The following is a proposal writing i had to write in an hour for a competition at my office. There was actually a day, but i was able to give only one hour to it.

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The terrain was very rough. Each step spelt danger. One wrong move and you are deep down into the valley. Ramesh moved very cautiously. The dawn had not broke still now. The temperature did not wish to rise above the zero level. The gun firings which had started the day before had not stopped. He heard few hours before that, the enemies had been marching continuously and they more and more troops had been deployed on heir side. Trying to throw away the memory of all his family members, the chillness that was boring down into his bones, the death that awaited on the deep valleys on one side and the enemy bullets on the other side, he bravely marched ahead, to chuck the enemies out of his country.

The train entered the station smoothly. It was the Delhi Metro, an engineering marvel even in the 21st century, executed in time and within the allocated budget in spite of the red tapism in the government. An alternate, affordable, pollution free, fast transport was developed with the efforts of a lot of people from engineers to workers under the leadership of Sreedharan. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has bought in many “Best Practices”, even to the high performing private sectors in India.

In a village in Kerala, as the kid reached the school, he was surprised to see a small TV there. One can easily count the number of times he would have seen a TV, and he never expected to see one in the class. As the class began, a lady whom the boy never saw in his village appeared and started teaching him. It was a very new and exciting to him. It will still take him few years to know, how the efforts of scientists at ISRO and other organization has started making impact on the education in India.

The old man tried hard looking at the photo. It was very easy to spot him among the big chunk of people, who had gathered to visit the “Exhibition on Wheels” organized by the Indian Railways to celebrate 150 yeas of “Revolution of 1857”. The expression in his face told that, he still remembered those times. He was wearing a White Khadi shirt with white Khadi Dhoti. As he walked along the compartments of the train, it showed that his will power and love for the country has not aged with him.

The man felt the stone for one more time. He had always loved them. It all started from a visit to the Brihadisvara temple at Gangai konda Cholapuram in TamilNadu. He would have never thought that he would be spending most of his life in this temple with the beautifully carved stone structures. As an officer in the Archeological Survey of India, he was posted at the same temple, where his love for old temples began. He was responsible for maintaining the temple, the temples which are the living proofs showing the ingenuity of Indians.

“I love you ‘my country’. I love you ‘the people who love my country’”

Metro..

December 2006

The building stood 100m away. Never did I think it concealed something amazing. It was a very small building and can be better called as a structure. I had just come out of the New Delhi railway station and as I approached the building, I could see the fluorescent signboard; a circular one with two horizontal chords and a forward slash connecting them. It was the sign board of the now famous Delhi metro. Though the metros all over the world have signs of similar sort, I do not know if there is one which is exactly similar to this. The entrance was quite normal, typically Indian with pan spit over the walls, but as I descended down the stairs, I was magically transported to another world, without a 9 3/4 platform or the Hogwarts express; ahead of me lay a neat platform; bright advertisements on both side; Kajol was smiling at me with her tata indicom phone. With bright displays guiding me at all places, I think I never stopped at any place looking for directions; I walked as if I was a regular commuter there.
I passed the uniformed persons at the ticket counter and the security persons to reach the platform (Check out the station photo that I took @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharishkrishnan/331001132) . The train entered smoothly and I was transported to my destination within a quick time frame, in a time that’s not possible in the fumy roads of Delhi.


January 2008
As I was browsing through the list of Padma Vibushan awardees, one name struck different. Most of them were famous personalities in different fields. But this name sounded familiar, but I was not able to relate it with anybody. I read the name once again E. Sreedharan. Then from some corner of my mind, I recollected him as the Managing director of Delhi Metro. A quick search in wikipedia gave away his resume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Sreedharan). It reveals the strong personality and integrity of this person who has executed some biggest railway projects within the stipulated time and budget, given the red tapism in the Indian government.
The Delhi Metro is one among them. It had made lakhs of people happy just like how I was that day, and it still continues to do so.
Hats off to that gentleman. India needs more Sreedharans in the future.

