Vidiyalai thedi oru payanam....(Travel towards the dawn)

Battling between BSNL and ICICI - Which one do you choose?

2011-08-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

Can electronic clearing system be a bane for someone?

Yes it did for me when i chose to use that for my BSNL telephone bills.

BSNL had been very prompt in submitting the bills for ECS , even after I had closed their account six months back. That promptness is the greatest customer service I ever had from BSNL.

so you might be wondering and asking me why don't you stop this from your bank account? Well thats the smartest thing I thought I can do rather than dealing with BSNL.You know how a government like BSNL office works. Write a letter , get it attested with your latest bill etc. etc.

But ICICI is no greater than BSNL. They also asked me to write a letter stating the ECS mandate number and I handed them over in a sigh of relief and left the country.

Problem solved?

Never with these cracks. BSNL had been generating different ECS mandates for every month and hence ICICI had been promptly paying for me for the unused service (closed account).

Well you are out of country? It is pretty close to landing on the mars when it comes to handling these guys remotely with the so called 24 X 7 customer service.They talk in an english which is the fastest I had ever heard. Then somehow I got hold of a Branch Service Manager named THANUJA SHREE of Purasawalkam branch.

Wow! That gets the job done..Cool.

No. Never estimate a manager like that.

She promised she can stop this mess. But slipped a few more months honoring the ECS.

Once I got her over phone and spoke with all the dignity and when I threatened to pull out my money from the savings account,she finally stopped it from paying to BSNL. When i tried to recover the money which was paid to BSNL from ICICI, the email replies got hung. Damn it.

When i try to reach BSNL to recover the same ...…. ---- தொடரும்

How I fixed my dropping wireless Airport connection problem in Snow Leopard

2011-07-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

Had an experience with my MAC Book Pro where my airport connection with my home WIFI drops after few seconds. It pulled down the total internet connection of all the other connecting devices to my DLINK router. After trying out all the possible options, I figured out that it is a problem with my router DNS settings being reset. Hence i changed my Airport DNS to Google Public DNS 8.8.8.8. After this I am able to connect my Mac Book as well my other devices like Dell laptop, iPod Touch and iPhone to my Home WIFI.Hope this helps someone.

The Best of Shreya Ghoshal - Her Voice is sweeter than Tamil

2011-07-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

Song	Movie
Un Perai Sollumpothu	Angadi Theru
Kalvare	Raavanan
Mannipaaya	Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya
Oru Vetkam Varudhe	Pasanga
Kannil Paarvai	Naan Kadavul
Konjam Konjam	Maayakkannadi
Munbe Vaa	Jillunu Oru Kadhal
Iayyayo Yen Usurukkulle	Paruthi Veeran
Uruguthe Maruguthe	Veyil
Antha Naal Nyaabakam	Athu Oru Kanaa Kaalam
Saami Kittay	Daas
Pani Thuli	Kanda Naal Mudhal
Khajuraho Kanavil	Oru Naal Oru Kanavu
Ninaithu Ninaithu	7G Rainbow Colony
Paarthu Poo Maamaa	Neranja Manasu
Onna Vida	Virumandi
Elangaathu Veesudhae	Pithamagan
Chellamai Chellam	Album

Have you watched these movies?

2011-01-25T12:58:00.000-08:00

To my fellow Tamilians, these got released in our theaters but if you had missed, they are worth watching in the DVDs. I would be updating this list every time I watch a movie of this quality.

English :

1) Taken
2) Untraceable
3) The Dark Night
4) The Blindside
5) The Town
6) The Next 3 Days
7) The Shawshank Redemption

Tamil :

1) Bommalattam
2) Achamundu Achamundu
3) Athu oru kana kalam
4) Abiyum Naanum
5) Mozhi
6) Pasanga
7) Thavamai Thavamirunthu
8) Boss n Baskaran
9) Pollathavan
10) Vaanam
11) Ko
12) Kulla Nari Kootam
13) Eththan

Sometimes they make good movies in Bollywood too :) I know we never watch since we don't understand and doesn't match our taste.

Hindi (With sub-titles) :

1) 3 Idiots
2) Rang De Basanti
3) Sarkar
4) A Wednesday
5) Taare Zameen par
6) Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Tribute to the Singer Swarnalatha - Lost in Heaven

2011-01-19T13:30:00.000-08:00

I know its late.

Here are the few my heart enjoyed.

Many a times we heard these songs without realizing the voice rendered by this wonderful soul.

In Rahman's music

"Evano Oruvan"	Alaipayuthey
"Sollaiyo Solai Kili"	Alli Arjuna
"Poralae Ponnuthayi (sad)"	Karuthamma
"Mel Isaiye"	Mr. Romeo
"Ulunthu Vithaikayilae"	Mudhalvan
"Hai Rama"	Rangeela
"Poongatrile"	Uyire
"Rakozhi Rendu"	Uzhavan

In Ilaiyaraja's music

Song	Movie
"Malaiyil Yaaro"	Chathriyan
"Povomma Oorkolam"	Chinna Thambi
"Kuyil Paatu"	En Rasavin Mansilae
"Ennulle Ennulle"	Valli
"Malai Kovil Vasalil"	Veera

Power of People

2009-11-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

This title is nothing to do with the person "Sarala Bastion" I am talking about. You can learn her from this link : http://www.youthbusiness.org/resources/case-studies/sarala-bastian.aspx.
I learnt the power of my own circle of people to find the contact information of this person. I sent to all my people in my personal yahoo groups who live in and around Chennai.No one even bothered to reply back that they would give a try. At last found her contact information after two weeks by tail mailing one.I thought this information could be useful to people who would be looking like me where google or Bing or your friends are helpless.Well I spoke to her and she is a down to earth person and ready to help people who want to be entrepreneurs on their own.

Sarala Bastian :

House Address:
No.227/2 North Colony,
ICF,
Chennai-38.

Office Address:
No. 6A/4, Church Street,
Oragadam,
Ambattur,
Chennai-53.
Mobile Nos.: 98842-35025, 97109-38987/88
House: 044 - 26215530

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Sivaji- The Boss

2007-07-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

I think it might be fifth day from the day of release I watched this movie i.e. on a working day evening. My expectations : what is shankar's message this time? , Shreya , vivek comedy (Iam not seeing him in movies these days) and Of course Rajini how well he can make up himself at this age.
Rajini : He has done his best, shows his best face by makeup, still immature while accepting scripts like this(Muthalvan might have suited him better), Still has the style by rolling the coin horizontally, awkward dance and fight movements. Even prabhu deva cannot risk making him dance(he could do once with vijaykanth)
Shreya : she is my inspiration of the movie , the sexiest girl in sari (and half of it), they say she has acted well (in the reviews i read before watching the movie).Definitely has more talent unexposed excepts in the songs. can become another glamour girl needed for vijay , ajith movies.
Vivek : His comedy was good.....have been there throughout the movie.
Suman : He also does comedy :)
Nayantara : In the Rajini Intro song( Oru pathu naal soru podala pola)
Rahman : Two of his songs were good (Oru koodal ...and Athiradee)
Rajini Fans : Thalaivar Style, Looks young, Doesn't need to dance, First day pathen( The invisible characters who are running the movie)
Shankar: First scene showing rajini intro in Court, First half comedy, Second half message,Matrix type fight, Expenses (when he is not the producer) : His usual stunts in the movie. But this time weaker message,a pretty heroine : Unusual
Suntv : Amaam sami review. They also want a role in the movie.

Picturisation is good . Hats of to Thota tharani. yenathaan rajini padama irunthaalum Atleast in the presence of Sujatha and Shankar, konjam logical a yeduthirukalam. No NRI who is a software architect can come back to his country with these many crores and no one would dare to spend all his money till his last penny for doing good to people and if he has that intention he might have not gone to US in the first place.Medical miracles happen where a mechanic cannot compare engine with a heart and compete with a doctor.

Message :
India is not a poor country. we have crores of black money and they will be dissolved in cauveri water rather than spending for the poor. Let the black money holders realise this. But let middle class help the lower class. This is what we have control. I want to complete this review by saying " Sivaji is more of Hype than substance "

Good Bye Mr.President

2007-07-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Enough of politics in this presidential elections, Kalam relieved himself from all these and I hope he 'll carry his work without a title which is not needed anymore for him after this month. He has done a great job as a president and had been the People's president for the past five years. He has got acquainted and appraised by all citizens of India (minus the members of the parliament) and have found a place in the people's heart.

Left : He is a president of netizens, not citizens .
Kalam have visited all over india, met people of all classes, religion, races, youth and the elderly, NGOs, Siachen (the highest battle ground ever visited by a president)
What is this left (communist ) doing in this democratic country for the past 60 years except pulling down the ruling elected government by withdrawing support and making the economy tumble every time.

Congress: Still they haven't give a clear cut explanation of their choice of president. they clearly wanna rubber stamp. They have to pay for this in the next elections.

BJP : They are opposition party and hence have to oppose anything the ruling government says.

Shiv sena : They want marathis. Are they going to fight a war using the president?

Others : chameleons who count votes for every move they make.

I used to visit this website during the presidency of Kalam. I don't know it ever existed before.I read an article in Time about the most influential persons of the world. Sonia Gandhi was in the list of 100 for two reasons, one i believe she gave up prime minister ship but still hold the power in India. Now again she has proved that she has the power to make a president. Time doesn't count on the influence a person has on the lives of the whole population and It is only APJ who has it.

We are gonna miss you Mr. President and we always want you to inspire us.

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Mozhi--Pesavaikum padam

2007-04-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Mozhi, The Language of Silence ---Nammala pesa vekuthu.
Makes me proud to say we have good tamil movies at times. Started off with a cartoon, i wondered whether I have downloaded a King Kong Movie, But it was something to do with the production company "Duet Movies" which prakashraj floats. This movie transports you into a world where words lose all meaning.
Jo : Really feeling why she is leaving the industry when she started learning to act perfect. Definitely showing her best in her every movie released post-marriage. Definitely as a character Archana , has lived the entire movie and others acting around her. Makes us feel happy that we are privileged people in this world except less the determination she has. Mounam pesiyathey--Hats off to Jo.
Prithvi Raj : Another non-heroic character, The director's actor making much of love, emotions, comedy easily perfect without any big effort. Has done his job to his best and hope he is much appreciated in future projects.
Prakash Raj : He is one of the best gift to the film industry who can make any role to his best and make sure he is the indirect hero of the film no matter whatever role he plays. Definitely I appreciate him for producing this movie as well.
Baskar : Googled to find his name(i forgot) who plays the character of a 23 Yr memory loss Gajini, who made a good comedy but actually it touches your heart heavy in the end.

The film is made in an apartment which is furnished that great with a black n white combination you 'll love to live rather than buying a plot in the outskirts of tambaram (tambaram is no more an outskirt now) and live in a house with rooms , the doors of which hit your legs when you lie Or rolling inside a comforter inside an apartment with furnitures of inheritance.

Books Not to Read

2007-04-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Great Indian Dream : If you had read his earlier book , Count your chickens before they hatch, You would know Arindham is not a better writer than the best among us. If you read his books , you would get a guts to write your own book. Both his books doesn't expose his ideas better and anyway his ideas are not that great to be expressed. Just a 5% ROI(return of investment) is guaranteed.

Parthiban Kanavu : Not the best of Kalki's creations, You will get reminded of reading konar books of your school days disregarding Vetri guide and and trying to answer the next day Tamil exam. You can learn a little bit of chola and pallava history. Read Tamil books have become lil bit difficult for me compared to English :). I already lost the Tamil writing skill , my last attempts were the letters to my mother during my college hostel days.

Five Point Someone : If you want to learn the art of reading English books faster, you can use this book to practice. A small novel which is a one shot reader but doesn't carry much of wisdom to be passed on from an IIT ian to you. I was just surprised how it became part of best seller list in India.

Books/ Movies have to be selective and I felt these books are not worth your time.

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Paruthi Veeran

2007-03-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

Set in a remote village named "Paruthiyur" near Madurai and giving a rustic smell to the movie through the original Tamil madurai slang and showing the festivals celebrated. Paruthiveeran, leading a careless life and making life guided by his uncle played excellently by saravanan , the story revolves around caste, love and family feud.

Karthik...yengituya vanthuchu...ivalavu thirmai ....i couldn't believe it is his first movie..looks remind you of no-hair cut sivakumar of old movies...this guy has done his job well which even surya didn't on his first movie. May be karthik has chosen the right subject. We can expect much from this guy and hope he is not under utilised like surya and vikram.

Priyamani, i like this girl in the movie "athu oru kana kaalam" from balu mahendra. she possess the talent to live like her character and the voice set in this movie fits a rural girl's voice. She deserves much more opportunities in future especially on movies in which heroine has a role to play more than just dancing for songs.

Music Yuvan shankar raja proves that his DNA carries the music of ilayaraja through the songs he made. Numbers "Ariyadha Vayasu" sung by ilayaraja and "Iyayyo" beat your heart good.

At times the film will make your heart heavy through violence and the merciless gang rape of the heroine(You'll cry a shit). Definitely not a movie to watch with family but except few scenes(please remove/shorten them), this can be acclaimed to be a best movie out of talented actors and of course hats off to the director who made it. Would appreciate if the same talent is used to show something better to the society.

The Religious Politics of America

2007-03-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered why US supports the country of great defence which is in the middle east with arms and ammunition as a business and of course financial aid. While Jews make up only 2 per cent of the U.S. population compared with the 13 per cent of African-Americans, they provide many of the activists in the Democratic party and much of the finance.Hence all Jewish festivals are celebrated here esp in Chicago and New york.

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- WATER makes your heart wet

2007-03-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

I watched this movie just to find out why it missed the Oscars for the best foreign film. This is just a documentary of the life of widows in the 1930s in India. Following Hindu tradition, the marriage of young girls to older men was common in many parts of India. When a man died, his widow would be forced to spend the rest of her life in a widow's ashram, an institution for widows to make amends for the sins from her previous life that supposedly caused her husband's death.. This is made with the international audience in mind by deepa mehta but showing the darkerside of India. Yes we had many issues during the period of 1930s including seeking independence. But those are times when child marriage, Sati have been abolished and widow remarriage has been contemplated but was not on our priority. we had many things to fight for. Don't watch this movie for anything except the brilliant acting by Seema Biswas and the little kid "Sarala" who played the child-widow.The film was called Water ---may be for the trilogy but for the water everywhere they show in Varanasi and also for that this film makes your heart wet.All implied messages and nothing showing up India in a good light, this doesn't deserve the Oscars may be.

Now 2007 , after 70 years from the era of the movie, where do we stand when it comes to widows in the society. They are living independent, no more white sarees, they wear a bindhi but what about widow remarriage. Still young widows doesn't have a second life..yes there are many around us and many in villages. They need to live independent by all means but not emotionally. Not much has changed in the era where India has developed economically.

