Sachin - A tribute

I have always been a supporter of underdogs. I never liked anybody run away with all the glory and records. Be it Schumacher or Federer or Sachin. I always supported Kimi, Nadal and anybody who would come close to Sachin’s record. First it was Dravid, then Ganguly, Ponting and now Kohli. On several occasions I have said that Ponting will break Sachin’s records which my friends won’t let me forget.
To make it clear, I always liked, admired and loved Sachin. As with anybody else, my question always used to be “Score? How much Sachin?” But he was never my favourite cricketer. Probably in our insignificance, Sachin critics (sometimes me as well) could never fathom that somebody could be so great, so loved and so respected - by so many people at the same time. Personally I could not accept that somebody, anybody – could not stand somebody standing heads and shoulders above others.

But Sachin, You are not just anybody.

If there is anybody who could unite the whole of India, it is You, Sachin. Divided by states, United by God. Nobody else deserved the Honour, Respect and Love with which we said our goodbyes than You. It was great that Your retirement was separated from the others because You do deserve that special GoodBye. You were the greatest batsman but a much much greater Man.

Not only do I love, respect and admire You. I, like 1.1 billion other people am now your devotee. I can’t be a true Indian otherwise. I was wrong. You did not run away with all the records and glory. You earned all Glory, Records, Love and Respect.

SACHIIINNN SACHIINN!!! SACHIIINNN SACHIINN!!!

The new Digg Reader

Being  a Google Reader user for more than 4 yrs, I'm suddenly  thrust into the world of RSS feed aggregator sites, none of which have the features or the useability like Google Reader, and its getting increasingly tougher to keep myself updated. It is difficult to point any 1 feature out but G R filled all my needs perfectly. Whether it was Starring or Sharing or commenting or just mark as unread. Its very surprising that features which seem insignificantly mundane have not been included in the newer readers.

The Digg Reader gave me a lot of hope but it does not match up either. But it does seem the best among the alternatives available. Some of the features they could add/ modify are

• I cannot see how articles are unread. And if I do not know how many articles are unread, then I will not know how long it takes for me to finish that segment and in that confusion I lose the interest to read. 
• I do not have the mark as unread feature.
• While adding a new feed, I discovered Digg's very well hidden Browse feature. It would be extremely useful if that option was highlighted.
• In Google Reader, the fonts, layouts and colours were such that each post seemed separate from the other. In Digg, all the posts seem a huge cluster and it feels intimidating to start with.
• I again cannot stress enough how important the unread count is for me.
• The dull theme in Digg is boring. Bright white in Google Reader is energizing as well as increases clarity.

I am posting these suggestions to Digg as well. I hope they are added in the list of features to be implemented.

What should Whatsapp do?

Whatsapp has taken over Mobile SMS and has sort of become the defacto messaging standard. They were probably responsible for the fall of Blackberry, especially in India. With constant updates making the App easier to use and more beautiful, at some level Whatsapp is the biggest App on the web. I for one use it a lot more than any other App. So if Mobile is the future, Whatsapp has the most firm footing on that front. Infact whatsapp like google is now a verb in the urban dictionary
The only problem, how do they make money?
At the moment Whatsapp charges the user a small measly amount per year. The amount also depends on the OS and the country. Windows OS and Android is free for a year and after that is $0.99 per year, iOS has a one time fee of $0.99. In India they have not yet started charging. I have not paid for the service and am using it for more than 3 years.
Now Whatsapp cannot start charging higher than they are right now. Users will simply shift to another cheaper App and developing an IM App is not rocket science. Whatsapp should also be wary of Google. The search giant has killed a lot of companies by coming up with already existing services. The most recent being Drive and Keep. They just might tweak their GTalk and make it an effective competitor for Whatsapp.
Whatsapp backs up all their user data. At 10 billion messages a day, that is a lot of storage. To aid further development they do need funds, however efficient they are as a company.

Whatsapp in my opinion has 2 options

• Sell to Google, Nokia or Samsung - make a cool truck load of money and leave. Those companies I am sure are ready to pay top dollar to integrate the world's most popular instant messaging App onto their OS.
• Develop related services and increase dependencies by linking and integrating all those services, just like how Google does. This would make Whatsapp a mini OS under the main OS. 