New Year resolution

The first month of 2008 is going to end. Still it is a new year, new month everything is new. A time when people start many things they had always wanted to do. It all starts with the New Year resolutions. Resolutions are always funny to hear. Though the people have noble intentions of achieving something, it ends up being very different for most of the people.Recently I have started blogging regularly (at least two posts for a week is regular for me). I was very happy for it. I felt as if I am writing a “regular featured” column in a leading newspaper. I had started this in the end of December and it had nothing to do with New Year or New Year resolutions.That day I had started from office at 8.15 pm. it was the last office bus that directly took me to my place, and I was happy to get into it. As I took the window seat, I saw my school buddy keerthi come. It was long since I had met him though he sat just two floors below me. It sounds strange in a world revolutionized by telecom technologies. People have still moved apart despite the development of technologies. Technology is just a medium. At last it ends up with the people utilizing it or not. There are many technologies which are more misused than used. The latter is more dangerous than the former one.

As the engine of the bus roared to life, and I started feeling the vibrations, a smile came to my face, just like a school kid reacting to the evening school bell. It was then that I started talking to Keerthi. We kept talking, basically discussing about the things happening in each other's life, in technical terms “updating” each other about various things right from the things at office to home, a 26 Km drive which swallows almost one and half hours of my life in a day.

Then we reached to that point of discussion. I had recently started putting my blog address in my email signature. Keerthi being a professional blogger, no wonder wanted to ask me about that. The first thing he asked me was “Do you post anything regularly?” It came suddenly and in a time I never expected. I had hardly posted anything. That was the truth, truth till few weeks ago. Things had changed. Changed for good. All the happiness of writing was washed away from my face for an instant. Then I told him that recently, I have started posting regularly.

Then immediately he shot his second questions. On hearing that I wondered the first one was a lot better than this one. “New year resolution? Will your blog have the same frequency during November 2008?” Hmm I don’t know if I had started at the right time or wrong time. Neither had I related this to the New Year resolution. But the time I have started had made people think that way.

I will leave it to time to answer the question.

Different walks of life...

It was 9.30 pm as I descended at my stop from my office bus. It will usually take me about fifteen minutes to walk to my home. I hurried most of the time, just stopping by when I had to cross roads. It was according to the popular line “Children walk to school, but run back home”. I usually rush back home once I get down, just to have a quick dinner and relax (I have already told this in my previous post). Just as I started walking down the road, I saw a husband and wife walking. The wife seemed worried. Something was bothering her very much. It was very much evident from her face. The husband was talking to her in an advising tone.
I have a habit of walking fast. At least faster than the people’s average speed of walking. But when I crossed the couple, I heard the husband say “why don’t you see the good things”? It was as if he had asked me. I suddenly noticed that I had slowed down. He had told his wife in some other context, something for which she was upset.
It was then that I started seeing things around me. As I walked some distance ahead, I saw a man carrying a small child for a night walk. The kid was so small and cute. I was pretty sure, it was so young, but the man kept talking to him. Then I remembered that, kids start hearing things from a very young age, and if good things are told frequently, they get registered in their minds. I just thought how much the kid would enjoy this walk every night, whereas I was walking like a dead man.
Then just a few blocks I saw a group of boys having pani puri. They were just back from a cricket match. The tiredness in their face and the bat and stumps they carried told the same. They were chatting and laughing loudly. It was as if the fun had just begun.
Few blocks away, I saw a family back from beach. The family of four was squeezed in the hero Honda bike, driven by the skillful by the family head. As they got down from their bike before their house, they dusted off the sand from their legs, but they would have surely liked to carry the memory forever. It was kaanum pongal day, a day which most of the families spend at the beach.
A 15 minutes walk on a road can bring many different things before our eyes, is what I realized on that day.

She....

Our eyes met just for a second, and I couldn’t resist myself from staring at her. She looked the most beautiful. The new dress, the big bindi in her forehead and the flowers all added beauty to the beauty. She was standing in front of the house, with a hint of shyness in her face. I think she felt, she is attracting a lot of attention from the people going through that way.
I usually used to see her on my way back from office. She would be standing before the house. I never used to pay much heed and used to rush to my house. Dinner would be waiting for me in my house, and I really would be hungry. After a tired day’s work and a more tiring journey back home, I always wished back home early, and completing my dinner and relaxing will be on top of my mind.
But today, it was a sheer accident that our eyes had met. Even if they had not, I would have surely seen her. It was as if, she was at the centre, with a white spotlight that was following her wherever she went.
She had a gang of 2 friends. Mostly I would find all of them together. I had seen them sometimes near my house, sometimes in the next street. The people in the house never cared where she went.
I don’t know how old she was, but my mom liked her. My mom used to give bananas, which was her favourite.
All this new dress and make up will only be for one day. As Maatu Pongal (The day after pongal, when the cows are celebrated) ends, she will be back to her old ways of her life, standing before her house, grazing in our next street, trying to get a banana from my mom, till the next maatu pongal comes.