Incredible India , Enchanting Tamilnadu

2007-02-26T17:01:00.000-08:00

It was a warm evening, not the usual winter weather when I started from work in the afternoon to catch my flight to India on Dec 29. Since it was a Friday year-end no big excuses needed for leaving by lunch time and make it accountable for the whole day.Everybody were in the lousy mood to work and were looking for the New Year holidays.
I have to catch the flight in Washington DC (Dulles) airport which is like 70 miles from here. Thanks to avis that I could rent a car from here, take my baggage and drop it in the airport next state. That’s a convenience here which gives you the independence.I reached the avis rental place inside the airport and thanks to the pretty convenient airport shuttle bus which can take me and my baggage to the airport terminal. Infact the driver helped me to load and unload my baggage during that transit. I was pretty early than the flight time and also had the boarding pass printed online, Thanks to British airways and I had only one major work at the airport but painful one. I meant the security check which is no lesser than pulling your shoes out and putting them on your head and walk half naked through the scanning door. Since I took a laptop for my friend it has to be scanned out separately. They stopped me at the scanning exit as I had my Bluetooth headset on my ears. I threw them out with all my other items and got everything back. You get almost undressed and would be tightening up your belts on the other side. It was a no liquid carry on baggage strictly and in frustration I told the security people that I almost got dehydrated without buying water bottle inside the terminal and even you can't find liquid inside my body. After all formalities I had enough time and of course enough minutes on my t-mobile account that I called all my friends in US and told happily that Iam going home for a vacation.
After boarding the flight I didn’t find BA more comfortable than LFA as I was told and found the same Anna bus seating inside the flight. Just landed in the aisle(Overseas vanthu thaan yenaku ithey "aille" nu pronounce pananumnu theriyum) side seat which I chose online, so that I don’t have to disturb anyone sleeping next for my journeys to restroom.Iam gonna stop complaining about how people are treated in the flight for the meals offered . This time I was prepared and also have requested meals online before boarding. It was just the drinks offered more than that. London doesn't look that far from US that I landed soon in the so far claimed world's busiest International airport Heathrow(pronounced as he-thru). There was a long queue of desis(most of them) in the terminal and I proudly told them that I have the boarding pass for the next flight. But they said, hey you cannot do the security check online. go and stand in the queue which is meant for that and yes... out my shoes and laptop for scanning again. It costed most of my transit time and thanks for that. The shops in the airport terminal attract you that much that you cannot miss shopping there. I felt I have fewer chocolates in my check-in baggage that I started shopping chocolates. London is quite expensive for any kinda shopping. you have to limit yourself. Though you gonna sip the cherishing filter cappi back in Chennai, you cannot resist the aroma of star bucks in the airport .Prices quoted in pounds doesn't hit my head till I started sipping the coffee and paid them through my credit card since it was that accountable during currency conversion. Transit time was less and hence started boarding the chennai flight as soon as my coffee was over. Here comes my school buddy checking onto the flight after his 24 hr transit visit in London. You can roam around in london for a maximum 24 hrs transit if you have a valid US visa itseems.we had a nice time in the flight chit chatting and of course with his portable DVD player, we hosting our own movies in a flight which has its own Hindi movie in the entertainment display. Guess what those movies are of, he he... it’s a duo combination of parthiban and vadivelu comedy in movies. Atlast we landed in chennai, the so called winter but pretty warm humid night. Though the flight landed in the right time, they didn’t allow us to get down till they arrange a ladder steps than the normal connection to terminals. Yenada namma ooruku vanthachu.. iranga vida matranga...it took 30 mins for alighting.
Welcome to Incredible India was the propaganda everywhere all along my journey. Chennai welcomes with an aroma of winter, the customs were too good to leave people like me through the green channel who doesn't even carry a set of next day clothes. Everything in my check in baggage was electronic. First time I smiled at the unknown workers of the chennai airport and they acknowledged.Enough of blondes, Here comes the usual bluish green or orange color chudidhared beautiful girls with colorful flowers on their black hair, The call qualis which I went home was driven with all rash skills competing with a bus and a road block.
Next day lunch straight to Annanagar anjappar with all my college buddies.Only auto rickshaw everywhere.just 1.5 dollars dude he he ! You won’t feel comfortable sitting with someone unknown in your table but that’s how it was when we were only 5 in a table of 6.Had a nice feast of animal planet on the table including crabs. You feel like ending up the meal with a gum to follow to cleanse your teeth not a beeda though. Tipping 5-10% itself was considered too much and you'll get a salaam everywhere. The night we celebrated New Year in a beach resort in chennai dancing for numbers like "Yamadi aathadi" and "Kammakarai"...Tapanguthu pottu romba naal aachunu appo thaan therinjuthu...
Jetlag illai nu sonna thaan bandha pola.but I wasn't able to cope with it and hence woke up everyday morn 4am with hunger, used to go to tea shop which opens at 4.30 in my locality. First tea of the shop but I used to ask full tea becos the quantity they serve in glass tumbler with lather was enough only to make my tongue wet. It was like a week I went like this and took tea in the early morn with biscuits served to stray dogs. I think my biological clock is made in Quartz that it worked religiously like this.

Traveling in auto rickshaw was a nightmare. He'll leave only 2 inches when he wants to squeeze through a gap between a bus and the road median. I got really scared and was holding the two metal bars while sitting inside. Thanks to my SanDisk player that I could avoid the honking noises of the traffic while Traveling. For no reason people love honking on the roads. The most skillful driver on the road is the auto driver who keeps only his 2 hand grips as his vehicle for most of the time and forgets the big auto body behind. Chennai autowallahs are the most outrageous people on earth when they charge people at astronomical rates. I was charged 100 rupees for less than 2 km ride from chennai central to my place. I accepted the price and asked him to drive around the city before he could reach my place so that the money is accountable. Ivan namma ooru pola nu mannipu ketaan.
I really felt like driving bikes but didn’t take for the first one week due to the warning of my half-american friends of the left/right-lane confusion in India. But when I took the bike, driving on the right lane of a road without median is not considered as an offense. It was looking like an unpreferable lane of driving and nothing more than that. You would feel like having a sunshade over the helmet like a car when you drive opposite to the sun. The white kerchiefs which I use became black when I wipe my forehead after a travel anywhere in the city and my white socks became brown.

Rules of the road :
1. Yield first to auto rickshaw and cyclist before somebody honks from behind.
2. Never yield to pedestrians unless they form a human chain and block the road to cross.
3. Oneways are not applicable for cyclist and cycle rickshaw drivers.
4. Stop sign boards are not meant to stop. They are just to keep your leg on the brake without pressing.
5. Red traffic lights are like blinking oranges in most of the roads, so take your own judgment. In main roads and traffic junctions, there is always a 5 second grace period before and after the red lights for vehicles to pass. Never try stopping for an orange light and before grace period of red light, you might be hit from behind and terribly scolded in bad language.
6. Helmets and seat belts are meant for fools and there are no fools except few in chennai it seems. I was one of those fools waiting for a week to search out my good old helmet from my house before I could start driving. I dont know why still it is not mandated in chennai. We have to learn driving safely at least from the west.
7.Yellow lines are just designer lines on road.

Since medical treatment is cheaper in India, I decided to do a overhauling of my complete body before I could start back. To start with, the sonogram costing just 11 dollars doesn't show any traces of stone in my kidney. One day went for eye testing and power is the same. Still contact lens doesn't fascinate me more than a laser surgery in future. I thought of making a complete renovation of my tooth structure and hence made a contract with a dentist, He called me for many sittings just to do root canal therapy, fill , remove, shape, cap . So whenever he felt bored he called me for doing something like Chennai Corporation on the roads. chinna vayasula thaan i missed taking care of tooth. Atleast now i can treat and make myself ready to eat nandu @ 60.
I went to Bangalore and hence had a chance to travel in a car through the chennai-bangalore highway. It was really good and people can enjoy driving only in these kinda of roads. Bangalore city is just the same with more traffic on the road and I found some long term flyover projects getting completed. These people should learn from chennai to deliver it quick. Apart from that the smell of flora is missing in Bangalore and roads have become a little bit less dusty but more pretty girls on the brigade road. Train travel has become easy as I could book online and print a e-ticket for my return back to Chennai.

Chennai real-estate have grown crazy. people are putting money for plots which doesn't have proper road connectivity. But if you laugh at them, you are considered fool as we are not in this race. I don’t know when its gonna stop or saturate but I feel it’s not worth the price. Anyway people pay and again earn like me to repay the loan. who is the gainer, the people who do the business and who is the loser, innocent people who buy and then claim happily that their property is worth crores. but tell me , are you selling them and enjoying the life? First sensex was going crazy but now I feel real-estate is far ahead, Good that we hail we produce 8% growth every year and 9 % this quarter but can you say where it is reflected? I feel happy to hear when bharti open an agri business as well as a retail store tied up with Wal-Mart. I feel happy when I read Mahindra plans to deliver SUVs to US. I want to see Scorpios flying across the interstates in US. India has to concentrate on two things now, the damaged roads and the damage minds of its normal citizens who still need to get more civilised. When are we going to learn to say "Sorry and Thanks" when required? And Still casteism, poverty and male chauvinism does exist in the society. Right to information act has become popular. Now common people have access to all official documents. I believe this effectiveness and transparency may reduce corruption .Anyway rich are getting richer and poor becoming poorer and who cares about RTI act. Many cases related to rape and murder trials getting closed and I could see many convicts behind the bars.
TV has become one of the main entertainment for people in chennai as very few love to drive out and go places due to traffic. Munbe vaa becomes a stopper song when remote scans through the TV and sun music with the usual Veyil song "Uruguthey" (Love panravangaluku intha paatu pidikum pola :) ) . I could see only one episode of VJ mahalakshmi's sun music programme. she has become lil more gundu and now looks odd for me. I am surprised how I was watching everyday those days. Pepsi Uma still on the box looks horrible, I don’t know why they can't find a better anchor. Vijay TV has started ruling entertainment in TV these days..kalaka povathu yaaru.....jodi no 1 all making news around people. Suntv used to be still favorites of oldies who watch the usual sobby serials and people look dull when they hear an important character "archana or akshaya" dead in the serial.It does bother them more than the merciless killings in nithari which hits the NDTV news everyday .Selvi has been renamed to Arasi for a change and people still believe it’s a new serial and were watching.

Chennai has become more livable compared to Bangalore because of its better infrastructure and traffic but I cannot live with the mosquitoes . Annanagar cannot be cornered these days for the same. Everywhere it is like that and I was carrying "All out" wherever I went especially to clinics where normal people can become patients once you enter. I couldn't do a blood donation before I could start from India due to my dental treatment everyday but almost donated 1 unit of blood to chennai mosquitoes. I sensed a good feel when I traveled near sardar patel road where you find lot of greenery and everywhere else it was a dry winter. Good that i didnt come in the seasons of summer and more-summer in Chennai.More eat outs these days with lot of crowd around. Nobody is cooking at home it seems. I went to mahabs for a drive , watched the dance festival and on the way back saw movie "Guru" in mayajal in Hindi :). Another day I could find time to watch "Pokiri" in my home theatre Abirami. The theatre was nothing less than a piece of shit ...too ugly on the floor and people are not trying to use dustbins. More over in the film I hate the beeda cop who was spitting everywhere. Vijay has got a lot of craze from chennaites and I heard from the next seater saying that "vijayye adichitanda!" when in one scene he was slapped by the cop.After then I stopped commenting .I was surrounded by lot of fans and hence kept quiet.. Though the film was a telugu remake, it was a good entertainer. Next attraction in chennai was the book fair and I thought I can buy some books. I was astonished by crowd on a working day morning. But still people who want to become intellectuals by reading good books doesn't have the sense to use the dustbin to throw their tickets and bills off before they departed. Gas prices are astronomically high in India (cooking gas illa..I mean petrol) and hence the service guy stared at me at surprise when I filled my pulsar tank for 20 dollars. But anyway that was enough for my whole vacation.
My trip to north chennai was terrible as roads have become worse than it was due to rain and govt doesn't concentrate for north chennai as we know. I couldn't see any remarkable difference in north. But in south I could see the taramani road to Tidel Park being laid with parks in the median and it was looking good. Roads in chennai which come under the national highway projects are really good. Even the by pass road which I used to travel to chinglepet once was good and had nothing less than a "exit" if you want to get into tambaram or any other main junction. People are too busy in India trying to balance their work life with personal life and have less time. I met all my working friends only in the night after 9.somehow I felt we are far comfortable to be back at home by 5.30 in the evening. Definitely work culture hasn't improved much in India except a few MNCs who maintain like how it is in US.

My last week became pretty hectic doing some shopping in spencers for clothes and food materials. I shopped because I don’t want to check-in two empty baggages back to US. The quality of clothing has reduced a lil bit and good quality ones cost the same as it is in US. But i was ready to pay any price for products which are made in India. Also I filled my boxes somehow by buying sweets and savouries.Even in adyar ananda bavan, first time in my life I got respect for my hefty shopping.Yenada born and brought up in US mathiri romba scene poduran suresh? The last two days you feel really heavy hearted trying to find answers for questions like why I have to leave and whats up for me in US except loading my bank account with more balance. What Am I missing. This 30 day X 24 Hrs life filled my heart and I felt I really enjoyed it. Yes I boarded back the flight straight to Baltimore and was invited with the heavy snowy winter. Now back to the reel but luxurious life.

Expy: Best before my next vacation

Things in a heavy heart

2006-12-21T03:05:00.000-08:00

http://specials.rediff.com/yearend/2006/dec/21yrsl1.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

It Happens in Life------Take it easy

2006-10-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

The handle of a cup you keep in the microwave always turns to the unreachable side after heating.
The second one of a pair of socks aways takes more time to find from the bunch of washed clothes.
The road to success........ is always under construction.
Since Light travels faster than Sound, people appear brighter before you hear them speak.
Anything dropped on the floor will roll over to the most inaccessible corner.
If at first you don't succeed.... Destroy all evidence that you ever tried.
You can never determine which side of the bread to butter. If it falls down, it will always land on the buttered side.
All the desirable things in life are either illegal, expensive or fattening.
As soon as you mention something...... if it is good, it is taken.... If it is bad, it happens.
If you come early, the bus is late. If you come late...... the bus is still late.
Once you have bought something, you will find the same item being sold somewhere else at a cheaper rate.
When in a queue, the other line always moves faster and the person in front of you will always have the most complex of transactions.
The girl for whom you have a crush at first sight would get engaged to someone in two weeks or would have already got married.
If you have paper, you don't have a pen....... If you have a pen, you don't have paper...... if you have both, no one calls.
If you have bunked the class, the professor would have taken attendance that day.
You will pick up maximum wrong numbers when on roaming.
All PTC buses are crowded. Corollary : PTC buses in opposite direction always go empty.
The door bell or your mobile will always ring when you are in the restroom.
After a long wait for bus no.20, two 20 number buses will always pull in together and the bus which you get in will be crowded than the other.
If your exam is tomorrow, there will be a power cut tonight.
Your code which goes on production will always throw a null pointer on the line where you had tried to log something.
Your saturday night expectations come in TV only when everyone at home and guests watch with you and the remote control is far from reach of your hand.
Irrespective of the direction of the wind, the smoke from the cigarette will always tend to go to the non-smoker
The traffic on the lane which you choose to drive always goes slower than the other one

30 Kodi Janangal

2006-10-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

America passed a major demographic milestone this week: the U.S. population reached 300 million people. This was india's population in 1940s when Mahakavi Bharathi was singing.Life expectancy at birth was just 54.5 years in 1915. By 1967, it had risen to 70.5 years. This year, babies born in the United States have a life expectancy of 77.8 years. Its immigration history starts orderly from germans, italians, africans,mexicans,asians and now esp Indians :)
Well India is the seventh largest country in the world. Its population is now more than one billion, making it the second most populous country after China. It is more than three times the population of the United States though its area is only about one-third.
Population density is a serious bane to India and I request my friends who got married recently to Stop at Signal No: 1 and drive always with only three seats occupied. Lets not mess up the country anymore.