Recent rumours were that Google was looking to buy Whatsapp for $1 Billion. Now that would put Whatsapp on par with Instagram. But I personally think Whatsapp has more potential and with a little financial backing, can reach for the skies.

Universe through glasses made on Earth

The universe originated with the Big Bang. According the science we know, that is the most plausible explanation. But that exactly is my point. Every thing we presume in the universe is based on what we know. Which might not be the same everywhere.
For all you know, gravity might be a repulsion force.
We might have discovered that the earth is not at the centre of everything, but at heart we still believe it does.
Parallel Theory does acknowledge this, but then ends up saying that is a different universe.

The Best to-Do List on Android

Productivity tools are great. A great calendar App and a good to-Do list App are a must for any power user.   Being extremely interested in getting organized (following through is another matter), I went on a quest to find the best to-Do list out there.
Lets get to the requirements.

• A good looking to-Do list on android market
• Should have a web version so that I can add tasks while working on the laptop
• Easy to use
• Should have a nice widget which makes my tasks visible without spoiling the look of my home screen
• Preferable if they have an extension on Chrome

What one might need or like in an App is extremely subjective, so I suggest you get the one that works for you.

Samsung memo

This is the stock one I got with my phone. Hardly any features to talk about.

TaskOS

A nice good looking App. But the widget is not that elegant. Plus at the time I installed it almost 6months back, they did not have any task repeat features. At that point I needed an App which would give me the option of repeating several tasks

Wunderlist

A lovely App. An extension in Chrome as well. Nice and Easy to make lists. A decent widget on the home screen. Again not task repeatability.

Gtasks

A nice App. Has sync with Google option which is good I assumed. But basically Google has a very bad product in the form of Google tasks. I wonder why that is though, considering they are making so many Web applications, a decent Task functionality and a simple Note taking App shouldn't be that hard. 

I started making a lot of mundane tasks repeatable and added them to the list. After sometime, looking at these mundane tasks show up and cover the entire widget area, hence restricting visibility of the important tasks made me realize that I needed to prioritize tasks. Unfortunately GTasks did not have that feature, so out it went.

Astrid

This App was perfect. Easy to make lists. A nice web App. Task repeatability and priority options. This was perfect until the notifications for the several repeatable tasks started bugging me. The App seemed too noisy at that time.

Any.Do

The most beautiful to-Do list App by far. Had all the features I needed. The inbuilt dictionary and word prompt was very handy. I could link it to my contacts. For Eg: Call X, would link it to X's contact so I could call directly from the App. Also it would remind me of missed calls. A Chrome extension. Overall very nice, very neat. Only problem was the user. I realized that putting mundane everyday tasks on your lists in repeat mode was actually a dumb idea. For that I suggest you use Routinely or Habit Streak. 

So I decided to remove all existing tasks and set it up again. But the App does not have a clear all tasks option. Extremely ridiculous. And deleting tasks the repeat is a hard troublesome task on this App.

Anyways I shifted back to wunderlist. But the problem with wunderlist is that some pending tasks which I do not have to finish by any time are not displayed on the widget. Only Today's tasks are displayed. It shows an empty screen if there are no tasks today but not the pending tasks. 

Finally shifted back to Astrid which with out my several repeatable tasks is perfect for my needs. Works like a charm and I have nothing to complain about at all.

If you need a to-Do list App, I suggest you try Astrid first.

EVERNOTE HELLO

Ever since I started using Evernote, I have been constantly following them as I think they come up with some good stuff. So after a long wait for Evernote Hello ( the ios app was out a while back) I finally downloaded a coupla weeks back. The app was good. The idea behind it was nice. Probably the me of a coupla yrs back would have definitely used the app. But I am not in the novelty-for-novelty-sake phase anymore. I really could not see myself doing the whole shendig to add a simple contact.

What Hello does or says is there are ways a person remembers thru people he meets. So Hello is supposed to help you sort your contacts in that manner. The app itself has a nice UI. I liked the look and feel. The idea of saving contacts in a why your brain remembers them is innovative as well. Some features are a little buggy but I am assuming Evernote will iron these out. 
What I did not like is I cannot sync all my contacts from Google to Evernote. I need to do them one at a time.
The whole process of how you meet a contact is complicated. You really will not have the patience to complete it out in a regularly. 
So far I have not been able to change the gps tags of the few contacts that I did add. It doesn’t seem to be a bug. I just don’t have the option to.
I hope Evernote comes up with better sync and integration options. Else it will just be an app people might download but never use.