Life.....

--------- Today

The car was moving slowly. The rain had just started. The song was going to end, a melodious song, a good one to hear during a drizzle. Then the RJs voice crackled in the radio. The RJ talked in a great way. Shyam, a software engineer, who was driving his white Toyota Corolla, was enjoying it. He felt as if the program was being played for him. It had an invisible element, which seemed to connect with Shyam.

--------- Two months ago

Arun could not believe that it had happened. I was not an unusual thing, still he could not understand. He had tested the code very well, but one of the core functionality was missing. Arun was an expert programmer. He exactly knew the best way to write any code. It was as if, programming was born with him. No wonder that, the functionality was missing, because, if Arun would have done that, he would have done that perfectly.
With a project release nearing, and a tight work schedule, he could not do what he liked the most. This made him more sick and frustrated. He could not even spend one fourth of the time which he used to spend, when in college.

------------ Today

Shyam had started late from his office, and he cursed himself for setting up the onsite call that day. He never expected it too last too long, but things never turn the way we think. Shyam’s wife called him up asking him not to drive, but to take the office cab and come back home. But when Shyam stepped out of the office, it had just started to rain, and he decided that he should not miss the joy of driving. He wanted to relax, by driving on such a good climate and a traffic free road. He just prayed that, the radio be tuned up to his mood.

------------- Two months ago

But Arun hated the job. He hated it the most, though he was the best in his team and was expected to grow high in the corporate ladder faster than many others. He never showed his hatred, except for his talks with his close friends.
Arun’s success was more attributed to his voice and speech skills. A wonderful voice with a wonderful talking skill made all the girls in the company his fans. He had the sense of humour which appealed to everyone. He had a great fan following even in his college. From the college fest to the company’s annual event, everything went uneventful without his participation. Arun not only liked it, but thoroughly enjoyed it too.

---------- Today

It was called as Nair’s tea shop. Venu was not a Nair, but any person from Kerala, who sets up a tea shop in Tamil Nadu ends up being a Nair. He was a content and happy man. He had a large chunk of regular customers, and they had become more a friend than customers. His shop was open till midnight and he was back early morning to start his work. His rest was mostly in the afternoons and evenings. His customers were mostly the shift goers in the offices nearby. Around midnight he used to be idle, for very few customers used to come by. His entertainment was the radio he had got recently. The RJ never ceased to impress Venu.

------------- Two months ago

It was around 11 AM and Arun got into the white indicab. He had spent a whole day and night at the office and was not in a state to stay anymore. He just got in and rested himself. As the driver started the cab, Arun just wanted to get back home and sleep. He was in a semi conscious state, and he rested his head on the seat and started staring at the outside world through the window. It was twenty hours since he had seen this. The computer screen, which he had been seeing all day flashed in his mind. It refused to go away, and Arun tried hard not to think any more about that.
Suddenly the radio cracked to life, and he could hear the RJ say something. Then came the song and Arun was more into the song than the computer screen. He started talking to himself commenting on the song. He then dreamt about his voice flowing throughout the city, reaching all the people at all times.
It was supposed to happen. If it was supposed to happen, who could stop it? None. Arun never thought that its going to be a turning point in his life, a day which he will never forget throughout his lifetime. He could not figure out how he reached the radio station for the audition. Within an hour, he found himself surrounded with lots of audio equipment and he was anchoring a dummy show.


---------- Today

Within two months, he was a hit. He had a huge fan following from Venu to Shyam. Just as he came out, he saw the drizzle has not stopped. He boarded the radio firm’s car to his home. It was half an hour past midnight, still he was with his full energy. He was even ready to do the next programme.
He was staring out of the window. A man was closing his tea shop. There were no vehicles found on the road. After sometime a white Toyota Corolla overtook his car and zapped away. As Arun lowered the window glass more, he could feel the chill air brazing his face. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear his own voice drifting in the city air.