Cinema, Fries, Latte -- Manathodu Mazhaikalam

2006-10-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

Shyam : Takes different story lines in his movies, different characters, Handsome guy but couldn't find a good break. Yevalavu makeup potalum, He couldn't be shown older Or the makeup man slept in the studio? ABCD la pesina style a innum vidala pola.
Nithyadas : Looks like navya nair, a typical mallu kuty...short and bubbly with long hair like my dream mallu girl.
Samiksha : Did her role to the need.
Direction : Though the movie had a good intention / story , It wasn't shown the way it was thought. Screenplay and Direction lacks lustre. It would have been a hit if it is from Balu Mahendra / Mani Ratnam.

Message : Though the movie couldn't makeup the way it was thought , It shows the distinct relationship of a Guy and Gal having friendship throughout Life. Yevalavu thaan pasanga friends a irunthalum, Oru thozhi life la kandippa venum. she gives a warmth and comfort next to what you get from your mother. The only tender hand to hold and the only shoulder to rest on without any kind of lust is from this thozhi. One whom you share the feelings which guys make fun or won't take serious when discussed. I always thank god who had given this unique relationship to exist and carries the life of guys all through their life. Even friendship between girls themselves doesn't exist this longer at all times. As like the movie name, this relationship gives a feeling like how you feel when you smell the manvasanai on the first rain of the season.
cha...now i started dreaming of Autograph Divya :)

Remembering Gandhi

2006-10-03T19:53:00.000-07:00

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) has become the strongest symbol of non-violence in the 20th century.
1]Redefine Nobel prize : Nobel peace prize for Gandhi or create Gandhi Peace Prize for others who follow suit.
2]Reinvent Innovation : very simple mantras Satyagraha & Ahimsa but very powerful weapons than any types of weapons existing in the world ( at level of root cause )
3]Reengineering Religion : Religion is about Truth & Love.
4]Reinvent Leadership : Leadership at Indian context and at global context ! a true example of Level 5 Leadership = Personal Humility + Professional Will simultaneously.
5]Redefine Economics development : Sarvodaya : universal uplift progress of all.
6]Redefine Education : The purpose of education is to bring out the best in you : relevant , practical & moral education Holistic development of children.

Gandhi's Daily Resolution:
Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day
I shall not fear anyone on earth
I shall fear only God
I shall not bear ill toward anyone
I shall not submit to injustice from anyone
I shall conquer untruth by truth
And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

"Gandhi continues what the Buddha began. In the Buddha the spirit of love set itself the task of creating different spiritual conditions in the world; in Gandhi it undertakes to transform all worldly conditions." - Albert Schweitzer

Be the change you want to see in the world- Mahatma Gandhi

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Sillendru Oru Kadhal

2006-09-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

First few mins for people who didn't go to their real marriage.

Surya : Unnai parthu thaan naan meesai yeduthen...ippadi pannitiye...but looks smart even as a college student with a mild mush. Emotion aaana appa sivakumar a mariduraru.. drink pannama drive panna mudiyathu pola ...
Jo : you have to form a community in orkut for women to find ex of their hubbys. propably they might be wives of someone else who are also in search. Mathapadi an Abstract Tear Factory and Romba nalla ponna iruka...aavvvvvv...
Bhoomi : flash back la "chikun guniya" vantha mathiri iruka..chemistry lab partha yenaku electrical lab nyabagam varuthu...Asin why did you walk out?...Bhoomi later comes and talks like swarna akka...who gave her voice?......I like the bhoomi of the film badri (saathvigam).
Comedy : Santhanam makes better comedy than Vaigai puyal.
Music : Rahman your best is gone. we are still waiting.
Message : surya , jo love panrathuku , they need a film. This film is complete fiction and should not be reproduced in everyday life (veliyila pora onaana yeduthu veti la vitta kathai thaan)

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Vetaiyadu Vilayadu

2006-09-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

Neither a Kamal movie nor a Goutham movie...and called a thriller

Kamal : please stop acting and concentrate on directing movies. Your last best performance was in vasool raja mbbs. now you look old and heroing doesn't look good.
Back home it is called ragavan instinct aamam.
US cop undermine panrathu nalla illai. iritating. Over scene.
Jo : Looks like cancer patient...Unnecessary character just for a second romance.
Kamalini : I dont know when she came in the movie...vaama minnal....go to thatstamil.com to see her best pictures...in the movie she looks like next house aunty (who watches tearsome Tv serials).
Goutham : You could have made this movie with someone else than spoiling kamal and his skill. watch some more english movies to find a perfect thriller.
Camera : Tied in a sanal kayiru and was rotated. New york kaamikarangalama.
Prakash Raj : Tries to cry like "Nayagan kamal" seeing his dead daughter but kamal stops him doing so.
Message : All women in the movie will be killed and you dont have anything to guess.

The Best from my Camera

2006-09-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

War of the Worlds--Congo

2006-09-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

Uncle Sam ! I would be very happy if you fight for these kind of Wars.

Sitting on a bed in a refugee camp in Katanga, a cursed province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaïre), Mukeya Ulumba, 28, recounts the epic losses she has suffered in recent months. Several of her relatives and neighbors were killed when antigovernment rebels stormed their village last November, moving from house to house in a murder spree that lasted for hours. Ulumba and her husband managed to flee with their four children, leaving behind their life's possessions, a ravaged community of torched houses and the bloodied corpses of family members and friends. Now Ulumba is struggling to save another life: that of her 6-month-old son Amoni Mutombo. The baby lies whimpering in a clinic run by the aid organization Doctors Without Borders. His belly is distended by malnutrition, and although he appears to be in pain, he has no energy to cry. A nurse tries for half an hour to inject antibiotics into Amoni's twiglike arm, its wrinkled skin wrapped loosely around the bones. Without the drugs, he will die, wasting away from starvation.
Some wars go on killing long after they end. In Congo, a nation of 63 million people in the heart of Africa, a peace deal signed more than three years ago was supposed to halt a war that drew in belligerents from at least eight other countries, producing a record of human devastation unmatched in recent history. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since the conflict in Congo began in 1998, making it the world's most lethal conflict since World War II.
By conventional measures, that conflict is over. Congo is no longer the playground of foreign armies. The country's first real election in 40 years is scheduled to take place this summer, and international troops have arrived to keep the peace. But the suffering of Congo's people continues. Fighting persists in the east, where rebel holdouts loot, rape and murder. The Congolese army, which was meant to be both symbol and protector in the reunited country, has cut its own murderous swath, carrying out executions and razing villages. Even deadlier are the side effects of war, the scars left by years of brutality that disfigure Congo's society and infrastructure. The country is plagued by bad sanitation, disease, malnutrition and dislocation. Routine and treatable illnesses have become weapons of mass destruction. According to the IRC, which has conducted a series of detailed mortality surveys over the past six years, 1,250 Congolese still die every day because of war-related causes--the vast majority succumbing to diseases and malnutrition that wouldn't exist in peaceful times. In many respects, the country remains as broken, volatile and dangerous as ever, which is to say, among the very worst places on earth. more

Warning : dont read more if you have a weak heart.

Photo Exercise--My American Life

2006-09-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

Smoky Mountains--Tennessee

Ocean City with Bala , Satish(roomie) Parasailing & Jet Skiing

Niagara Falls with Soma

Liberty with Soma

Kappalotiya Tamizhan

Annapolis --Capital of Maryland

Airshow

Owings Mills Open

Gun Powder Falls (Tubing) with Sanjeev

DC with Mani

Gaithersburg ---- Santhosh, Uday

DC with ezhil

Virginia with Srini

Hotel Rwanda --- Yesterday and Today

2006-08-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda--and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees, by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages.
I saw this movie two weeks back and I read this article (below) today
If successful, the percentage of Rwanda's workforce involved in farming will drop from 90 per cent to 50 per cent in 15 years Six years after the project's launch, half of the 2,300 primary schools have at least one computer Biggest challenge is bringing the project to the rural areas and making it sustainable .
OFFICE WORKERS talking over Skype. Fibre-optic cable snaking hundreds of miles underground and to the top of a 4,500-metre volcano. Paperless Cabinet meetings with every Minister using a laptop. This may sound like an advanced Western country rather than a tiny, poor African state. Yet this is Rwanda, now in the midst of an extraordinary development plan to leap into the 21st century.
More "mobile in every pocket" than "chicken in every pot," the Vision 2020 project aims to rapidly transform a depressed agricultural economy into one driven by information communications and technology (ICT). If it works, the percentage of Rwanda's workforce involved in farming will drop from 90 per cent to 50 per cent in 15 years. By then the country should be the regional ICT hub — a kind of Singapore of the Great Lakes.
"Rwanda is to some extent doing with technology what Britain did with mechanisation during the industrial revolution," said Calestous Juma, professor of international development at Harvard University, who believes the plan can serve as an inspiration for Africa.
Donor countries are more cautious. Two-thirds of Rwandans live below the poverty line, half are illiterate, and four in five live in rural areas. AIDS and the 1994 genocide have created tens of thousands of orphans. Technology is not the main priority, they say. But government officials insist that not only is their plan viable, but that there is no alternative. As one of Africa's most densely populated countries, large-scale farming is impossible. There are few valuable minerals or oil deposits. The country is landlocked.
"We are at a huge competitive disadvantage to our neighbours," Albert Butare, the Minister of Communications and Energy, said. "Our people are the one resource we have, and we must develop them."
Progress has been slower than hoped — only 26 per cent of targets have been met on time so far — but still significant. When the ICT plan was launched in 2000 only one school in the country had a computer, there was a single Internet cafe and a handful of science graduates, and fewer than 100,000 of eight million people had mobile or fixed-line phones.
Today half of the 2,300 primary schools have at least one computer. There are 30 Internet cafes in the leading cities and there will be 30 more in even the most remote rural areas by 2007. Telecom companies hawk broadband Internet for home use. More than 300,000 people have mobiles. If a plan to assemble phones locally, and sell them for the equivalent of £19 with six months to pay, comes to fruition the growth will be even faster. The Kigali Institute for Science and Technology (KIST), established in 1997 at a former army barracks, has already graduated close to 2,000 students. Still it is just a fraction of the tech-savvy workforce the country needs.
Which is why bringing schools online is seen as crucial. In a two-year, £20-million project, the state electricity company will lay fibre-optic cable along its power lines. Cables will be run to schools within three miles of the national grid, giving them high-speed Internet access.
Thousands of computers are being ordered for schools from Rwanda Computer Network, which has already assembled and sold more than 6,000 "Gorilla 1000" desktop computers to the government and banks. A software firm has translated a free open-source version of Microsoft Office into Kinyarwanda, the main language.
Incentives for investment
Meanwhile, the government is offering incentives to attract private investment. The home of the Senate, a modern seven-storey building, is being turned into an "ICT park" for hi-tech companies that will receive free rent and utilities. Five young Rwandan graduates are in charge. Aged 26 to 34, all have studied abroad — in India, South Africa, and France — and all have masters degrees in technology-related fields.
"In the long term this whole road could be an `ICT alley,'" said Patrick Nyirishema, 30, an electrical engineer, gesturing towards the wide avenue outside. "People are going to be astonished by what is going to happen here."
The rest of Africa is already taking note. Kigali, the Rwandan capital, has also been selected as the headquarters of the 23-country Eastern African Submarine Cable Project, which will greatly increase Internet bandwidth in the region. The telecom mast at the top of the Karisimbi volcano will serve as a regional air traffic control centre.
But the biggest challenge, on which the grand plan may succeed or fail, is bringing ICT to the poorest rural areas and making it sustainable. A few Internet cafes that were set up in small villages failed because people could not afford the dollar-an-hour Internet fee.
But in the dusty village of Nyamata, 90 minutes from Kigali, Paul Barera, a 29-year-old KIST graduate, has made his shop work — for him and for his customers. He helps dressmaker Donatille Mukakarara, 38, use Google to search for new patterns once a week. "The Internet has changed my business," she said. "People want modern designs and that's what I can give them."

Financial Capital of our Country

2006-07-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

Finding answers from Uncle Sam

2006-06-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Haditha killings (also called the Haditha massacre or the Haditha incident) were an incident that occurred on November 19, 2005 in the town of Haditha, Iraq. A convoy of United States Marines was attacked with an improvised explosive device which killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. Up to twenty-four Iraqis were subsequently killed; it is alleged that they were non-combatant local residents who were massacred by Marines in the aftermath of the insurgent attack. A Marine Corps communique initially reported that 15 civilians were killed by the bomb's blast and eight insurgents were subsequently killed when the Marines returned fire against those attacking the convoy. However, media reports contradicted this story.The evidence uncovered by the media prompted the US military to open an investigation into the incident, with charges reported to be delivered in due course. Video shot by Iraqi journalist and human-rights worker Taher Thabet and cellphone photos reportedly taken by one of the Marines the day after the killings have been put forth as evidence that the killings were methodical and without resistance.The term "execution-style" has been used by US military officials to describe the killings. The intentional killing of civilians, or indeed of any unarmed people, is prohibited by modern laws of war derived from the UN Charter, the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions, and constitutes a war crime. The Marines and officers are expected to face courts martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is U.S. military law. Due to a Status of Forces Agreement with the Government of Iraq, the troops will not be subject to Iraqi law.
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
Beginning in 2003, numerous accounts of abuse and torture of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) occurred. The acts were committed by personnel of the 372nd Military Police Company, CIA officers, and contractors involved in the occupation of Iraq. An internal investigation by the United States Army commenced in January 2004, and reports of the abuse, as well as graphic pictures showing American military personnel in the act of abusing prisoners, came to public attention in April 2004, when a 60 Minutes news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.The resulting political scandal damaged the credibility and public image of the United States and its allies in the prosecution of ongoing military operations in the Iraq War, and some critics of U.S. foreign policy argued that it was representative of a broader American attitude and policy of disrespect and violence toward Arabs. The U.S. Administration and its defenders argued that the abuses were isolated acts committed by low-ranking personnel, while critics claimed that authorities either ordered or implicitly condoned the abuses and demanded the resignation of senior Bush administration officials. The U.S. Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and seven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault, and battery. Between May 2004 and September 2005, seven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to federal prison time, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiancée, Pvt. Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer at the prison, Brig. General Janis Karpinski, was demoted to the rank of colonel on May 5, 2005. The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was in part the reason that on April 12, 2006, the United States Army activated the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, the first of four joint interrogation battalions.