* Just tried to add a new contact. It randomly chooses my current location as the the location where we met which is understandable. But it links the note I edited just before as a related note. That was a note about my bank details which is a bad mistake. 
I uninstalled the app

I'm Getting Back!!!

I am looking to get back to blogging after a loooong looooong time. I was also contemplating shifting to Tumblr. I probably can maintain both and keep them in sync. Looking forward at getting back though!!

The Bangalore I can never experience again

A few days back I was watching a Ramesh Bhatt, Anant Nag and Shankar Nag starrer. I think it was based in the late 80s or the early 90s. I prefer these kind of movies to the Ambareesh-RajKumar starrers as they are more reality based, and are funny for the most part. These movies also show a lot of the old Bangalore. While seeing the movie I felt really sad that Bangalore has now lost its charm.
The roads were calm. Going to MG Road was the most happening thing. Free pepsi while shopping for clothes in Kids Kemp was so exciting. Kids Kemp at that point was a luxury. Most of my shopping was done at WearHouse on Commercial streets. The coolest shoes then were Bubble Gummers. Next came the Action(Light) shoes.
Most families would travel on the bike. Dad in front. Son on the tank. Mom sitting sideways in behind and the smaller kid inbetween mom and dad. To protect my face from the wind, I had to wear my "monkey Cap" before sitting on the bike. Ind Suzuki and CD100 were the most common bikes.
Bangalore airport was almost empty. An aunt or an uncle coming from the US required 2 cars from the extended to family to pick them up. Coming from "America", they had huge suitcases filled with stuff to distribute.
Chalukya Hotel and Vidyarthi Bhavan were regular places to hang out then. They no longer are. Not because they are not cool. Now you cannot just walk in on a weekend and expect a table. And Koshy's was a cool place to hang out. Marie and Parle-G were the only biscuits available.
Going with my mom to Janatha Bazaar Super Market was so exciting as the shop was so huge. Nowadays my mom cant get me to go to Spencers to buy something, but back then I used to volunteer.
Playing crticket with rubber balls was common. At Rs 8 a ball it was manageable. But at Rs 25 a Cosco tennis ball, who ever lost it HAD TO FIND IT. And now if I look back at all the circus we used to do find the damn tennis ball, I am lucky to be still walking.
And TV, Orson was the most popular TV back then. We had 12 channels. And my dad's remote was me. I was repeatedly sent to change channels which I would do with so much enthusiasm.

Now when I look at Bangalore, everything is so commercial. Its crowded and worst of all the old world charm of a lazy city is gone. I do understand that with India growing so fast cities do grow. But I am sure if better planned, some parts of the city could've been saved. Now you can hardly find places that can be considered rustic. The cosmopolitan culture is nice, but because of that, Our "Bangalore culture" is lost.

My parents enjoyed Bangalore at its best. I caught glimpses of it. The next generation will grow up in a fast moving metro hardly any different from the rest :(

On a related note, Mysore has stil at some level managed to retain the calm, serene feel. I just hope the next generation Mysorians don't lose it like our generation Bangalorians.

Animals FACE OFF!!!

This is kinda insane but I have been interested in pitching various animals against each other just to see which one wins.

Like wouldn't you want to know who would win in a match between and crocodile and a shark, or a grizzly and a siberian tiger or a hippo against a lion.

Anyways after months of time pass googling and reading from several sources- I can say I am pretty well informed in this depatrment. So starting from today I am going to pitch one animal against the other and tell you how it is going to go.

Who knows may be we can make it a knock out tournament to see which animal is the best fighter.

Special thanks to Umar who helped me a lot with my research on the craazy nights in Trivandrum.

First off

Croc Vs the Hippo

Crocodiles

The salt-water crocs in Australia grow to a length of 21 ft and weigh an astonishing 1200 kgs. They have one of the most powerful bites in the animal kingdom. The hide is very very thick and the tail packs a powerful whack for those who think they can attack it from behind.

The can swim upto speeds of 25 kmph, but need to come to the surface to breathe.