ஊனம்

திங்கக்கிழமை காலை அலுவலகத்திருக்கு கிளம்பி கொண்டிருந்தேன். இரண்டு நாள் விடுமுறைக்கு பின்பு அலுவலகம் போவது எப்போதுமே கடினம் தான். மனதை திட படுத்தி கொண்டு பள்ளிக்கு செல்லும் பிள்ளை போல் கிளம்பி சென்றேன்.எனது அலுவலகத்தில் மூன்று அடுக்கு மாடி கட்டிடங்கள் உள்ளன. அதில் மிகவும் உயரமான கட்டிடத்தில் தான் நான் வேலை பார்த்து கொண்டு இருந்தேன். அதில் ஆறு மாடிகள் உள்ளன. என் இருக்கை ஆறாவது மாடியில் இருந்தது. அங்கே தான் கம்பனியின் சீ இ ஒ வின் இருக்கையும் இருந்ததால் எனக்கு எப்பொழுதும் உள்ளுர ஒரு மகிழ்ச்சி. அதை தவிர தென் சென்னையின் பல பகுதியினை எங்கள் மாடியில் இருந்து பார்க்கலாம்.
ஆறு மாடிகள் உள்ளதால் அங்கு லிப்ட் வசதி உண்டு. இருந்தாலும் நான் தினம் காலையில் மட்டும் படியில் செல்வது வழக்கம். நான் செய்து கொண்டிருக்கும் ஒரே எக்செர்சிஸ் அது தான்.
மென்பொருள் துறையில் இரண்டு வருடம் வேலை பார்த்த பின்பு நான் சம்பாதித்தது உடல் பருமன் மட்டுமே.
அதை சரி செய்வதற்காகவே நான் மாடி படியை நாடினேன். எதோ நம்மால் முடிந்தது அது தான். வழக்கம் போல் லிப்டை கடந்து மாடி படியை நோக்கி சென்றேன்.
தினம் ஆறு மாடி ஏறுவது கடினமாகவே இருக்கும். போக போக பழகி விடும் என்ற நம்பிக்கையில் காலத்தை கடத்தி கொண்டிருந்தேன். ஆனால் இன்று பெரும் நம்பிக்கை உடன் சென்று கொண்டிருந்தேன். ஏனென்றால் இரண்டு நாள் முன்னால் தான் திருப்பதி சென்று வந்தேன். அங்கு நான்கு மணி நேரத்தில் நாலாயிரம் படிகள் ஏறின விளைவு.
ஆறு மாடிகள் ஒன்றும் இல்லை என்று தோன்றியது. லிப்டை கடந்து செல்லும் பொழுது போலியோ நோயினால் தாக்கப்பட்ட பெண்ணை கவனித்தேன். அவள் லிப்டுக்காக காத்திருந்தாள். நான் என் வழியை நோக்கி சென்று கொண்டிருந்தேன். மூன்று மாடிகள் ஏறிய பின் நான் அவளை பார்ப்பேன் என்று நினைக்கவில்லை. ஆம் கிழே பார்த்த அதே பெண். அவள் வேலை பார்ப்பது நாலாவது தளம் போல. மூன்று மாடிகள் லிப்டில் வந்து ஒரு மாடி படியில் ஏறுவது தான் அவள் வழக்கம் என்று உணர்ந்தேன். அந்த பெண் அவள் செயற்கை கால்களை தூக்கி ஒரு ஒரு படிகளாக ஏற என் கன்னத்தில் அறை விழுவது போல் ஒரு சத்தம். இனிமேல் எந்த காரியத்தையும் துச்சமாக நினைக்க கூடாது என்று முடிவு எடுத்தேன். அந்த பெண்ணின் நம்பிக்கை மற்றும் முயற்சியை பார்த்து மகிழ்ந்து கொண்டே இருக்கையை நோக்கி சென்றேன்.

Modi too is back...

Modi too is back. He is back into power in Gujarat as its Chief Minister for the third time. A clean sweep for the BJP, and he is the Gujarat CM for the third time. His next target must be to beat Jyoti Basu’s record of the longest serving CM.
So what is that makes Modi tick, with lots of controversies and talks about him (though this is common for any politician)? Looking into the news for the past few months, it seems Gujarat has shown exceptional growth, with a GDP higher than the national average. Modi is considered to be a smooth talker. Recently during the chief minister’s meeting, Prim Minister had stressed out not to read from the report that was prepared. Modi had immediately prepared a power point slide show about the developments that has taken place in Gujarat. This reminds more of Chandrababu Naidu the IT savy Chief Minister.
Modi might have done a lot to Gujarat and for its development. But he has surely missed out on one thing, the Ahmedabad railway station. Recently I had a chance to visit Ahmedabad, and the railway station was in a pathetic condition. Being the entry point for me into Gujarat, it was not a welcome scene. Gandhinagar may be a developed and a planned city, but that cannot be a reason for neglecting Ahmedabad, which is so close to it. May Modi take up this work as an agenda during his third year stint as CM. This may not be a high priority thing, but still doing that will not cause any harm.