Dating Niagara falls

2006-06-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

It had been my dream in my life that i wanted to visit Niagara once i come to US. Many people suggested to visit once I get married. But i didn't have much patience for the D-day . Good that soma booked a ticket from Des Moines to NYC and asked me to pick him up and drive towards Niagara.

we became 6 who planned to Niagara including soma's colleague saravana bhava..ezhil's friends in Connecticut. I took a rental van ...a Chrysler-town and country minivan kinda SUV from the Baltimore downtown and drove towards NYC. I never have drove such a big vehicle in my life...a seven seater....cool drive towards NYC with mild rains...finally landed in a place..thanks to google map that i landed in a place which is not called La Guardia airport in newyork.i followed the map so religiously and finally landed up in a gas station according to that map. found out the airport and after long trail in the terminal path to pick soma and his accomplice saravana :) (wont tell what he did bad ..married poor fellow). Driving the newyork city is the most crazy thing in life.somehow managed though iam a religious driver after coming to US.There is a sign in newyork city saying please go on green light only.....c'mon india of united states...we are no bad ...its all population and head count counts to drive anywhere in this world,,.,,I have to go to china and see how they drive....soma checked in as thirupathi ajith ..(once he was red ajith) with a telugu/kannada actor saravana. good that soma took over the driving and we started roaming in NYC by drive and then headed towards connecticut...finding out ezhil's house wasn't that tough and we were guided by a cop who initially stopped us by throwing his serial light. my first encounter with a cop, later finding us searching for a route in local roads he guided us. ezhil's house is near river valley....i could hear the noise of water flowing...though not big, his place is too good. connecticut is a good place...full of greenery and water and i like it next to my garden state.....next day went to liberty statue to visit amma....this statue is much exaggerated in hollywood movies with light setting......But when you go there , you'll find an ordinary statue which is painted with a pale green...It is not even painted properly....Designed by a French architect , One of the best place to visit in US, this doesn't attract me that much and also I had been here with my HCL friends earlier. So finished of this, then went to Newyork city , crazy driving , found out our thrifty rental place after a long struggle tunneling all the time. Then evening we decided after adding additional drivers soma and ezhil, we started towards Niagara....There are 2 freeways which are long like 150 miles in each that you reach buffalo where we have booked a hotel to stay...in one of the freeways it was difficult to drive ..guess what it is not due to fog but it is due to clouds...i think it is in a high altitude place...atlast in the midnight we could reach our hotel which is near to university of buffalo....Quite good place to stay and enjoy the serene climate....Then next day morning after a brief spell of something called sleep , we started to the falls place which is 20 miles from the hotel. I heard that when you go to Niagara, you can hear two languages , one is telugu and one is english ...this time also we heard two languages....one is tamil and one is telugu...too many tamil crowd citing long weekend as an excuse ..machi...mamu....lot of young couples...when we were searching for parking spot we played Arinthum Ariyamalum "theepidika song" in high volume , window open....making the place real desi....only two good attractions...one is called of "Maid of the mist" which is sailing in the cruise towards the falls and feeling the drizzle and another one is "Cave of the winds" which is typical showering in the falls...both are too good..only when you go in the crew you get reminded of why people ask you to go to Niagara after marriage ...too much of desi romance....
The world's second largest falls...another god's gift to this country...The second exciting place next to Newyork city i found in united states...Other states are just the same with wooden houses, dunkin donuts, Mc D s , gas stations near the lights....hmm...next day morn started back from Niagara in the early morning since soma has to catch 5 30 evening flight....With good average high speed most of the time exceeding speed limit,we returned back to connecticut to drop ezhil, sunil and bhavani....Then towards la guardia airport to drop soma and saravana..and finally i drove back to baltimore. The longest drive i ever have made, my CD-cassette converter crashed due to over heating as it had been singing all the way in the drive.
You can view photos of liberty and Niagara here.
My next plan is Florida..finding out the best season to go

India-Pakistan Wagah Border Closing Ceremony

2006-06-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

I love watching this ceremony in TV and searched in web manytimes to find this video.

This video is taken from pakistan side. yet to find one from our side on web

The march and flag hoisting is really great.

This is shown in only one tamil movie starring murali and simran i believe.

World is blind to this Dark Continent--Somalia

2006-06-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

Unscrambling Somalia
During World War II, the Italians briefly took British Somaliland, only to see the British return to retake "their" Somaliland, plus Italian Somaliland and Ogaden, too. In 1949, the Italians returned to administer Italian Somaliland as a UN trust territory, but not before many Somalis had begun longing for their own independent, pan-Somali state.
In 1960, the British and Italians left, and British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland joined to form the United Republic of Somalia. Almost immediately, the new nation became embroiled in border conflicts over Somali-inhabited lands in northern Kenya and eastern Ethiopia. A military buildup followed, even as internal tensions mounted between the former British and Italian regions.
In 1969, a bodyguard from a rival clan assassinated Somalia's president, and the military assumed power. The commander of the army, Mohamed Siad Barre, became president--and, before long, dictator. The coup was restyled a "revolution," as "Comrade Siad" announced his pursuit of an Islam-friendly version of "scientific socialism." Yet socialism never really took root in Somalia, and rival clans and Islamic leaders soon resented the Comrade's rule.

Somalia Rescrambled
In 1974, Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie fell. Three years later, Siad Barre retook the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region. At first, the Soviets tried to mediate the dispute. Then they shifted their support to Ethiopia (which has 75 million people to Somalia's 9 million). Somalia's Soviet arms shipments stopped, while Ethiopia got military advisors and Cuban troops. The United States shifted its support from Ethiopia to Somalia, but not before Ogaden was back in Ethiopian hands.
After the defeat in Ogaden, officers from a rival clan tried to topple Siad Barre. They failed, but the threat they posed prompted the dictator to start making government appointments based on perceived clan loyalty. The government and military became less competent, clan rivalries increased, and guerrilla attacks began. As the 1980s wore on, opposition groups became more powerful, and Siad Barre responded with increasingly repressive measures.
By the end of the 1980s, militias from several clans had seized much of the country. A series of last-ditch efforts at political reform failed to appease them, and in January 1991, a united opposition front captured the capital, Mogadishu. Siad Barre fled, his regime collapsed, and the militias turned on each other. In the next two years, 50,000 people died in factional fighting, and some 300,000 Somalis starved. Meanwhile, the former British Somaliland effectively seceded, calling itself, simply, "Somaliland." Somalia hasn't had a functional central government since.

Surveying Somalia
Somalia hasn't had a functional central government since 1991, when a group of warlords representing a variety of the country's traditional clans and sub-clans overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. The warlords promptly turned on each other, and the situation in much of Somalia has been chaotic--and frequently deadly--ever since.
In the early 1990s, a United Nations task force, led by the United States, tried to restore order and provide humanitarian assistance. The effort saved many Somalis from starving, but ended in failure after militiamen downed two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu. The ensuing firefight killed 18 U.S. soldiers and more than a thousand Somalis.
Since then, 13 internal attempts to fashion a national government have failed. A 14th attempt, backed by the European Union, got underway in 2004, when warlords and politicians agreed to create a new parliament and made a former warlord, Abdullahi Yusuf, president.
The transitional parliament met on Somali soil for the first time in February 2006, in the town of Baidoa, 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Mogadishu. Neither of the factions in the recent fight for Mogadishu answers to it. In fact, Yusuf and Company have stayed away from Mogadishu, which is more war-torn fief than capital city. What's a capital, after all, in a country without a government?

Separate Somalilands?
Understandably, large parts of the country have begun governing themselves. In the northwest, the part of Somalia that was once a British colony seceded 15 years ago, right after the warlords toppled Siad Barre. Enjoying relative peace, prosperity, and representative government, it longs for legal recognition as an independent nation, "Somaliland."
In the northeast, another large region--called "Puntland"--functions autonomously, too, though its leaders like to see it as the start of a federal system in Somalia. Puntland has ancient roots. Egypt's pharaohs once sought frankincense and myrrh from the "land of Punt."
Finally, in 2002, a group of warlords in the southwest followed suit, establishing "Southwestern Somalia." Its status is now unclear, as several of its leaders have taken posts in Somalia's transitional government.

Long-Suffering Somalis
Amid the political chaos, many ordinary Somalis suffer. One in four Somali children dies before turning five, cyclical famines kill thousands (and threaten millions), and pirates patrol the nation's coastline, stealing everything from black market goods to humanitarian food shipments. According to the United Nations, a drought in the south has left a sixth of Somalia's 8.8 million people in need of food aid.
Much of the aid that actually reaches Somalis comes in the form of money sent by relatives living abroad. According to some estimates, such remittances account for more than 20 percent of household income, though they've come under pressure from campaigns to curtail terrorist financing.
Despite it all, some sectors of Somalia's economy have actually thrived. Most major towns have wireless phone services, and many now have internet cafes. The airline business has boomed, too. "Corruption is not a problem," says one airline executive, "because there is no government."

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

2006-06-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

India burning with reservation crisis? Attn Mr.youth

2006-05-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

I have been reading all news about the good n bad things of India.

I appreciate all people who take part in protests on government decisions and policies.

But only thing which pricks me is the perception we all youth of India have on these and we are the Tomorrow of India.

Friends, let me tell you one thing. Most of us lead a selfish life (including me) thinking of things concerning about our own life and we see what affects us. If we don't have any concerns, then we see our inner circle of friends who are getting affected and finally we think about India as a nation.

All of us have a point to argue.

But all our conscience should have only one point to argue.
Are we doing something for others or allow others to do so?

Castes formed in India based on the profession we did in those days. People who were doing meanly jobs were suppressed in the society and Hence reservations are made in India for people of lower sections of society to know that they are also part of India and they are welcome to pursue education and job even if they are poor . I didn't accept this during my college days since I was directly affected and I also felt govt should give money rather than reservation in admission seats. But when I entered my college which is a govt college and after I met rural and lower caste students in my college , I came to know that they are not even aware of a University called" Anna University", though they deserve a seat based on their marks. That's when i realized that people from lower castes and rural side should be given reservation so that they start exploring more opportunities in better institutes. Lower castes are not always economically poor but they are treated poor in the society. That hurts even more.Hope you would have read about a story of a running race in which one handicapped child fell and others grab his hand before reaching to the end. This is how sections of society in India.We have to sacrifice something for them to make them come to our level.

Dont think reservation divides the nation. If reservation hadn't been there, then we would not be having friends who are from lower castes. Though I dont want to mention them as lower, I want to emphasize that they are our friends now. Otherwise they would be doing some meanly job in child age rather than studying.

After getting a job and after I got an experience of 6 yrs I realize they still need reservations, since our basic primary education across schools in India is not standardised yet after 60 years of independence .Do you think if you had studied in a rural school , would you have got an attitude to target IITJEE or AIIMS?

In my experience from my class 2 to till now, I feel getting good marks academically doesn't level you to the kind of achievement we look in life.Many people who have studied well during childhood may not have studied well in class 12 and many who didn't score well in class 12 would have landed up in a good job after finishing their degree. So one who is really talented will find his own way to survive in the country. How many you accept after getting good education, you are ready to stay in the country?
And recently I heard the protests are going to the end of "fast until death" . This is just to show the solidarity of students without purpose. All protestors (IIT ians , Doctors, Medical students )..A question for you? Do you read everyday news about a dalit being raped by an upper class society and killed, the convicts escape free. Have you ever thought of going for fasting for seeking the justice for them? Or any of atrocities against lower caste people? Are you ready to marry a girl from a lower caste section of India? why do you blame dalit doctors will kill patients? You are killing patients now by being on strike joining the students and leaving numerous patients in hay. How many of you doctors prefer to work in a govt hospital . After finishing in IIT or IIM , are you ready to work for the country? Are you ready to work as a professor in IIT?. They are the one who are given reservation tries to work in all these and help the poor people of the nation. And you should know they are the majority of India.

Protest to increase the number of seats in these premier institutes.
Protest for justice of the atrocities against dalits.
Protest for the corruption and bribery in the government offices.

I don't know how hatred towards lower castes and non-Hindus came in these protests. We all have to be human and remain so whatever happens to us.

Lets speculate an amicable solution rather than simply protesting.

Da Vinci---Decoded

2006-05-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

The movie version of the megahit novel The Da Vinci Code opens Friday in theaters across the world. Like the book, the movie is causing a stir because of suggestions it makes about Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and because of its unflattering depictions of members of the Catholic Church.

We haven't seen the movie, but we've always loved Leonardo da Vinci--the man himself. Why? Well, if Leonardo were a modern-day American, he probably wouldn't be in the movies. He'd be making movies. He might also be an engineer at NASA, and a leading researcher at the National Institutes of Health, and a special advisor to the president on matters of national security--all at once.

Polymathic Man

Born in the town of Vinci (hence "da Vinci") in 1452, Leonardo became the quintessential "Renaissance man." He's been called the first great Renaissance master, the first scientist, even the first modern. His genius reached across a divide that few before or since have succeeded in bridging--the divide between transcendent, visionary, expressive artist and practical, methodical, mathematical scientist.

In addition to creating some of the world's most famous art, Leonardo conducted extensive research into human anatomy, dissecting by his own count more than 30 corpses. He served as a military engineer, preparing plans to overhaul fortifications, divert the river Arno around Pisa, and outfit Venetian "SEAL" teams with primitive scuba gear. And he advised some of the most powerful men of his time--including Cesare Borgia, the notoriously ruthless commander of the papal army, for whom he sketched maps that helped lay the groundwork for modern cartography.

He also endowed posterity with thousands of manuscript pages, written in his famous "mirror-style"--that is, right to left, so that they can be easily read only in a mirror. Within these pages are inquiries into the flight of birds, the construction of military fortifications, hydraulics, optics, human anatomy, perspective (in both art and science), observations on the moon's craters, a design for a flying machine (which looks something like a helicopter), and more. And, of course, there are still those other works--the ones for which Leonardo is most famous.

The Last Supper

Completed between 1495 and 1498, Leonardo's Last Supper may be the world's second-most famous painting. The work reproduces the moment at which Christ, during a Passover meal, announces to his apostles that one of them will betray him. Except for Judas (and Christ, who calmly accepts his fate), each of the apostles displays the confusion and apprehension of the moment--disbelief, anger, frustration, sadness, fear, denial, and exasperation all at once.

Unfortunately, the Last Supper wasn't built to last. Leonardo had invented a new fresco technique for painting the masterpiece, but the technique didn't hold water. The painting began to deteriorate within a few years, and by the middle of the 16th century it was practically ruined. Leo fans have been trying to restore the work for centuries.

The Mona Lisa

Leonardo's Mona Lisa is almost certainly the world's most famous painting. Leonardo completed the faintly smiling lady between 1503 and 1506. Its influence was immediate, setting the standard by which portraits would be judged for centuries to come. In fact, the young Raphael sketched the Mona Lisa while it was still a work in progress and was using it as a model for his own portraits by the time Leonardo was done.

No one knows for sure, but the woman in the picture is generally believed to be "Mrs. Lisa" Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a prominent Florentine of the time. And her smile? Your guess is as good as anyone's.

Mr. President on "Corruption"

2006-05-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

EFFECTS OF CORRUPTION ON GOOD GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Conscience is the light of the Soul that burns within the chambers of our psychological heart. It is as real as life is. It raises the voice in protest whenever anything is thought of or done contrary to the righteousness. Conscience is a form of truth that has been transferred through our genetic stock in the form of the knowledge of our own acts and feelings as right or wrong.

A virtuous and courageous person can alone use the instrument of conscience. He or she can alone hear the inner voice of the soul clearly. In a wicked person this faculty is absent. The sensitive nature of his / her conscience has been destroyed by sin or corruption. Hence he or she is unable to discriminate right from wrong. Those who are leading organizations, business enterprises, institutions and governments should develop this virtue of the ability to use their own conscience. This wisdom of using the clean conscience will enable them to enjoy the freedom.
more...