Hippos

They are one of the most dangerous animals in the whole of Africa(lions included). They weigh about 1800-2000 kgs. They are very aggressive and extremely territorial. And they kill a lot of humans. Only that this happens in africa so its not a big deal.

The Battle-field: a swampy slow moving river with a bank for the loser to run for safety.

Result(Extremely surprising): The Hippo wins 10/10 times. The croc stands no chance. The hippos jaw will snap the croc in half and before he knows it he'l be a suitcase and a pair of boots.

If you don believe me check this out.

My ride to whitefield, Jugaad and why India is growing despite itself

Every day I ride to whitefield, and yes its very very tiring. But what choice do I have. Going by bus is not an option- it takes double the time and is extremely boring. So riding is the best option. But it still takes an hour.

But after going riding for about 2 weeks I started finding ways to make my journey shorter. I go through gullies, riding on the footpath on some occasions and occasionally during extreme jams. I also squeeze between cars and change lanes to make maximum use of the little pockets of free road.

Contrary to being indisciplined, I think it makes sense that some of us do this. It reduces the load on the already clogged road. When a few people do this, it reduces the jams and makes maximum use of the resources. Occasionally the odd amateur creates a bigger jam. But thats just a learning experience. Soon he finds ways to get home faster without delaying himself or others. I know this is not the ideal thing to do. But I am not riding on ideal roads.

I guess this applies to India as well. The resources are never adequate. So people start finding shortcuts to work around that and the system. Making most use of our precious resources is what has kept us growing.

India cannot be compared to the west were resources are in abundance. Here people need to be more innovative, creative and have to really think out of the box. And this happens at the lowest levels- from rural India to small traders and businesses.

Now back to whitefield, if everybody maintained a minimum of 2 feet distance between the vehicle in front of you- the jam would look orderly but would be a mile long.

So before you comment saying "See the west. Everything is so orderly"... remember at some level it is our disorderliness which is helping us grow- and right now at a tremendous pace.

I would also like to share this post which I read recently

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/columnists/swaminathan-s-a-aiyar/Jugaad-is-our-most-precious-resource/articleshow/6313513.cms

Best Dosa of Bengaluru!!!

I wanted to create a post about all the best dosa in namma Bengaluru. So here goes!!

Masala dosa-----> CTR.

Tried Vidyarthi Bhavan( was the undisputed winner till eating at CTR and Vidyarthi Bhavan on consecutive days proved it that CTR was by faaaar the better place for masala dosas). Though for the whole Dosa experience a lot more places come to mind.

Sid and I had an argument/discussion and these were our finalists

• CTR
• Vidyarthi Bhavan
• Dwaraka
• Janardhan
• Janatha hotel
• India Coffee house, Queen's road
• South Indies
• Dakshin
• Adigas
• Komala, Frazer town
• Empire, Church street (Dosa paneer butter masala combo)
• Pecos, Rest house road (Dosa and veg/chicken curry combo)
• New Krishna Bhavan, Balakpet
• Malabar, Balakpet
• MTR
• Jayanagar Dosa camp
• Food street, Sajjan Rao circle

If anybody has any other place to mention in the list, feel free to comment.

Also your mom's dosa doesn't count cuz I meant commercial joints.

The plan is to go eat a dosa at each place on separate days and rate the complete dosa experience. Who is in?

Things I do which I can't explain myself

I am a paranoid about symmetry. Especially with my feet and hands.

With my hands it is along the X,Y and Z axes. If I make an action with my hand where in my hand pointing along an imaginary X axes, I HAVE TO make the same action along the Y and Z axes relative to the X axis.

With my feet(which is limited in movement compared to my hands) the symmetry is with respect to 45degrees axis on the X-Y plane.

If i go to sleep on one side, and if I do wake up, i turn over to maintain symmetry.

I remember phone numbers by thinking of deep, intricate links between the numbers and positions of the numbers- with the logic mostly involving prime numbers.

I multiply numbers using the overs concept. Let me explain. If you ask me 42*7, in my mind it is 42 overs is 252 balls + 42 runs for runrate of 7, so 294.

I usually change the gear of my bike when the Tacho meter needle and the speedometer needle is almost parallel.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEPSI'S ADVERTISING

I love ads. Creative, well made ads are a treat and are very enjoyable. It is when the ads are stupid, and you are forced watch them in between every over, it makes you start hating the damn product/company.