Back Again...

At last somebody read my blog and sympathesised with my feelings. I got one personal email too. Not that I write a blog to get sympathy. Still it feels good in a way. It feels good to know that there are other people in this world with the same kind of feelings.
When i started writing this blog, I didn’t think of any title. Just started scribbling in the large blogger text box. Since it is related to my previous post, I then named it "Back Again". Hey hey, but don’t worry, I will put an end to this topic with this post, and wont bore you all people too much.
I think this itself will load you all too much. This post is somewhat different; in the sense I woke up my other personality to write this. So I am not sure about the response that I will get for this one.
The sad part is my other personality is not waking up. So I will end my second and final part here. Bye bye.

Back...

Today i learnt that i am suffering from multiple personality disorder. Not a surprising revelation, for most of the people in the world suffer from it. It gets bad only when it crosses the limit and thankfully only few persons fall in that category (I too do not fall in that category).
To make the other person in me happy, i am writing this blog. Yes, that personality occasionally comes up and forces me to write down some lines. I feel the "other" personality is suffering from a "compulsive writing disorder". The result is all the posts in this blog. But when my so called original personality comes back, it starts laughing at the posts and starts teasin my "other" personality about how "good" a writer it is. The "other" personality being weak and one which comes out rarely, stops doin that also. The result being a long gap between two consecutive posts.
The other problem is the length of each post. The "other" personality being so weak does not stay for long. Hence all the posts are very small. And i dont think that this post will be an exception.
I have already started feeling the "other" personality fading away. So before it fades away completely, let me tell you Good Bye.

Once again

This post is once again going to be the musings of my mind. I can hear the grumblings of the people who know me and who have read the first line. For those of you, who do not know, let me tell you one thing. If I say the post is going to be something that’s coming out of my mind alone, then its going to be damn boring, similar to the lecture of the teacher whom you hated the most.
I can broadly divide my posts into three kinds (looks similar to some theory)

1. posts that come as a result of my travel or reading
2. posts that looks like a short story
3. posts that are musings of my mind alone

This posts falls into the third category and the most boring of all the three. (I can hear people saying all the three are boring kinds). But based on the comparison, the third one gets the most votes for the boring category.
Its almost two weeks since my last post, and during the tamil new year only I had made a resolution to post at least an entry a week. Resolutions are to broken. Correct?

Bengalooru.....