Cinema, Fries, Latte -- M:I:3

2006-05-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday night , just because I don’t want to be left out -and miss the movie, went to AMC theaters with guys here. We almost skipped dinner, grabbed a big pack of pop-corn , soda ( I meant coke) peeped in the theater..but we felt it was too late for 9 15 pm show and hence went in to call Bala who gave attendance earlier than us. As soon as we entered , the theater hall in the deepest silence , the dialogue delivered on screen was "Thanks for coming" the guy who called tom cruise to 7/11 spoke that. We burst into laughter for the timing of the dialogue delivery as soon as we entered. I was looking for our Patel in that 7/11. Then we called Bala aloud and asked him to come out so that we can watch 10 pm show from beginning. Here yu can watch any timing of the movie provided you enter with one ticket. I don’t know how legal it is. Then we entered the 10 pm hall , sat comfortably the back seat center and started eating popcorn, saw all the trailers and the movie started. Such a fast paced movie had the best of Europe starting with berlin and Vatican and finally popped into Beijing , the wonderful city. Reminiscences of the Robert Langdon adventure in Vatican city came to my mind when tom broke the high secure Vatican city with their strategic plan and making an abduction so easily.
Again they called "cannister" and some thing called "rabbit's foot" reminded me about antimatter. but all my imagination is wiped by the fast paced action exhibited by tom. God when this guy will act old. He is too good no wonder Katie Holmes is possible when even MI-2 is six years old.
I read recently about the PLA of china and their dominance in conventional war that no country including US can beat them. The dominance is showed here by the exciting city of shanghai. I can't add this to my list as even road signs painted on the road for left only is written in Chinese. God I cant drive here in this city.
The movie is real good and worth watching. The villain displayed his act in style. IAM expecting a MI-4 sooner.

I got this in email

2006-05-06T05:28:00.000-07:00

Can you make out what it is …. ..Black ones are shadows, white ones are the real camels… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The snap has been taken from top.........

One of the most beautiful snap i've seen..........

Is India shining in the land of Gandhi by these flames?

2006-05-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

A 32-year-old man was burnt alive by a crowd of 1500 in Vadodara early on Wednesday morning.
According to eyewitnesses, the victim was chased by a crowd and burnt alive when he was passing through Ajwa Road's Mahavir hall crossing.
The man was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced 'dead on arrival'.
Sources report that crowds have been gathering across the city through the night. The fact that Vadodara is rife with rumours makes the work of the police very difficult in such tense times.
Vadodara is rife with rumours making the work of the police difficult. The city has been tense since the demolition of a dargah and the death of two person in consequent violence.

Stop the non-sense, Life is really worth than anything else.

Discover India : Akshardham Temple in Delhi

2006-04-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

This is not the one which was targettted by terrorists in 2002. That is in Gujarat.

O Podu !

2006-04-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

Election fever is sweeping Tamil Nadu with two major electoral combines and smaller parties reeling out promises. Most parties have released their manifestos and the lists of candidates for the May 8 Assembly elections.
It is now time for the voters to weigh the merits and demerits of the candidates. Suggestions have been made to make voting compulsory.
But if the electors decide that none of the candidates is worth their vote, can they officially register their decision?
Yes, says the Election Commission.
Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta said on Monday that some non-governmental organisations wanted the option of "negative voting" by providing an extra button in the electronic voting machines that says "none of the above" clause.
Though there was no scope for negative voting now, as the issue is before the Supreme Court, there were provisions for electors to register their decision not to vote.
According to Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, if an elector whose roll number has been entered in the register of electoral rolls in Form 17A, decides not to vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry by the Presiding Officer and the signature and thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark, he said.
Officers to be sensitised
All Returning Officers, Assistant Returning Officers, Presiding Officers and Polling Officers would be sensitised to the provisions, he said.
Catalyst Trust, an NGO, had requested the Election Commission to publicise this provision. However, adequate security would have to be provided for such brave voters, an observer said.

'O' Podu "O Podu" is a social awareness movement.
"O PODU' means "cast the vote". Voting is both the right and duty of thepeople. Another objective of our movement is to make people aware of theirconstitutional right to cast their vote under section 49 'O'.
On an average, in every election, nearly 45 percent of the eligible votersdon't vote at all. Therefore even if a winning candidate bags 30 percent ofthe polled votes, it amounts to getting the support of only about 16 percentof the total electorate. If more and more non voters begin to exercise theirvote, the result of many elections would drastically change.
Why are many people not voting at all? One of the usual reasons cited isthat they are unable to accept any candidate and don't want to vote foranyone of the available candidates.
It is a unique feature of our Indian constitution that it has provided thelegal right to the voter to reject all the candidates. Section 49 'O' of theElection rules 1961, has empowered the voter with this right. This sectionhas conferred the right to the voter to inform the booth officer, after theindelible ink mark has been marked, that the voter does not want to vote forany of the candidates. The section requires the booth officer to record thevoter's choice of 49 'O'.
"O PODU" movement will campaign for the following demands:
1. Every voter should cast the vote. Failure to cast the vote only preventsenhancement of the standards of politics.
2. If the voter feels all the candidates are unworthy, the best ay tocommunicate this view to the political parties is not through abstinence.The best method is to record this view through 49 'O'.
3. Secrecy of ballot is a right conferred on the voter by the Constitution.But the election commission's procedure of not keeping 49 'O' voting assecretive, amounts to a violation of this right. Therefore the Electioncommission should rectify this anomaly by introducing a separate button for49 'O' in the electronic voting machines, for the forthcoming Tamilnaduelections.
4. It is the duty of the Election commission to educate the booth officersabout the availability of 49 'O while conducting classes to them on pollingprocedures. The present practice of booth officers expressing ignoranceabout 49 'O' and refusing a vote to record under 49 'O' should be totallyeliminated.'
"O PODU" movement will campaign among voters, particularly the youth,seeking support for the above demands, by use of posters, pamphlets,meetings, T shirt messages, e mails and SMS.

The making of an eco-city

2006-04-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Namakkal town, in Tamil Nadu, reinvents itself and gets the country's first ISO 14001 certification.
It took three years to put in place a system that has brought Namakkal international recognition.
I REMEMBER it as a dirty and noisy town where dogs roamed the government hospital and stories about them carrying away newborn babies circulated. Then the roar of lorries and stories about people with HIV/ AIDS in Namakkal grabbed national headlines.
This time around, I could not spot any stray animal. Residents, instead, talk about an effective administration, cleaner roads, quieter environs and an ISO 14001 certification — the first of its kind to any town in the country.
Namakkal, a southern district in Tamil Nadu with a population of 53,000, took three years to put in place a system that brought it international recognition. The certification is given to any organisation that uses technology and maintains internationally acceptable standards in services and develops an environmental management system in which water, air and sound quality are maintained.
Initial hiccups
S. Gandhiselvan, the municipal chairman, recalls: "We wanted to do something good. So former commissioner Umapathi and I visited every house in the Anjaneyar Koil (the most congested area) and took up three wards as an experiment. People laughed at us. But we continued. For four months we talked to people, issued notices and finally showed them results of garbage removal."
Gandhiselvan says that the movement included women and has remained "completely apolitical".
"Soon neighbouring wards wanted to be integrated. We privatised garbage collection and trained a group to form `Annamalai Associates'. We have six slums and we never thought they would cooperate. They also joined the group and the success is because of them. When we projected our work at meetings in other districts, people did not believe us. We asked them to visit us," says a proud Gandhiselvan.
Profitable too
Annamalai Associates segregates garbage, prepares vermicompost and recycles non-biodegradable waste, such as tyres and tubes littered around this town known for its lorry "body-building" units. All this fetches the municipality Rs. 4.5 lakh a year, says municipal commissioner P. Kanthaswamy.
"Using GIS (Global Information System) we do route optimisation to save time and fuel. It also ensures 100 per cent removal of garbage," he says.
The effects were there for me to see: Lower noise and pollution levels despite a heaving bus station, a touch screen computer at the municipality for residents of the 30 wards to check their property/ water tax arrears, birth certificates in 15 minutes and an upgraded government hospital with flowerbeds. Gardens and solar electrical fencing have been laid in the town's crematoria. Since its garbage segregation drive, local agriculture does not use chemical fertilizers.
Attitudinal changes
The drive has resulted in attitudinal changes. G.M. Saraswathi, a homemaker who has lived here for 50 years, says: "Initially I did not segregate garbage. One day I saw a woman who came to collect garbage with cuts on her palms. That's when I decided not to dispose sharp items like blades. Now of course the women wear gloves."
The municipality's efforts came into focus when the Supreme Court acknowledged its achievement. The Asian Productivity Organisation based in Tokyo, Japan, introduced the concept of green productivity to enhance efficiency and improve the town's environment and over-all social economic position. The National Productivity Council of India pitched in to develop Namakkal into an "eco-city", the first of its kind in Asia-Pacific region.
New goals
Namakkal is not likely to rest on its new-found status and recognition. Efforts are on to build a Chandigarh-like rock garden in this town, which is in a rocky belt with perennial water shortage. "I remember a summer when even the coconut trees began to wither," recalls N.B. Kala, a resident. But political parties are still finding it difficult to change their ways.
During a recent sports meet, the town's main road was filled with cutouts of a political leader. This despite the municipality levying charges for removing garbage from commercial establishments, hotels and marriage halls and not allowing hoardings unless they carry its mandate for a "beautiful" town.
But, Gandhiselvan and Kanthaswami have even bigger plans. They want computers for the four municipal schools, a swimming pool for the town and a couple of libraries. The ISO certification may be a beginning.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Found the WMD. It is here.

2006-04-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

A 10-megaton nuclear weapon (The current U.S. warhead strength) creates an explosion equivalent to the detonation of 10 million tons of TNT--from less than 200 pounds (90 kg) of nuclear fuel. Pressure waves emanating from the blast would exceed 30 pounds per square inch and generate winds in excess of 700 miles per hour (1,125 km/h). Such winds could knock down steel-and-concrete buildings with ease. Even 20 miles (32 miles) away, the blast would shatter windows and uproot trees.
The temperature around the blast would rise in an instant to more than 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius)--hotter than the sun. Everything in a 2-mile (3.2-km) radius would be vaporized. Further out, materials like glass and steel would melt. Further still, combustible materials would ignite and produce innumerable fires. Even at distances greater than 20 miles (32 km), humans would suffer serious burns from the flash.
And when the dust cleared and the fires were out, the bomb's most insidious effect would remain: radiation. Radiation is all around you. It bombards you every moment of your life, everywhere you go. Don't panic, though. Radiation is simply traveling energy, and most of it is harmless. But some forms, like ultraviolet light and X-rays, are harmful if you're exposed too long. Radiation like this, called ionizing radiation, contains enough energy to break down chemical bonds in substances that absorb it.
Radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium emit, among other things, gamma rays, packing 10,000 times more energy than visible light. Gamma rays can pass right through humans, penetrating tissues and ionizing atoms in your body. This leads to massive cellular damage, resulting in system-wide "radiation sickness" and, with enough exposure, death.
Although damage from the blast, heat, and even radiation burns may heal over time, the ionizing damage done to the DNA in human cells will remain. Sooner or later, the body's own replication of damaged DNA leads to the final danger of a nuclear blast: cancer, mutations, and a host of genetic abnormalities. These last casualties can take years, or even decades, to occur.

Andaman Beauties--Next target

2006-04-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

Will they be able to create a real YUVA ?

2006-04-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

The political party Lok Paritran (changed from Paritrana due to certain policies of the Election Commission) was founded on 18 th November, 2005.
Two and a half years ago, an informal group of youngsters was formed with the intention of actually taking action against the degeneration of society and the increase in suffering at the collective level which are the order of the day in spite of the immense potential of the country. Intensive efforts in trying to implement changes in key areas like public health and education brought home two irrefutable facts – the intellectual bankruptcy and corruption that have seeped into every layer of the current system, and the inherent interconnectedness of all issues facing society and the impossibility of a partial solution. The group was faced with two choices – to abandon their goals, or go all the way.
Lok Paritran is the result of the group that remained after all the trials and tribulations to go all the way.
Most of the Party leadership holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, and all of them have sacrificed lucrative opportunities both in India and abroad in order to participate in the Party. The President Tanmay Rajpurohit has returned to India leaving his PhD in Economics in the US in order to head this group.
Elaborating upon the reason which prompted these individuals to launch a political party of their own, the party President Tanmay Rajpurohit, who holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Mumbai and double masters degrees from the US, said, “This party has been founded for the purpose of bringing about a fundamental change in the system, which, riddled with corruption and inefficiencies, has become the sole reason of distress to the people”. Soliciting support for this novel initiative he further added, “Any help of any kind would go a long way to help us get a foothold in the Indian political arena, which is so slippery because of the accumulated filth that we intend to clean.”
Chief advisor, Santhanagopalan Vasudev, who is postgraduate in Economics from the US called upon the youth to rise and join the movement. “The stagnated political system is in dire need of fresh blood and dynamism”, he said. Speaking about economic and social policy, he said “Plenty of good ideas have come and gone, for lack of proper implementation. The call of the hour is for broad structural changes that will permit the benefits of policy changes to reach the intended beneficiaries with minimal leakage of resources.” On the decision to contest in the upcoming elections, he said, “Our first goal is to increase awareness in the people, and arouse them from their state of inaction by bringing to them the definite possibility of actual change. And what better way than taking a stand in the elections to let them know that we are determined to change the existing system?”
Lok Paritran will contest in the upcoming elections in Tamilnadu, Kerala and Pondicherry .
The Party's long term and short term action plans are :
Short Term Plans
To expand the membership base of “ Lok Paritran ” as a political party
To take people out of inaction due to complete loss of hope
Outline a concrete, detailed and pragmatic plan to make India a developed nation.
Making region specific plans depending on the local parameters.
Spreading the message of “ Lok Paritran ” at every level of society.
Preparing strategies for the elections.
Exploring the possibilities of establishing institutions for health, cultural, legal and social awareness as well as action.
To conduct “camps” and seminars for building a better understanding and cohesion in the people with the same goal.
Long Term Plans
To achieve the full potential of the country both at the individual and the collective level.
To exterminate corruption by whatever means necessary.
To overhaul the current education system that has lost its relevance in the changed social and economic conditions.
To reorient political organization making it more structured and dynamic.
To integrate technology in industry at both urban and rural levels.
To modernize India 's force structure and defense doctrine.
To adopt a practical foreign policy for India .
To establish India as a formidable economic and intellectual power in the world.