Remember Pepsi's ads during the 1996 cricket world cup. The whole "nothing official about it" theme, the "More cricket, more Pepsi" theme in retaliation to Coke's "Eat cricket, sleep cricket, drink only Coco-Cola" ads. The rivalry between coke and Pepsi ads on the national and the global scene was legendary. Remember the kite flying between Sachin and Amitabh in the Pepsi ads.

Those ads very nice.

Pepsi always had a good campaign, unlike Hero Honda who I think has the worst ad campaign ever. I hate Hero Honda's ads so much that now I has even affected my liking for the company.

In justification to my hatred for Hero Honda, please please watch this ad.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpX7f-afqHw .....This one of the worst ads I have ever seen.

Back to Pepsi, Pepsi roped in Ranbhir, and coke roped in Imran. Both are young upcoming actors. Both the ads are wired during the IPL matches. I like the Imran ad where he is in a bus drinking coke from an invisible bottle. Not an awesome ad but I like it.

But the Pepsi ad, where some weird dude in a weirder voice says "Drink Pepsi now" and Ranbhir says yes and drinks it. Then there is some seriously irritating background music which goes like "Naa naa na na na Youngisthan ka Wow" with an even more irritating Ranbhir displaying a stupid toothy smile.

I used to like Ranbhir before the ad, now I find him irritating. And personally, the ad spoils my IPL.

This is my list of the most Pissing off ads during this IPL

• The Akshaye Kumar's stupid laughing Videocon mobile ad.
• The Havell's ad where people look up to pray and then there is a stupid fan which wont let you down.
• The Spice ad where the kids say in classroom talking about some bua in UK - How is it even related to Spice.
• The "Youngisthan ka Wow" Pepsi ad.
• The JK cement ad where a girl in a bikini walks out of the water and they say JK cement. (this ad is not aired much during IPL but it had to be on this list)
• All the Hero Honda ads......EVER.

The ads which I like are

• The coke ad with Imran.
• The Docomo ads are nice.
• The Airtel ads with Sharman Joshi.
• The Sprite ads...all of them.
• The Nokia-KKR become a coach ad
• And the best of them all- for the creativity,for how well it is made, and for creating that anticipation for the ads among the viewers- THE HUTCH ZOZO CAMPAIGN.

So Pepsi please change your ad, Hero Honda.. PLEASE STOP ADVERTISING

MAJGE.......priceless

I remember last year around feb, I was working at Rida, no job security, things were going baad, was financially in an unenviable situation. Things were not going good on several fronts, pressure from home about why TCS hadn't called yet. I used to go the Sri Vinayaka Bakery and drink majge - it used to cost rs 4 then. There were several occasions when I did not have cash to pay for my majge. I had an account there, so I used to tell aunty "Ivaga dudd illa..naale".

Things changed. I left Bangalore, went to Trivandrum, then Hyderabad. Whenever I came to Bangalore I made sure I visited that shop whenever I was passing that way. Aunty always remembered me and asked me how I was.

I got a transfer to Bangalore. My office is very close to Rida now. Today I was passing by that shop and I decided to stop for majge. From being totally broke, no security and depressed and low on confidence to being atleast a little financially stable, with job security, a happier and a more confident person....a lot has changed in one year. But sitting on the roadside and drinking the same magje was awesome..After drinking my majge I opened my wallet only to find a Rs500 note. So I had to tell aunty "Change illa aunty, next time".

It was like the master card add where everybody is fighting for the bill.

A majge at aunty's 5rs....saying "Ivagilla aunty naale kodthini"..PRICELES

my Resolutions for 2010

These are my resolutions for 2010. I am putting them up here and uploading the link on Facebook as I want to make it as public as possible. So if anybody sees me lax regarding these, you can point it out to me. If anybody catches me lax more than 3 times regarding any one of the resolutions below- a treat in corner house is awaiting.