As I got down from the K.R. Puram railway station, I could feel the change that Bangalore had undergone in the past one and half years. The railway platform was a newly laid one and thanks to the people of Bangalore and south western railway, it was still dirty and unclean. As I came out of the station and started heading towards the city, I could see new platforms on both sides of the road with rain water draining facility. I don’t know if they really work coz, it was real hot when I went there and it seemed there will be no rains for few days. In some areas, especially the Airport road, these new platforms had given rise to petty shops. When I peeped into one of this shop, I saw Mr. Bean smiling at me from one of the CD covers. They had a wide range of filmi CDs, ranging from the latest English blockbuster to the Indian language movies, mainly Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and of course Kannada. The auto trip was short and I decided to explore the city later.
The same evening I planned to walk around the city, as that will help me more in looking around. The first thing that caught my eye, when I reached the airport road was a red color bus, with some advertisement of a blue chip company. It was a low floored, air conditioned bus with the driver wearing dress similar to a chauffer. There was one more guy, dressed in the same way and standing near the door. The front, side and the back side of the bus had a digital display with the number 335 and some kannada text scrolling around next to it. The text then changed to English. It was the BMTC run new Volvo city buses. On enquiring, I found out that they charge something around 30 to 50 rupees based on which place you are going. I was not lucky enough to travel in the bus.
As I reached the Manipal Hospital Junction, a sign board said “Go only when it is Green”. It was a usual sign board you find it in many cities across India. That was not the one which had caught my attention. There was something else written under it. It read as follows “You are in a Wi-Fi zone”. I vaguely remembered coming across this term for the first time some four and half years ago. It was a sort of revolutionary technology at that time and it had not been implemented commercially. It was more on the research papers only. But now it had moved from developed country and it was trying to make in roads into developing once too.
Opposite to the Manipal Hospital stands a grand pink building, The Leela Palace, the five star hotel under the Leela Ventures group, with an architecture that more resembles a palace in Rajasthan. This hotel boasts of highest ARR (Average Room Rent) in India, with rents starting from Rs.7000/- and of course it is dollars for other country peoples. I had seen the hotel daily, when I stayed in Bangalore and something was different now. It took sometime for me to realize that, they have constructed a new section of the hotel, with their trademark large round pillars and domes at the top which decorated the old section of the hotel. When I left Bangalore, there was totally no sign of any work going on there. But now a whole new big section stood there. When I came down to Chennai, I went to their website just to find out that they had added 105 large sized premium rooms. They had mentioned that the hotel is ten minutes away from the airport. But the people of Bangalore know that’s only possible if there are no vehicles plying on the road. Some other articles about Leela Palace said that, the rooms are occupied throughout the year and booking had to made months in advance to really feel the Leela ambience.
Has India really changed? Can I answer this question positively by seeing these things? It has to be a yes, though I have to agree it is still the beginning and we have a really long way to go. I realized this on walking some more distance down the road. The beggar whom I used to see daily sitting in the platform stretch from britania industries to Nilgiris supermarket in the airport road was still there. The only difference was that he had a better platform to sit. Then another familiar face was the paani puri vendor just between the murugeshpalya stop and kempfort. Domino Pizza and the Hyderabadi Biriyani occupied the new building that had been constructed in the once vacant land behind him. I still remember seeing him once packing his little shop very hastily. That was to escape the police menace. The police used to come there to collect some money, as it was not legal to put shops in the platform.
India is really changing. But the effect should touch much more people than what it does now. Putting in the lines of Robert Frost, India has got a long way to go before it sleeps (incidentally, Nehru liked this line of Frost and has been seen quoting this often.).

Indian Railways

posted in alayam on 11/14/06

As I typed the southern railways URL, I was feeling proud. I was an ardent fan of the Indian railways, and tried to defend it when somebody criticized it. With 100 of trains passing daily behind my house, the sound of a train was dissolved in my mind and I never found it odd when a train passed by.
Today I was going to the Southern Railway website to check the spot the train section, a section which was introduced more than a year ago. It showed live positions of the train in the Chennai division covering a radius of about 200kms in the west and around 120km in the north and south.
I was looking for Bangalore Chennai Shatabdi Express. My dad was coming form Bangalore and the train had left Bangalore an hour late than the scheduled time. It was not found anywhere and so I concluded that it has not come within the Chennai division (Jolarpettai to be precise). It was around 6.30 pm when I checked that. With no work in office pending, I decided to start for home. After a tiring journey through the so called roads and the heavy traffic, I reached home at around 9 pm.
I directly went and switched on the computer and went to the same site. The site didn take much time to load and I was surprised not to find the train in the map. Has the train reached? No way. It would have been a before time, very unlikely in this case.
To my surprise I found all the trains very safe in the same place which I saw about one and half hours before. What happened to all the trains? It was raining but not that heavily to stop all the trains in the place for such a long time. The page kept on refreshing every minute, but strangely all the trains were at the same place. Then I saw a label at the top right hand corner of the map which said Last Updated Time: 13/11/2006 18:45.
I had seen the site only once before and all my impression about it crashed. It was raining heavily and I thought I will go to the station to receive my dad. I started cursing the railways and started towards the local station. I had to take a EMU train from that station to Chennai Central. I got the tickets and I walked towards the platform still cursing the railways.
I had a local train at 21.55 pm. As the time came there was no sign of the EMU coming. At the same time, I heard the sound of another train going at a very high speed. I turned around to get a glimpse of the train. The coaches were different Cream and blue in colour and air conditioned fully. Nobody could miss that even if it just flew by. Yes it was the Shatabdi Express.
I looked at my watch. 9.55pm. The train should reach central in another 10 minutes, delaying the journey time totally by half an hour and actually gaining half an hour in such a small time span. I smiled for the first time in an hour. Though many trains would have been sacrificed for making up this half an hour, I didn feel bad. I used to hate when Passenger trains were stopped to let express trains pass by. But not now. Dunno why. I called up my father to say that I will be waiting in the local station.
As I left the station after half an hour with dad, I was not cursing the railways.