If you are interested in joining this party or any more news, visit : http://www.lokparitran.org/

http://www.lokparitran.youaremighty.com/

And it seems in chennai they are contesting this elections from
1. T Nagar2. Mylapore3. Park Town4. Thousand Lights5. Saidapet 6. Anna Nagar

The World is Flat---India Flattered

2006-04-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

India Emerging As Engg hot Spot For Global Firms

Potential for outsourced services estimated around $10 b-12 b Among the global firms that have set up base here, UK's Rolls-Royce Group Plc has already established a wholly-owned subsidiary in the country to manage the growing volume of engineering work that it is sub-contracting to India. New Delhi , April 9 The growing shortage of core-sector engineers across the globe has international firms flocking to tap Indian civil and mechanical engineering skills. India, which had nearly four lakh engineers graduate in 2005 as against just 70,000 passing put in the US, is seeing jobs of transactional engineers coming in, especially in the core infrastructure sectors. While engineering work currently being executed by India-based vendors is estimated to be around $500 million, analysts estimate the market potential for outsourced engineering services is estimated to be around $10 billion-$12 billion. Overseas consultancy Besides the engineering outsourcing pioneers such as L&T, Thermax, Mahindra and Hero Global Design, firms such as NTPC Ltd and Power Grid Corporation India Ltd (PGCIL) are now betting big on overseas consultancy assignments. NTPC is offering training to power engineers of Aluminium Bahrain and technical personnel of Oman Refinery Company at its facilities here and has deputed shift engineers to power stations in Nigeria in lieu of sizeable consultancy charges. PGCIL is in the process of roping in retired engineers on a contractual basis to execute projects at home as it is putting several of its regular engineers on overseas consultancy assignments due to the huge demand for heavy engineering skills abroad. The India subsidiary of the US-based Quality Engineering and Software Technologies (QuEST), which employs around 700 engineers in Bangalore, is executing direct engineering work packages and sub-contracting projects from India for clients abroad, including several Fortune 500 firms. The company offers concept design to drafting and modelling, to analysis and product realisation solutions in sectors such as aerospace, automotive engineering, energy, industrial products and the petroleum domain. Among the global firms that have set up base here, UK's Rolls-Royce Group Plc has already established a wholly owned subsidiary in the country to manage the growing volume of engineering work that it is sub-contracting to India. Based in Bangalore, Rolls-Royce Operations India Pvt Ltd would tap domestic engineering analysis and design capability skills in developing aero-engineering solutions. Analysts predict that the country is also set to get a bigger piece of the auto offshoring business. According to an AT Kearney online survey of American Automotive Executives, India leads the outsourcing market when it comes to auto-outsourcing with 24 per cent of auto manufacturers giving it the thumbs-up for outsourcing, much higher than those favouring China, Mexico and the Philippines. Eicher Motors has also forayed into engineering services outsourcing with the acquisition of the US-based company Design Intent Engineering (DIE) and the company expects new business to contribute revenue to the tune of $100 million in the next four years.

US Immigration

2006-04-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

Is America's melting pot set to boil? Congress is trying to pass the first major piece of immigration legislation in 20 years, but senators simply can't agree--even within political parties. The poem on the Statue of Liberty welcomes the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," but a majority of Americans--52 percent--now call immigrants "a burden because they take jobs and housing."

Most--56 percent--came from Europe. But many came from the Americas and from Asia, too--about 28 and 14 percent. A few came from Africa and elsewhere. (The numbers don't include those who were forced to come as slaves from Africa, as Congress banned the importation of slaves in 1808.)
Almost half of the 70 million--49 percent--came from Germany, Mexico, Italy, Great Britain, Ireland, and Canada. They came in waves, with Irish men and women giving way to Germans, giving way to Italians, giving way again to Germans, and giving way, most recently, to Mexicans.
Polls say that today's 300 million Americans aren't sure what to think of immigrants anymore. Fully 40 percent think there should be fewer immigrants. Only 17 percent would welcome more. But at least 41 percent admire their pluck.
Opinions are even more divided on illegal immigration. About 27 percent of Americans want illegal immigrants deported. About 32 percent would let them stay--temporarily, as guest workers. Another 32 percent say let them stay and have a chance to become citizens.

Penal System in US

2006-04-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

One would simply love to live in the US, if only for one reason: The ruthlessness with which the law enforcement machinery goes after the high and mighty — whether politicians or business tycoons — who fall foul of the law. President Nixon's once-powerful aides, including the Attorney-General himself, were tried for their part in the Watergate scandal and put behind bars to serve harsh sentences. Corporate bigwigs caught for violations of the law are similarly meted out stiff sentences after trials lasting six months or less. The two recent cases to hit the headlines concern the former Representative of the US Congress, Mr Randy Cunningham, and Washington's "super-lobbyist," Mr Jack Abramoff. Unlike India's politicians against whom cases drag on for years, and eventually fizzle out, Mr Cunningham straightaway admitted his guilt, and the trial was over in just two months. He has been sent to prison for eight years and four months (the longest awarded to any Congressman) for collecting $2.4 million as bribes; besides, the court has also confiscated $3.65 million and the proceeds from the sale of his mansion. He is the third Congressman in the recent past to go to prison for a long period.

Mr Abramoff was very close to the President and his top advisers for years and enjoyed enormous political clout. He too pleaded guilty to running an extensive network of fraud and corruption and has been sentenced, after a trial of barely a couple of months, to nearly six years. In all such cases, regardless of how big or powerful he may have been, the person sentenced is promptly handcuffed behind his back and marched off to prison and asked to change to prison uniform. No ducking the sentences by various legal ruses is allowed. Trials are over within a few months and sentences are invariably heavy, sometimes going up to 30 years or more. Prisons too are as prisons should be.

Will it not be lovely to have a similar penal system in operation in India as well?

My Experiments with Truth--Just Jolly

2006-04-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Searching Ms Right--You know what iam talking about
Bold text is mine.

HAI I AM BROAD & FREE MINDED, JOLLY TYPE GIRL,LOOKING SMART.
I AM SEARCHING FOR THE CHARMING,SMART,JOLLY TYPE,YOUNG HUS FOR MY PARADISE.
About My Family :
JOLLY TYPE BUT SRIKT IN NECCESSARY MATTER.FATHER IS SOMEOVER STRIKT MOTHER JOLLY AND CHANGED FOR US LIKE MOEDEN,FATHER IS STILL IN THE OLD,BROTHER STUDING IN THE COLLEGE,FIRST YEAR Bsc IT,HE IS FREE CHARACTER
A spell checker is definitely needed in every matrimony site.

One girl who is older to me ...
do you know iam younger to you?
hmm thats what i want to ask you. do you mind?
Yes I do mind.
Iam sorry to contact you though your age is avlbl in your profile.
desperate than me?
She is a computer science engr from a top university in chennai

Ours is a nuclear family.
Iam surprised how it doesn't come under UN Supervision.

Hello we are calling from california, we are bride's sister and BIL. We are looking only for 24 manai 8 house chettiar.
Sorry I have only 1 house and 2 manai kattai s in that house

Hi, Iam looking for compatibility match ie wavelength match than horoscope match
Iam chatting with you for the past 2 days...and i dont see it.
God, in jus 2 days after I acted like good n true, is this the answer?
Aaana kadaisiya onnu sonna...nee romba nallavan da.nu yu'll get a better girl...
Naanum manasukalaye ninaichikuten (yevalavu neram thaan nallavana nadikarathu nu )
Let the wave length match and resonance happen one day.

How do you want your life partner to be?
He should be a good friend to me.
So what will you do to your friends after marriage?

Do you like pets?
I said , No i dont !
Then iam sorry... (May be only one pet constraint at her home)

Shall i study in US after marriage?
Why did nt you study in US till now? What stopped you?
Ok. Will you allow me to work in US.
I can allow. but on H4 you cant work. you need a workpermit.
Oh is it?

Our girl is not that fair as you?
I was laughing. She was actually fair.

To a very pretty girl , I told
Iam not particular on looks ;)
She said that’s good. But ain't i look good ?

My parents are intercaste. Is that ok for you.
First you are of different caste, and i didnt mind this.
Why do i mind your parents?.

Sub-caste no bar.
Periya manasu may be they are searching for long.

Hey tell me abt yourself
Please read it in my profile and then we can discuss
I read it but i want to hear from you.
Ithu yenna virumandi kathaiya?

One girl read my profile
Spoke like a requirement gathering session.

A reply from a mail id which is not the girl's or the one who is contacting me
Are they loaning email id from anyone else?.

Lets chat and find about each other.
i dt understd tamil understd tat im really bad at tat
God who found this chat language? too cryptic,

Do you know tamil
Yes i do
Lets do voice chat
Nope. I cant talk with you in tamil till i get the comfort
Is tamil that tough?

Hi, i am happy to intimate that our horoscope are matching well (8/10). We are planning for further steps.
Oops. I didnt contact and asked them to check.

send me your photo. Only then i can contact your parents.
I am sorry, 1st u have to contact my parents to get my pic
Whats the difference?.

How ru doing?
Iam expecting a reply for my previous mail about your details
Reply:
hi,
I am fine here, how r u?
have a good day
hmm,
I didnt expect this reply anyway.

Hi
Iam attaching my pic.
Its a group photo taken in her workplace
Lot of beautiful chicks. I thought of asking who the girl next to her.

Hi shall i ask you a basic question? Why do you want to get married?
To be very frank, my parents told me that iam getting old
and hence should get married
What you would do if they haven't told like that
I would have been their child always
Well Iam not interested in child marriage

Later : Matrimony Id XXX profile has been hidden. You cannot send a reply.

One girl called me in the midnight 2.45 am
Hello do you know the time here in US EST
Yes i know. but i thought you would be awake.
Am i in production support? Ipovey thookathey kedukaranga pa…

A woman of age 35 divorced contacted me
I was quite into surprise.
No its not for me
It’s for my cousin who is a Tamil but living in Gujarat
Kootu muyarchi ithulayuma?

I AM AN EPICUREAN.I THINK THIS IS ENOUGH.IF INTERESTED FEEL FREE TO CONTACT
No way if they say explicitly

Hi It’ll take a long period for me to understand you.
Ok no problems. We can chat everyday through email
First day: hi what did you have for break fast and what for lunch?
Same question everyday...purinjikirangalama...

Hi, after marriage where are you gonna live
Hi I’ll marry and come back to US for 1 year
Will you leave me and go?
No i wont go without you.
Shall I study in US?
Yes if it works out
When are you planning to come back?
will be coming back to India after a year.
Oh if so will you leave me alone in US while I do my studies?
???

Dynamic personality -Possessing two and four wheeler License
So what I 'll have to buy both vehicles and keep it ready?

be open i love my parents,i like roaming,i like freak outs,i be modern
???

Guy should have clean habits.
Do they mean that I should wash hands before and after smoking or drinking?

am very strit of my life so am avert to my hsband also strit and enjoy our life.
wel fam but in all fam members r hard worker.
Should be from a beehive

I am a doctor in middle class family i want sutable to my professsion as well as myself
A doctor’s words

good (looking ,character), lovable, adjustable, no complex, no domination, sharing thoughts & ideas, should be diffrent from others. should be a graduate, salary about 10K-15K. we should be a idle couples
I can be idle all the time :)

What is this woman trying to do ?

2006-04-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

In brief, the Government's plan is to build 30 large, 135 medium and 3000 small dams to harness the waters of the Narmada and its tributaries. The proponents of the dam claim that this plan would provide large amounts of water and electricity which are desperately required for the purposes of development.

Opponents of the dam question the basic assumptions of the Narmada Valley Development Plan and believe that its planning is unjust and inequitous and the cost-benefit analysis is grossly inflated in favour of building the dams. It is well established that the plans rest on untrue and unfounded assumptions of hydrology and seismicity of the area and the construction is causing large scale abuse of human rights and displacement of many poor and underprivileged communities. They also believe that water and energy can be provided to the people of the Narmada Valley, Gujarat and other regions through alternative technologies and planning processes which can be socially just and economically and environmentally sustainable.

Patkar, who has been on a hunger strike for the last six days, claims raising the height will render thousands homeless.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan is one of the longest non-violent movements in the country.

But the government prefers to negotiate with militant groups such as the ULFA and Naxals instead.

The NCA claims that relief and rehabilitation has been done satisfactorily while the activists' term it's a big lie.

The onus is now on the Centre to find out just what is the truth.

As per the law, the governments were required to ensure that every single affected family was resettled at least 6 months before submergence, offering cultivable land for land and resettling them in resettlement sites provided with all civic amenities. However, in clear and inhuman violence of this it has not resettled atleast 35,000 families.

Rehabilitation has been reduced to a paper exercise in the process. This decision, made possible by the political nexus between Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh governments, will not only murder the lives and futures of affected people but will also submerge a culture, a heritage, a civilization that is centuries old.

The cruelty with which the natural resources including land, water, minerals, of adivasis and farmers are being snatched away by governments, using brutal force in most instances, in violation of Constitutionally guaranteed rights needs to be stopped immediately.

In the last 20 years, NBA has seen a great game unfolding in the Narmada Valley, which involves a mockery of figures. With this project of 50,000 crore rupees, the generations-old villages are being taken away from us by using water as a weapon.

This development that is based on capital investments from large Multi National Corporations, is leading to the massacre of our workers. Even the public sector is going in the same perverted direction. The principles of the capital market and political contractors are pushing this process forward. Sardar Sarovar Project best epitomizes this.

Governments hope that the resilient sathyagrahis of the Narmada valley, the adivasis and farmers, will be destroyed by their submergence.

This struggle is not just for the Narmada. It is for every valley,
every village, every community under threat. And is the voice against
the snatching away of sustenance and livelihood.

- NBA's pledge is that, while stopping the Sardar Sarovar project,
any form of forced displacement without consent and participation is
unacceptable.
- It is pained and ashamed by the use of force and arms to displace
people
- It wants that the planning of development projects must be in the
public interest and within the democratic framework and through
scientific processes
- It believes that where a dispute has been raised by people, it
should be resolved through dialogue and consent, and not through
monetary inducements and threats of violence
- The development planning must start in the gram sabha at the
village
level, and the basti sabhas at the city level
- The Government of India should change the colonial Land Acquisition
Acts and changes in the National Resettlement Policy must be
introduced
- NBA has appealed to the peoples movements from every corner of this
Country, raising such questions to come here, join this struggle and
seek answers to the fundamental questions we all pose together.

God's Own Country ---Kerala (Kumarakom)

2006-03-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

These pictures were taken by my friends when we went to kumarakom way back in 2004

AGCD: America Gone Confused Desi- Back in India

2006-03-27T18:56:00.000-08:00

Scare relatives by giving them frenzied electronic items like Electric Razor, Robot vacuum machine and scare the hell out of them explaining how it works.

Prefer tin coke instead of soda bottle coke and think tin coke is cool when you pay more for less quantity.

Call a friend and ask for appointment/expect the appointments for a casual visit.

Complain about not having lanes in road system to friend as if driven in laned roads.

Listen acknowledging with huhumm, hahhan instead of our traditional hmmm.

Carry a laptop to office without any use of it.

Have a flip type mobile with ringer tone of some unknown english song.

Stop and Wait for pedestrians to cross while driving car even in small Indian roads listening to the honks behind.

Donate at least 10 rs to a beggar.

Always say yup or yep instead of yes.

Cry wazzup buddy / baby when meeting friends.

Wear a thick half trouser tucking in T-shirt (with a small tummy) even
when going to meet relatives.

Play/watch tennis, basket ball, baseball, F1 race.

Always take cold coffee...buy Tropicana.

Say thank you to servant maid even for any small help.

Try saying Soccer when football (deep down the heart it is still football).

Tries to look out for Clorex in super market.

Just for the sake of it try entering car in right hand side and say "ooooh ..." as if u right from birth driven car in right hand side.

Tries to use credit card in road side hotel.

Drinks and carries mineral water and always speak of health conscious.