So here goes

• I am going to exercise for an hour a minimum of 3 days a week.
• I am going to be more involved at home and spend more time wid my grandparents(this one is for you maa).
• I will get more organized and disciplined and keep up my time.( this is for you paa).
• I personally feel I can talk better, so I am going to work on that.
• I am going to read a minimum of 3 books a month.
• There will be a minimum of 2 posts per week on my blog.
• Improve mind control.
• Will work on being in a calmer state of mind.
• Take better care of my health, so no more chocolates at adda :(
• I will save up atleast 50% of my salary(again this one is for my dad).
• I WILL CONTINUE TO REMAIN AWESOME ;)

Constraint:Points can be added on to these but they cannot removed from these.

Additions: I vow to be positive, more efficient and think big in all my actions.

Pyaar Impossible

The fact that you try to mix up a romantic comedy with data theft and an irritating kid is not what f***s it up. What does is the fact that Uday Chopra has decided not only to act but also produce and write the story and asks his even bigger flop friend Jugal Hansraj to direct it.

Since the stupidity quotient in the movie is sooo huge I have decided to classify them into major and minor.

MINOR stuff

• Priyanka Chopra is the PR head and Marketing head of her company, and she plays a major role in all deals related to products struck by the company.
• She goes to these meetings dressed like she's on the beach in Hawaii.
• Though she studies in some shitty university, got pregnant at 18, been a single mom since then - she's managed to become the Marketing head of a company at the age of 25.
• Mr Dimwit Uday creates a brilliant operating system which is stolen by Dino Morea in 2mins by Copy-Paste method.
• The deal is struck by PR head Priyanka and the software is immediately deployed.
• Priyanka's daughter is 6, yet has more gyaan to give than a 40 yr old.
• Uday Chopra prevents Dino Morea from showing the software by putting a user account password.
• The only person stupider than Uday Chopra's character Abhay Sharma is Uday Chopra himself.

MAJOR stuff

• Uday Chopra took money from his dad to produce a movie.
• Uday Chopra took money from his dad to produce a movie with his own story.
• Uday Chopra took money from his dad to produce a movie with his own story and decided to act in it.
• Uday Chopra took money from his dad to produce a movie with his own story and decided to act in it and ask his even bigger flop friend Jugal to direct it.

VERDICT: Watching this movie even for sexy Priyanka is not worth it.

Twitter's Revenue Model

Few days back, the number tweets exceeded the world population.
Also Twitter got to know about a recent small earthquake faster than the local media could get to know about it.
They have 70million users and they’ve grown 1300 odd% in a year.
But yet they don’t have a revenue model and don’t make any money.
So here are a few things I think they can do to become profitable.

• Divide the screen space and display ads.
  This is a tough one as people like Twitter for its simplistic view. But still there is a lot of screen space they can utilize. They can probably divide the page and on one side are the ads related tweets. These tweets can have graphical content which will stand out in comparison to the text based tweets. To tweet here ( lets call it b-tweets) you need to pay something to Twitter. They could charge you per tweet or per month with a usage limit or for the data content. Put in a lot of options which will give a lot of choice for businesses.
  


• Customized feeds.
  Twitter should ask people if they would like to subscribe for customized feeds of they're interests. Something like Yahoo does when you sign up, they ask you to check your interests. There would some people who would check for something which would make a portion of the users not complain about ads since they asked for it. Of course others like us should have the option of not getting any ads on our personal area.
  


• Communities/ Fan clubs
  Twitter should also have this thing like fans/communities where people with similar interests could have conversations. I think since Twitter is so open, there is no directions to the tweets; which is nice in a way but people should be able to direct it if they want to. Twitter could charge businesses for starting these communities to give people info about their product/services.
  


• Strike a deal with GOOGLE
  Also Twitter can strike a deal with Google and allow Google to access their site for real-time searches. This works for Google as well as they need to combat Facebook on the real time search front.(btw It takes a Facebook with 360mil users and Microsoft to take on Google and Google still rocks!!!)

I still haven’t given this much thought; I need to come up with more points.

Paa

I watched Paa last night.
I loved the movie. Amitabh Bachchan has acted really really well and my respect for him as an actor went up a few notches yesterday.
They story revolves around Auro- a 13 year old kid suffering from Progeria, a condition of advanced aging. Auro is the illegimate child of Vidya(Vidya Balan) and Amol Arte(Abhishek Bachchan).

