The love for books I have isn’t inherent. At times, I would go after them and at other times, I won’t even open them.  I had one such seasonal passion some time back, that was after watching “God Father”. ‘Inspired’ by that movie, I read a lot of Mario Puzo books, and then followed a lull.

Recently, I spent some time with books. The first in the list was “A history of India” Vol-2 , by Romila Thapar, Percival Spear and Thomas George Percival Spear. It starts with the fall of Delhi Sultanate, covers the Mughals and completes with India under Nehru (till 1960s). This book kept me busy for a weekend travel.

Then I chose a book to keep up with the trend, “Devil take the hindmost: A history of financial speculation” by Edward Chancellor . Though, I didn’t complete the book I did complete some selected parts. The most interesting part was about Tulipomania. Dutch in 1620s had a craze for Tulip bulbs, it went on to build a bubble and met the fate of a bubble. I feel it might be an interesting read for you too!

The last book this season was a special one. It’s not the Title that made it special, it came from Vins as a birthday present. Also, this is the first time that I get a book as a present . The title was “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. It was a beautiful book. Thank you Vins!

One of our friends, Ramji, had dropped by our home this weekend. He was supposed to leave for Chennai on Sunday night at 10:30 PM. The boarding point was Shantinagar Bus Stand.

It was 21:30; Ramji, Vignesh* & Myself were earnestly waiting for a bus to Shantinagar in KG Bus Stand. By 21:45, we lost hope and checked for an auto. The driver coolly asked for a 2Xmeter charge. It really shocked me when he told the meter charge might come around Rs.150… He should really be having a ‘fast’ meter!

Just as we shunned the idea, a Shantinagar bus came. At last, Ramji was saved for the day. Vignesh and Myself, kept waiting in hope to find a bus to reach home. With every passing headlight our hope faded, but the bus never came. Our company of 100-150 odd people were running after any distant headlight. We had waited for almost 1:30hrs.

Vignesh asked if we could go in an auto. I always have a phobia of sorts against those three legged creatures. I would prefer to walk instead of getting into their ’stomach’. An idea struck; what about a train? We had a deal, if we don’t find a train we would go in an Auto.

Once I had boarded a train to Chennai from KR Puram. So, I was a bit confident I won’t be made to get into an Auto. Kaveri Express was our savior. As usual, the train which was supposed to start at 23:45 moved only at 00:30 ( At times I feel Emergency days were better).

Need to mention the unreserved compartment. I could only feel sorry for those people. People cuddled along the pathway and even close to the toilets. Unfortunately, even the toilet door failed them. It couldn’t be locked. We couldn’t stand the stink. They don’t even have the ‘privilege’ of a TTR. Eventually, we moved to another part of the compartment. Vignesh, even suggested if we could move to ’second class’ compartment. After all, if the RPF/TTR asks us to get down in the next station we would be at our destination.

It is a 1km walk from KR Puram station to our home. By the time we stepped into our flat it was 01:15.

It was really a revelation. At some distant point in our country a lot of fuss is being made about traveling in Economy class. What class is this?

* – Vignesh is a recent addition to our roles.

Weekends have become so eventful these days. Three days break; what do I in Bangalore? When I was pondering over this question, I came to know that one of my old pals was coming to Madurai, so was my brother. That gives a good reason to be there!

Tickets? I didn’t have any. So, Sai krishna became Senthil kumaran.

The meeting point was fixed. Eight of us met. The decision to go for a movie was unanimous. “A Wednesday”’s remake was the best option. Though I have seen “A Wed…” , I had no reason to say no.

Watching a movie in theater is real fun. I have never been to multiplexes; so, I won’t comment on the audience out there. But, you can see a lively audience in theaters around Madurai, ‘A’ class people call them ‘B’ class centers. The comments made in the open air about the scenes are really enjoyable. At times, a movie becomes much better by these comments than by itself.

I happened to go for ‘Eeram’ this Sunday with family. It was an about-to-happen murder scene, the audience were caught in the thrill; in came a voice ,”Aiyooyoooooo….”, with a feminine tone. The theater broke out in laughter. Everyone loved the moment.

Often I believe ‘The Operator’ is the most patient human in the world. Any thing that goes wrong in the ‘worldly’ theater has the blame on The Operator. But at times they do rack one’s patience.