Sprays deo such so that he doesn't need to take bath.

Sneezes and says 'Excuse me' Says 'Bless you' when someone does.

Says "Hey" instead of "Hi"
Says "Yogurt" instead of saying "Curd"
Says "Cab" instead of "Taxi"
Says "Candy" instead of "Chocolate"
Says "Cookie" instead of "Biscuit"
Says "Free Way" instead of "Highway"
Says "got to go" instead of "Have to go"
Says "Oh" instead of "Zero", (for 704, says Seven Oh Four Instead of Seven Zero Four

Doesn't forget to crib about air pollution: Keeps cribbing every time he steps out.

Says all the distances in Miles (Not in Kilo Meters) and counts in Millions(Not in Lakhs)

Tries to figure all the prices in Dollars as far as possible
(but deep down the heart multiplies by 43 times).

Tries to see the % of fat on the cover of a milk pocket.

When need to say Z (zed, never says Z (Zed, repeats "Zee"
several times, if the other person unable to get, then says X, Y Zee(but never says Zed)

Writes date as MM/DD/YYYY, on watching traditional DD/MM/YYYY, says "Oh! British Style!!!!"

Makes fun of Indian Standard Time and Indian Road Conditions.

Even after 2 months, complaints about "Jet Lag".

Avoids eating more chili (hot stuff).

Tries to drink "Diet Coke", instead of Normal Coke.

Tries to complain about any thing in India as if he is experiencing it for the first time.

Pronounces "schedule" as "skejule", and "module" as "Mojule".

Looks speciously towards Hotel/Dhaba food.

From the luggage bag, does not remove the stickers of Airways by which he traveled back to India, even after 4 months of arrival.

Takes the cabin luggage bag to short visits in India, tries to roll the bag on Indian Roads and Railway platforms.

Ultimate one

Tries to begin conversation with "In US ...:" or "When I was in US..."

If you are an American....

2006-03-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

You know how baseball, basketball, and American football are played. If you're male, you can argue intricate points about their rules.

You count yourself fortunate if you get three weeks of vacation a year.

If you died tonight... You're fairly likely to believe in God; if not, you've certainly been approached by people asking whether you know that you're going to Heaven.

You think of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC etc. as cheap food.

You probably own a telephone and a TV. Your place is heated in the winter and has its own bathroom. You do your laundry in a machine. You don't kill your own food.

You don't have a dirt floor. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.

You don't consider insects, dogs, cats, monkeys, or guinea pigs to be food.

It seems natural to you that the telephone system, railroads, auto manufacturers, airlines, and power companies are privately run; indeed, you can hardly picture things working differently.

The train system, by contrast, isn't very good. Trains don't go any faster than cars; you're better off taking a plane.

You don't expect to hear socialism seriously defended.
Between "black" and "white" there are no other races. Someone with one black and one white parent looks black to you.

You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.

You take a strong court system for granted, even if you don't use it. You know that if you went into business and had problems with a customer, partner, or supplier, you could take them to court.

You'd respect someone who speaks French, German, or Japanese-- but you very likely don't yourself speak them well enough to communicate with a monolingual foreigner. You're a bit more ambivalent about Spanish; you think the schools should teach kids English.

It's not all that necessary to learn foreign languages anyway. You can travel the continent using nothing but English-- and get by pretty well in the rest of the world, too.

You think a tax level of 30% is scandalously high.

School is free through high school (at least, it's an option, even if you went to private school); college isn't, unless you get a scholarship.
College is (normally, and excluding graduate study) four years long.

Everybody knows that

Mustard comes in jars. Shaving cream comes in cans. Milk comes in plastic jugs or cardboard boxes, and occasionally in bottles.

The date comes second: 11/22/06. (And you know what happened on that date.)
The decimal point is a dot. Certainly not a comma.

A billion is a thousand times a million.

World War II was a just war, and (granted all the suffering of course) ended all right. It was a time when the country came together and did what was right. And instead of insisting on vengeance, the US very generously rebuilt Europe instead, with the Marshall Plan.

You expect marriages to be made for love, not arranged by third parties. Getting married by a judge is an option, but not a requirement; most marriages happen in church. You have a best man and a maid or matron of honor at the wedding-- a friend or a sibling. And, naturally, a man gets only one wife at a time.

Once you're introduced to someone (well, besides the President and other lofty figures), you can call them by their first name.

You'd rather a film be subtitled than dubbed (if you go to foreign films at all).
You seriously expect to be able to transact business, or deal with the government, without paying bribes.

If a politican has been cheating on his wife, you would question his ability to govern.

Just about any store will take your credit card.

A company can fire just about anybody it wants, unless it discriminates by doing so.

You like your bacon crisp (unless it's Canadian bacon, of course).

You talk more about cookies than eating them.

Contributions to world civilization

You've probably seen Star Wars, ET, Home Alone, Casablanca, and Snow White. If you're under forty, add Blazing Saddles, Terminator, Jaws, and 2001; otherwise, add Gone with the Wind, A Night at the Opera, Psycho, and Citizen Kane.

You count on excellent medical treatment. You know you're not going to die of cholera or other Third World diseases. You expect very strong measures to be taken to save very ill babies or people in their eighties. You think dying at 65 would be a tragedy.

You went over US history, and some European, in school, Not much Russian, Chinese, or Latin American. You couldn't name ten US interventions in Latin America.
You expect the military to fight wars, not get involved in politics. You may not be able to name the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation.

You're used to a wide variety of choices for almost anything you buy.

You consider your car as your wife and wife as car. you wont allow anyone to drive your own car...not even touch it.

You still measure things in feet, pounds, and gallons.

You are not a farmer.

The people who appear on the most popular talk shows are mostly entertainers, politicians, or rather strange individuals. Certainly not, say, authors.

You drive on the right side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them. You never honk unless someone makes a shit.

You consider the Volkswagen Beetle to be a small car.

The police are armed, but not with submachine guns.

The biggest meal of the day is in the evening.

There's parts of the city you definitely want to avoid at night.

You feel that your kind of people aren't being listened to enough in Washington.
You wouldn't expect both inflation and unemployment to be very high (say, over 15%) at the same time.

The normal thing, when a couple dies, is for their estate to be divided equally between their children.

You think of opera and ballet as rather elite entertainments. It's likely you don't see that many plays, either.

Christmas is in the winter. Unless you're Jewish, you spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree.

You may think the church is too powerful, or the state is; but you are used to not having a state church and don't think that it would be a good idea.

You'd be hard pressed to name the capitals or the leaders of all the nations of Europe.

You've left a message at the beep.

Taxis are generally operated by foreigners, who are often deplorably ignorant about the city.

You are distrustful of welfare and unemployment payments-- you think people should earn a living and not take handouts. But you would not be in favor of eliminating Social Security and Medicare.

If you want to be a doctor, you need to get a bachelor's first.

Space and time
If you have an appointment, you'll mutter an excuse if you're five minutes late, and apologize profusely if it's ten minutes. An hour late is almost inexcusable.

If you're talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they approach closer than about two feet.

About the only things you expect to bargain for are houses, cars, and antiques.

Once you're past college, you very rarely simply show up at someone's place. People have to invite each other over-- especially if a meal is involved.

When you negotiate, you are polite, of course, but it's only good business to 'play hardball'.

If you have a business appointment or interview with someone, you expect to have that person to yourself, and the business shouldn't take more than an hour or so.

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Instant Reviews

2006-03-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

Mercury Pookal : Adviced for Aspiring Bachelors. Good One.

Jasmine another beautiful flower.

My school buddy kurinjinathan plays a role in the movie as a friend to srikanth and makes some mimicry-comedy in the movie.

Chithiram Pesuthadi : Charithiram Pesuthadi. Good one.

Pattiyal : Pithamagan part 2. But vikram and surya were way ahead.

Thambi : Maddy wears a rahman hair style. Good action movie.

Maddy acting not that good.

One Dialogue --> Maanai sutta jail la poduranga , Manusanai sutta bail la viduranga .

Kalaba Kathalan : First half not adviced for bachelors. Second half---A bad message.

Kalvanin Kathali : Another crap movie from SJ Surya.
Who told him that he is acting good. Nayan Tara , A dream wife

Kovai Brothers : Thanks to my american life.Ithellam parka vendiyiruku.

Madarasi : Another action movie

Kodambakkam : A senti movie. but ok to watch once.

Idhaya Thirudan : Time waste

Saravana : Mokkai poduran simbu

Local News

2006-03-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

Sk Srinivasan left to India March 24th

My College Buddy Vinoth raj got married on Mar 2nd

My Anni gave birth to a baby girl on Feb 26

My Hexaware Buddy Hema gave birth to a baby girl.

Yen Ayal Desa Vazhkai-----Chennai To Newark

2006-03-23T11:50:00.000-08:00

Started from India in the midnight through Lufthansa aircraft, soma, bai, kk, hari, kosu, subbu, yoge, dinesh, anni‘s amma appa came to the airport. Went in early as kk was pinging me that I’ll be catching the flight in the runway. Checked in the baggage and it was 6kgs less than permissible limit. Waited in the lounge before boarding and hence called up home and kk and spoke with them for sometime. Then took a costly coffee in Chennai airport, the last essence of the drink from my Thai mannu.

Boarded the flight and sat in a place where the next seat was free. There was a partial I would say a racial treatment in the Lufthansa flight because they didn’t ask me whether I’ll drink any liquor. I was taking orange juice and apple juice with the cuisines the classic way as the hostess was calling it. Then went to the rest room and found it difficult the madhaavan way , used the tissue papers. There was a painful 5 hrs transit in the Frankfurt airport. Was scolding kk since he didn’t give me the contact list printed which I sent him thru email. Hence I couldn’t call bala, my school friend who is in Germany during the transit time. Was roaming around the airport lounge and shopping malls, Had coffee in the lounge coffee bar with whoever Indians I met there. I disturbed a couple who are about to get married in India on their way from Ger. They were talking in Tamil and took the rights to disturb them, the guy is a scientist in a German university and the girl is pursuing studies there. He should be proud to introduce himself as a scientist. I would have. Then had a coffee latte which is like the Indian coffee with another Indian who is on his way towards India and he was in US for 8 yrs. Was telling me that the pay packs in India have raised and nowadays he cud see only less no of Indians coming on H1. Then was talking with another Indian who is on his way to Texas Austin and hence we had another coffee latte. All these coffees are in a span of 5 hrs. But the real wonder is, I didn’t pay for any of these coffees. I don’t know how to pay even if they ask me to pay. I had $200 as two $100 dollar bills. Then i became tired and hence sat on the floor like our central railway station and was reading a sujatha’s book for sometime.

Then boarded the connecting flight to Newark, some call it nay wark or some as new wark, some how landed in the privileged country. My taxi guy made me wait in the airport for 30 mins. I was looking for name boards carrying my name as in movies…but I was made to call him to the airport, hence bought a coffee in the Newark airport to get some change. For making a call it is 1 dollar as four quarters, but I had only 2. Hence seeing my situation, another taxi driver gave me another 2 quarters to complete the call. Before I started from Chennai that evening it was raining and after I reached Newark, it was raining again. At last started from the airport and cab driver whose name is Joe (he‘s an Egyptian) stopped in a house (oru kaatu bangala), I thought he is going to check for the directions. But he said this is your guest house and asked me to take my baggage in. one guy was there in the guest house and he introduced himself as Mahesh(manavadu). I kept the baggage inside and got introduced to him. Will continue....

My German Experiences

2006-03-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

About the Nation:
The Country is rich because they invaded other nations and war was their only business.
Only after World War II, they started developing in all technologies and they way they built their nation is well planned. This country cannot be compared with Japan, as they are rich enough through invasion when they started building their nation while Japan rose from ashes.

About Racism and Nazism:
Its not here anymore and people are very friendly and helpful and they never discriminate people from their skin color. May be previous generations would have been as I thought. I heard that it is still there in some eastern parts of Germany. Nazism and Hitler’s thoughts are no more here and people here hate talking about that.

About the Climate:
The climate is very cool here when I landed there, was about –7 C and luckily I escaped from the winter when it went to the extreme about –18 C. Mostly north east and south west German cities experience heavy cold and snow and Frankfurt is in the central Germany which is a bit moderate. I was staying in Bad Homburg, some half n hr from Frankfurt and was a good place.

About the Population:
The population is very less and it is in the decreasing curve. People here don’t want any commitment in their life; hence no concept of marriage and everyone live with their friend. In all the public transport vehicles, the group ticket for 5 is cheaper that buying tickets for 2 individuals. The govt. is happy to see groups of people in trains and buses than individuals, giving good tax concessions for people who have 2 or more children.

About the People:
Old Aryans came from Germany, this is mythology. These people are really western and they look completely different. I can accept people from Spain, Hungary and Netherlands to look like Aryans i.e. our typical north Indians. Here female ratio is more than male and Indian girls who have settled here look pretty. People very rarely use two wheelers and mostly you can find some modified version of Scooty. All others use only cars here and they religiously follow the traffic rules. Pedestrians have more respect than car drivers in the road and the cars will stop till you cross the road. -Now only I started feeling the advantage of less population and cool weather to make you wait in traffic signals and people here never use horns and will scold you if you use. Most of the Taxi drivers here are from other nations esp. Pakistan, turkey and Afghanistan .All of them drive very decently and we get the Quittung (receipt) for claiming after paying them. Typical Germans really look like steffi graf and Boris Becker as I have heard. People here are very much frugal spending money. They spend money only for food, car, petrol (called a benzin here) and wine. Cost of petrol is 1 Euro per litre and the bus ticket is 1.25 Euro, hence car is affordable and cost only 1000 Euro when you go for second hand. People here are very sturdy and walk very fast as if they are going to catch the next bus. But even though sometimes it’s true, people walk to home very swiftly. It was impossible for me to walk in the pace of an old man in the Frankfurt station. They keep up the time like anything. Even the professors are punctual and will start classes as perfect like trains. People here are very helpful and even the old aged try to understand English and help me. But one day I put my tongue out like a dog to ask for a tongue cleaner in a shopping plaza. People here will become very happy once they see the sun. Everyone come out of the houses during the weekends, go for walking with their pets.

About the Language:
Language is a great barrier here and people become very happy when you speak their language instead of English. If you really want to get along with people, you have to know the deutsche language.

About the food:
People here either eat cow or what the cow eats (I mean raw vegetables in the name of salads). Beef and Pork are their favorites and Pizza, burger of course. I ate beef once and most of the times took chicken and fish. Here no Indian restaurants and survival is a bit tough if you are a pure vegetarian and don’t know cooking. Only one jaipur restaurant was there nearby but not so good it seems. People here take spiceless food. When I tried some vegetarisch (vegetarian) dishes, all of them were some modified versions of Pastas and Pizzas. Some sandwiches had raw sliced meat inside.
The fruits and vegetables come from Turkey, as Germany is a cold country and not a good place for vegetation.

About Education and Industries:
Here education is excellent and free. But immigration and Job opportunities are closed for overseas students. Automobile and Electronics engineering are worthwhile studies and world best manufacturers are here. BMW, Mercedes Benz, Siemens and Opel speak proud of Germany.
Siemens employers in Germany are treated with high respect. Some twenty years back, people after finishing their schooling have to go either to social service or Army and have to serve the nation at least for 2 years. Only then they can for any other job. Almost all the professions are treated equally and almost all of them get the same salary on average. Hence even a garbage collector owns a car.