Amitabh's expressions and body language as a 13year old kid is simply amazing. Vidya Balan has acted really well too. Movies with a "different" story suit Vidya more than those which involve wearing skirts and dancing. She has this raw beauty about her and she'd still be as beautiful when she just wakes up as she is all decked up. Ofcourse, since I'm head over heals in love with her, I could be slightly biased.The movie was directed excellently, the songs by Illayaraja were superb- especially the 'gumm summ gumm' song which I am totally crazy about. There was this background score which sounded like a tape recorder barely able to play- yet playing all the time which added to the effect.
All in all a lovely touching movie and a must watch for all ages.

SWAMIYE SHARANAM AIYAPPA

Yesterday there was a pooja for Aiyappa swamy at my aunt's apartment complex. I wanted to go out of belief to Swami Aiyappa. It was a huge gathering of about 300 people. The arrangements were done nicely with huge mantaps for Ganesha, Subramanya, Venkateshwara and of course Aiyappa.
I went there thinking I would just have a darshan, mangalarthi, take my prasad and go. There was loud music playing due to which i was not able to hear anything on a call i received. Feeling a little irritated I thought to myself "what a waste-all the flowers and lighting. that money could have been used elsewhere to provide food for the homeless.etc".There was some sort of orchestra by devotees who were all going in a group to Sabarimale. I actually started enjoying the songs and watching people sing with devotion. It was very nice. Everything from the songs, the singer, the little metal plates banged to add to the music, the casio- I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Of late since about a year or so, my religious activity involved going to the temple or saying a few prayers here and there. I felt I had lost the connection I had spiritually and it had become more of a routine. Recently I had been having a lot of negative thoughts which led me to move into a negative spiral. Attending to pooja, listening to the songs sung there has some how helped me get out of that negative spiraland I am really thankful for that. And I am seeing some form of that spiritual connection resuming again.
When I'm back in Bangalore I want to attend some bhajans more frequently. There is this Hanuman temple near Sophia's where every saturday there are bhajans sung. Looking forward to going for that every saturday.

TRIVANDRUM

I hated Trivandrum at first. Why would I? It was nothing like Bangalore. Also I went there at the wrong time. What added to that was I went there alone, usually batches from a college are called together. The fact that there is a very schoolish atmosphere at TCS there with rules everywhere did not help. I also went during peak summer and was given really lousy accomodation there. So I guess the first month and half at Trivandrum I became a loner. Preferred staying alone.

This was the absolute rejection phase where I could not like anything about the place. But the surprising thing was when I came down to Bangalore- and I did try coming as much as I could- I missed the peace I had there. Nobody to bother you, away from the problems, so close to nature everything.

Gradually I started accepting the place as it is, without any comparison. Started making new friends. I actually started like it. Soon it was like I was finding excuses to not go back during long weekends.

The best part about Trivandrum is that though it is the capital, it is such a laid back city. The place I was staying at is just a km and a half from the sea. There is this fisherman’s beach called which is completely empty. Much better than the commercial Kovalam beach which was just 2 kms away from where I stayed. The view from CLC( Corporate Learning Centre, TCS) is just amazing. Just coconut trees which looks like grass from the distance and the Arabian sea. The view from top is beautiful, the sea on one side and the start of the western ghats on the other.

My favourite place is varkala, where I’ve had so many fond memories. Sleeping on the beach, all night, drunk; going swimming pretty far into sea, standing on the cliff viewing the sea on one side and hills and greenery on one side while drinking beer. This has to be one of my favourite places in the whole world - not that I have travelled much- but still.

The place I stayed at is called TCS Executive Hostel. There is this little stream flowing just behind it- you could go sit there for hours and not hear anything other birds chirping and frogs croaking. There was this bar called B6 just close by where almost everybody from TCS would be there on Friday nights – they had to be there- there were no other bars nearby.

I came there during a really really tough period in my life, and I changed, and matured and learnt a lot. I made a lot of good friends – Rohith, Mamatha, Umar, Liza, Mansa, Rajath, Pawan, Ashok, Malli, Pooja, Bhanu, Chivu, Manohar, Harsha, Lovepreet ( yes that’s a name), Mindri, Praveen, Sameer, of course our HR Shafiq and Finance guy Ashutosh and Cheta from the Nayar shop and anybody else I might have missed out on. You made my stay awesome. Especially Rohith, Mansa and Umar

Thank you Trivandrum- my favourite place in the world( along with Bangalore that is)