The Operator had his occasion a couple of times. In a land where Hindi still remains ‘anti-dravidian’ and only learnt by would-be-ministers, it doesn’t make sense to have Hindi Ads before the movie starts. Yeah.. you guessed right, I joined the crowds in shouting “Ek,  Dho, theen…” (interestingly, they stopped with 5, that famous Hindi song was too fast for them to catch up!)

Not to forget the lone light that keeps On even after the movie has crossed a good 15mins. So, someone quipped, “Operator, light ah anaika onga appa varuvaara?!!”. #DarknessPrevailed#

“I shot an arrow into the air” , the first few lines of this poem has been engraved in my heart. So much that, those were the lines that came to my mind when I met my friend after 10 years.

Its really hard to forget that poem, I think that was part my primary school English book.

This Sunday was made special by him. He now works in IAF… A feeling of envy was then overwhelmed by a reconciliation with reality.

We met at the Kempagowda Bus station. He had to report back to the unit before it was too late, so had to bid adieu in 30mins.

Not long ago, I had a get-together with my KV Karaikudi classmates. I left that school for KV Madurai after completing my 6th grade. It was amazing to see them again… We spent an entire day debating our adventures. Even, I had a long list!

My best bet to win is:

Once, in my 6th Grade, I had to climb down from my first floor classroom window with the help of water outlet pipes because I didn’t complete an assignment! I only wonder if I could repeat that stunt again!

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.

I am a believer in God. But, unlike our family circle, prayers and hymns are alien to me. So, my motivation to visit Shirdi was driven more by my parent’s wish than my own.

My brother and myself did all the planning. This was a trip of so many ‘firsts’. Made my first air travel. Between Bangalore and Pune. Pune to Shirdi… bus was at 12:30 a.m. So once I boarded the bus, I don’t know what transpired for the next 5hrs.

Reached Shirdi on a Sunday morning. Most hotels read House full and the pricing was exorbitant (as expected). Finally we got a room close to Dwarkamai for Rs.1200 ! It was really pathetic.

Sunday is not really a good time to be at shirdi, it is over crowded. So dropped plans of visitng the samadhi mandir. The shirdi temple is one big complex now. The Dwarkamai, Chavadi, Lendi bagh and other places are in and around the temple complex. We visited all these places on the first day.

We got a lot of help from Mr.Vichu Iyer, Sai Madras Hotel. He pointed us to “Dwaravati Bakthanivas”. It is run by the Sai Sansthan Trust itself. We got the rooms there on Monday. The price was Rs.550/day for 4 people. The hygiene was excellent as well.

We went to visit the samadhi mandir on Monday, early in the morning. Stood in the queue for 1Hr and after the darshan went again for another darshan. It was really heart filling. Another good aspect was, there was only one single queue; I mean, there was no economy class and business class queues in here.

Another thing was the dogs. You could find dogs roaming inside the temple, they were well fed, clean and very social too

Shanisingnapur… Its a almost 70km journey from Shirdi. Cars ply to this place, they charge you Rs.70/head to and fro. They will take you to there and will ‘command’ you to take bath, rent a dhoti and buy ‘puja’ stuffs. Beware, they are cheats. Before gettng into their car better tell them that you won’t buy their stories. I read in web about this and paid no heed to their flimsy rituals.

If you wish to perform Abishekam, you need to bath and come in dhoti. That too, I am not sure, better check with the security office. But, don’t listen to the car driver.

So Tuesday morning was spent in visiting Shanisingapur. We had a darshan of Baba again in the evening. I felt very content.

Need to mention the Bhojanalaya. The complex could serve thousands in one sitting. Well maintained. And the charge is Rs.6/adult. Its a bit far from the temple.

We had the flight from Pune to Bangalore in the evening so left shirdi by 8:45am. The Prasanna tours vehicle…. this was the worst part of the trip. The bus actually left Shirdi only 9:30am. Till then … sigh… 6hrs of travel for a distance of 180km. The road and the bus were horrible but it was much better when compared to the driver’s attitude.

At the end, I felt fortunate enough to have visited Shirdi. In my parents’ words, it was Gods’ will.

Sairam Rajaram.

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?

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…

Courtesy: The Hindu 

They mean that they have voted and nothing else.

“All power to the people!”

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!)

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.

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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. 

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