Journey to Shirdi

A mild pain at the tip of the nose, my lips tend to curve and the tear glands finally yield under pressure. This was how felt when I had the first glimpse of Sai Baba at Shirdi.

My parents had wished to visit Shirdi over the last two decades but couldn’t make it. They say its God’s will. This is something I don’t understand and would never argue with my parents.

P.Kakkan – Unsung Leader

After reading about Mr.P.Kakkan in an article in The Hindu (here) today, I thought of writing something which I had heard from my father. But a brief search gave me what I intended to write (here).

It is said, he didn’t have the money to pay for a special ward and was lying in the veranda of the Govt Hospital, Madurai. Dr.M.G.Ramachandran was on a visit as Chief Minister, he noticed Kakkan and helped him.

Some time back, I visited Thirumogur (an old temple near othakadai). It was late in the evening, a convoy of SUVs made a halt opposite to the temple. The lead car had two dobermans ( no pun intended!) enjoying the view of the road; for a second I thought it could be some minister. But the person was just a ward head of some ‘local’ party.

Mr.Kakkan was really a great man. The sad part is, in contemporary terms, people would call him “pozhaika theriyadha manushan”.

If I have to give a word of advice to the current politicians, I would quote from the Tamil movie Roja Kootam, Raghuvaran’s advice to Srikanth; But, who am I to advice them?

A reflection of Congress’ mood

The UPA is back to power. The Left is left out. The economy has picked up in a day (sorry, in minutes!). The Share market indexes have touched the ceiling.

Sounds Great!

But there is another way to explain this propulsion. Of course, its an imagination. 

Suppose I operate in a market where there are 10 companies listed and 3 companies determine the index. I have a group of friends who do just what is told to them. I split them into 2 groups, buyer and seller.

A scrip which is at 10 will be sold at 20 and the other group will promptly buy that. I do that so fast that once the opening bell rings the index touch the ceiling!

Just wondering if that can be done with huge markets like NSE or BSE! If yes, I would love to try it out. But, for that I need to be …….

He..hee..hee…

What a family Sir Ji

Courtesy: The Hindu 

They mean that they have voted and nothing else.

“All power to the people!”

ITs Raining ‘Clouds’

Cloud computing… Every other day I find the term mentioned at some place. Recently, I came across a few cloud computing models. So, if you are not much bothered about privacy, then cloud could (wow! displace ‘l’ by 2 places) be a decent proposition for reducing costs. But, I don’t see cloud computing to be completely new, its more like an enhancement to the idea of thin clients; Old wine in new bottle.

The first site that I came across was :

http://cloudo.com

Later on, found EyeOS to be much better. Better, because, you have it available as a package which you can deploy in your own system (webserver + php required), its licensed under AGPL and few parts under LGPL and a lot of applications are available.

How about giving a try? Yup, I did it. With the free account available on their site as well as installing in a local system (thanks Nachi for sys, well, he may come to know this only after reading it here!)

The Mahatma’s belongings — Any takers?

Mahatma Gandhi’s metal-rimmed glasses might have been ’saved’. But, the world he wanted to see through those glasses will remain at large. It has no takers as yet.

Honestly, I hated that man in my childhood. I won’t use the word ‘Mahatma’ for him even in my exams. I was inspired by militant nationalists during my history classes. I felt, only a fool would get thrashed like that. When years passed he grew in stature in me.

Now, he is my inspiration. In his own words, “my life is an open book”,  it showed how one average  man (he wasn’t a genius) can change the world. 

Any takers for those belongings of the Mahatma? btw, you can’t buy it but only imbibe.

<note>

Mahatma hated liquor to the core. The new owner of his personal belongings has a nickname, “Liquor Baron”. I can only laugh at this ‘cruel’ conjuction. 

</note>

A close call

Ever dreamt of being hit by a crane?  Neither do I. But, yesterday I escaped from it, in reality, by a half a dozen yards!

Last evening I returned from office a bit early than usual. While crossing the road near my home, I heard a few construction workers raising an alarm. There was a truck-mounted-crane going berserk . The sensible driver was looking for a place to crash his errant beast. At last it was a tree which ’sacrificed’ its existence. Fortunately no one got hurt.

I live!

Movie spree!

Too many movies indeed (in my terms!). In the past week I saw 3 new movies with family. Bharathiraja has always amused me and given an option I would prefer him to Mani Ratnam, all because of the originality. So, Bommalattum came first in my itinerary.

But for various ‘unknown’ reasons Bommalattum was not even running in a single cinema hall in Madurai. And Vaaranam aayiram was running in a lot of theaters [1] [2]. Probably, Bommalattum was a superior competitor. Has anyone got a different reason?

Vaaranam Aayiram , Bommalattum & Abhiyum Nanum. Bommalattum (minus vivek ‘jokes’) was the best among them ; the other two were also good.

At the height of Goondaism

 

I never believed that the RTO has started issuing names to vehicles instead of numbers…. untill I saw this.

who is the 'annan'?

This shot was taken in Madurai. 

Is there anyone in Madurai who has the guts to penalize the owner of this vehicle?

Update: Missed Out

I have no regrets for making the Vulture-Television Journalist comparison… Even The Hindu came up with one such in this week’s Magazine supplement, http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/12/21/stories/2008122150060100.htm . Surendra’s cartoon was apt.