About the Public Transport:
Here trains and buses are timed as 9.09 or 10.37, which they maintain very perfectly. I was really wondering only about the bus timings if it has to wait in traffic signals and bus stops. If you didn’t see a 10.37 bus not coming at the same time, you can simply look for the next bus time as it could’ve been cancelled for the entire day. A single firm operates all the public transport vehicles and the tickets issue is automated hence no separate ticket for train/bus, you can use it for anything. Only few take tickets from the driver of the bus. Unlike americans , these people are real stylish. You can see a typical FTV costume modeling when any train comes to the station and people will be walking like that. Buses, Trams and trains can be distinguished by their lengths only. Here ICE trains are the ones, which look different and will travel across around Europe.

Festivals:
Christmas is the foremost festival for Germany. Then when we were there, 27th of Feb was celebrated as Carnival day where women have all the rights to do anything on guys. Here we used to harass girls during holi, the opposite way it happens there.

Shopping:
Hauptwache pronounced, as “hauptwaha” is the shopping area near Frankfurt. Then there’s a place where a shop called media mart, an electronic goods shopping plaza.

Sight Seeing:
Here you can find only museums and Castles. The Romans build most of them when they captured Europe at one point of time. Hiedelberg is a place one and half-hours from which has an old castle and which is not destroyed by the world war. Then there a hill over there, on top we went by a winch, on the top of which was like Swiss. Snow covered roads and they were very slippery. Rudesheim is another place for Vineyards. Bonn is the city built in the style of Russian architecture and looks a bit different.

Our life

2006-03-10T19:05:00.000-08:00

Budget 2006

2006-02-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

ECONOMY
* Savings up 21.9% of GDP
* FY05 GDP growth was 7.5%
* Having best of times and worst of times
* GDP growth likely to be 8.1% in 2006-07
* Govt has met first aim of high growth rate
* Growth is best antidote to poverty
* Govt determined to take country to 10% growth rate
FISC
* Gross capital formation up 30% in 2004-05
* Non-food credit growing over 25%
* Investment rate up from 25.3% in FY03 to 30.1% in FY05
* 1.727 trln rupee budget support for plan, up 20.4% in FY07
* 1.312-trln-rupee budget support for central plan
* FY07 budgetary support for North East 120.41 bln rupees
* Outcome Budget to be presented on Mar 17
* Provide 169.01 bln rupees equity support to central PSUs
* 1.227 trln rupees outlay in FY07 for public sector
* 100 bln rupees corpus for RIDF-XII in FY07
* Separate window for rural roads under RIDF
* To unwind special securities by converting to SLR papers
* Defense allocation raised to 890 bln rupees FY07
* To provide 30 bln rupees as VAT compensation to states
* States' revenue share up at 944 billion rupees FY07
* Tax-GDP ratio 10.5% in FY06 vs 9.8% yr ago
* FY06 fiscal deficit revised to 4.1% of GDP vs 4.3%
* FY06 revenue deficit revised to 2.6% of GDP vs 2.7%
* FY07 non-plan expenditure seen at 3.91 trln rupees
* FY07 fiscal deficit pegged at 3.8% of GDP
* FY07 total expenditure pegged at 5.639 trln rupees
AGRICULTURE
* Foodgrain output 209.3 mln tns, up 5 mln tns over last yr
* Farm credit to be raised to 1.75 trillion rupees in FY07
* Banks asked to add 5 mln more farmers to credit portfolio
* Interest subsidy of 200 bps for farm loans taken 05-06
* To provide 17 bln rupees for farmers' relief
* Short-term credit to farmers at 7%
* Special new NABARD credit line for self-help groups
* Central institute of Horticulture to be set up in Nagaland
* Food processing to be priority sector for bank credit
* NABARD to set up 10 bln rupee centre for food processing
INDUSTRY
* Manufacturing sector to grow at 9.4% in 2006-07
* Barring mining, all sectors performing satisfactorily
* Set up special purpose tea fund with 1-bln-rupee corpus
* National Fisheries Board to be constituted soon
* 5.35 bln rupees in FY07 for textile upgradation scheme
* Jute Technology Mission, National Jute Board to be set up
* Govt proposes Handloom Mark
* To develop 3 investment regions for oil sector in FY07
* 180 SSI items identified for de-reservation
* To recognise small, medium enterprises in services sector
* For cut in SSI credit guarantee fee to 1.5% vs 2.5%
INFRASTRUCTURE
* Highway schemes progressing at 4.4 km/day
* 5,083 MW capacity to be added in 2005-06
* 96% of Golden Quadrilateral will be completed by Jun
* 870,000 rural houses built under Bharat Nirman
* 71,182 villages got telephones under Bharat Nirman
* 870,000 rural houses built in Apr-Jan
* Budget support of 186.96 bln rupees for Bharat Nirman FY07
* Education allocation up in FY07 to 241.54 bln rupees
* Sarva Siksha Abhyan outlay for FY07 at 100.41 bln rupees
* FY07 mid-day meal allocation 48.13 bln rupees
* Rural employment to cost 117 bln rupees in FY07
* FY07 drinking water outlay 46.8 bln rupees vs 36.45 bln
* 143 bln rupee outlay in FY07 for Rural Employment Scheme
* 45.95 bln rupee outlay for National Urban Mission in FY07
* 20,000 water bodies to covered under renewal plan
* Indian Infrastructure Investment Co to be established
* Tourism ministry to develop 15 tourist centres
* Set up empowered ministers' group on cluster development
* FY07 allocation for tourist sector 8.30 bln rupees
* 15 bln rupees in FY07 to boost telephone connectivity
* To electrify 40,000 more villages in FY07
* 82 new power projects underway
* To electrify 40,000 more villages in FY07
* 4.75% rise in power generation so far; govt not happy
* 5.97 bln rupee for non-conventional energy resources FY07
* 99.45 bln rupees budget support for NHDP in FY07
* To build 1,000 Kms of access controlled expressways
* 7.35 bln rupees for development of sea ports in FY07
* 1,000 Kms of new expressways on BOT basis
* Defense allocation includes 374.58 bln rupees for capex
SECTORS
* Committed to strong, efficient public sector
* Expert body to look into gems, jewellery sector taxation
* 20 bln tn coal to be deblocked for power sector by 2012
* 45 coal blocks allocated for power, coal, steel sectors
* 220 bln rupee investment expected in refinery sector
* Introduce comprehensive bill on insurance in FY07
DEBT MARKETS
* Cap on FII in gilts raised to $2 bln
* Cap on FII investment in corp debt raised to $1.5 bln
* To remove 10% cap on overseas investment by mutual funds
* NDS-OM to be extended to some MFS, PFs, pension funds
* To create unified exchange traded mkt for corporate bonds
SOCIAL SECTOR
* To eliminate polio by December 2007
* Leprosy to be eliminated by December 2006
* 45.95 bln rupee outlay for National Urban Mission in FY07
* To raise old age pension to 200 rupees/mo vs 75 rupees
* Allocation for SC/STs raised 14.5% to 29.02 bln rupees
* 20,000 merit scholarships for minority students
* 164 mln rupees for National Minorities Development Corp
* To grant 1 bln rupees each to 3 universities
* New grants to Calcutta, Madras, Mumbai universities
* To allocate 970 mln rupees for upgrading ITIs in FY07
* 50 bln rupees for new fund under Panchayati Raj in FY07
* 13 bln rupees special aid to J&K for power reforms
EXTERNAL SECTOR
* FDI estimated at $4 bln till Nov 2005
* Confident of more FDI, especially in infrastructure
* To double world export share to 1.5% by FY09
CUSTOMS DUTY
* Non-farm imports customs peak rate cut to 12.5% from 15%
* Duty on alloy steel cut to 7.5% from 10%
* Customs on steel melting scrap raised to 5%
* Import duty on ores, concentrates cut to 2% from 5%
* BUDGET: Customs duty on inorganic chemicals cut to 10% from 15%
* Customs on steel melting scrap raised to 5%
* Import duty on ores, concentrates cut to 2% from 5%
* Customs on mineral products cut to 5% vs 15%
* Duty on catalysts cut to 7% from 7.5%
* Customs duty on anti-AIDS, anti-cancer drugs cut to 5%
* Customs on packaging machines cut to 5% vs 15%
* To impose countervailing duty of 4% on oil imports
* Customs duty on vanaspati raised to 18%
* Import duty on man-made fibre yarn cut to 8% vs 18%
EXCISE DUTY
* All excise rates to converge at CENVAT rate at 16%
* Excise duty on small cars cut to 16%
* Condensed milk, ice-creams exempted from excise duty
* 8% excise on packaged software in FY07
* Excise on idly, dose premixes cut to 16%
* Excise duty on aerated drinks cut to 16%
* Excise on glassware will be 16%
* DVD, Flash, Combo drives exempted from excise duty
* Duty on naphtha on plastics to be nil
* Petroleum pdts duty measures to be retail price neutral
* Excise duty on printing paper, ink cut to 12% from 16%
* Excise on cigarettes hiked by 5%
SERVICE TAX
* More services brought under service tax net
* Registrars, share transfer agents under service tax net
* Service tax to be extended to PR firms
* ATM operation, maintenance to come under service tax
* Services industry seen contributing 54% of GDP
* Service tax raised to 12% from 10%
* Apr 1, 2010 deadline for national level goods, svcs tax
DIRECT TAX
* No change in personal, corporate income tax rates
* Minimum Alternate Tax rate up to 10% from 7.5%
* To abolish 1/6 income tax norm
* MAT cos' credit period extended to 7 years
* Rate for STT increased by 25%
* Bank deposits of over 5 year under section 80C of IT Act
* 10,000 rupee ceiling on pension contribution removed
* Open, close-end equity MFs on par for div distribution tax
* PAN needed for more transactions
* To continue with cash withdrawal tax
* Hopes debate on FBT ends; FBT is justified
* Announce changes in computation of fringe benefit tax
* Lauds cash withdrawal tax role in curbing money laundering
* Retirement contribution cap of 100,000 rupees for FBT
* To issue statement of revenue foregone
* Include LPG under declared goods for CST
* States taxing LPG at high rates

* BUDGET: Direct tax proposals to yield 40 bln rupees more FY07

Outsourcing my Life---An eye opener

2006-02-28T16:41:00.000-08:00

My Outsourced LifeCall centers do it. IT firms do it. Manufacturers are doing the hell out of it. Even the CIA does it. So why can't I?By A. J. Jacobs Sep 01 '05

EsquireI REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE to write this article myself. I mean, why am I the one stuck in front of a computer terminal? All this tedious pecking out of words on my laptop. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions . Jesus. What a pain in my ass. Can't someone else do it? Can't I delegate this to one of my new assistants and spend my day kicking back on a chaise lounge, Sam Adams in hand, admiring Mischa Barton's navel on my TV?
What about having Asha write it? Or Sunder, Vivek, or Mr. Naveen? Or best of all, my sweet, sweet Honey? Pretty much anyone on my overseas staff will do. Or maybe not. Maybe that's one of the lessons of these jarring and curiously enlightening four weeks. Dammit. I guess I'll have to write about the lessons , too. Okay, on with it. Here you go. As my team might say, thanking you in advance for reading this story.
It began a month ago. I was midway through The World Is Flat , the bestseller by Tom Friedman. I like Friedman, despite his puzzling decision to wear a mustache. His book is all about how outsourcing to India and China is not just for tech support and carmakers but is poised to transform every industry in America, from law to banking to accounting. CEOs are chopping up projects and sending the lower-end tasks to strangers in cubicles ten time zones away. And it's only going to snowball; America has not yet begun to outsource.
I don't have a corporation; I don't even have an up-to-date business card. I'm a writer and editor working from home, usually in my boxer shorts or, if I'm feeling formal, my penguin-themed pajama bottoms. Then again, I think, why should Fortune 500 firms have all the fun? Why can't I join in on the biggest business trend of the new century? Why can't I outsource my low-end tasks? Why can't I outsource my life?
The next day I e-mail Brickwork, one of the companies Friedman mentions in his book. Brickwork—based in Bangalore, India—offers "remote executive assistants," mostly to financial firms and health-care companies that want data processed. I explain that I'd like to hire someone to help with Esquire-related tasks—doing research, formatting memos, like that. The company's CEO, Vivek Kulkarni, responds: "It would be a great pleasure to be talking to a person of your stature." Already I'm liking this. I've never had stature before. In America, I barely command respect from a Bennigan's maître d', so it's nice to know that in India I have stature.
A couple of days later, I get an e-mail from my new "remote executive assistant."
Dear Jacobs, My name is Honey K. Balani. I would be assisting you in your editorial and personal job. . . . I would try to adapt myself as per your requirements that would lead to desired satisfaction.
Desired satisfaction. This is great. Back when I worked at an office, I had assistants, but there was never any talk of desired satisfaction . In fact, if anyone ever used the phrase "desired satisfaction," we'd all end up in a solemn meeting with HR. And I won't even comment on the name Honey except to say that, real or not, it sure carries Anaïs Nin undertones.
Oh, did I mention that Vivek sent me a JPEG of Honey? She's wearing a white sleeveless shirt and has full lips, long hair, skin the color of her first name. She looks a bit like an Indian Eva Longoria. I can't stop staring at her left eyebrow, which is ever so slightly cocked. Is she flirting with me?
I go out to dinner with my friend Misha, who grew up in India, founded a software firm, and subsequently became nauseatingly rich. I tell him about Operation Outsource. "You should call Your Man in India," he says. Misha explains that this is a company for Indian businessmen who have moved overseas but who still have parents back in New Delhi or Mumbai. YMII is their overseas concierge service—it buys movie tickets and cell phones and other sundries for the abandoned moms.
Perfect. This could kick my outsourcing up to a new level. I can have a nice, clean division of labor: Honey will take care of my business affairs, and YMII can attend to my personal life—pay my bills, make vacation reservations, buy stuff online. Happily, YMII likes the idea, and just like that the support team at Jacobs Inc. has doubled. And so far, I'm not going broke: I'm paying $1,000 for a month of eight-hour days from Honey (Brickwork gave me a half-off deal) and $400 for a month of four-hour days from Your Man in India.
To pay for YMII, I send my MasterCard number in an e-mail. The company's CEO, Sunder P., replies with a gentle but stern note: "In your own interests, and for security purposes, we advise you not to send credit-card information through e-mail. Now that it has been sent, there is nothing much we can do about it and we confirm safe receipt." Damn. I know what he's thinking: How the hell did these idiots ever become a superpower?
Honey has completed her first project for me: research on the person Esquire has chosen as the Sexiest Woman Alive. (See page 232.) I've been assigned to write a profile of this woman, and I really don't want to have to slog through all the heavy-breathing fan Web sites about her. When I open Honey's file, I have this reaction: America is fucked. There are charts. There are section headers. There is a well-organized breakdown of her pets, measurements, and favorite foods (e.g., swordfish). If all Bangalorians are like Honey, I pity Americans about to graduate college. They're up against a hungry, polite, Excel-proficient Indian army. Put it this way: Honey ends her e-mails with "Right time for right action, starts now!" Your average American assistant believes the "right time for right action" starts after a Starbucks venti latte and a discussion of last night's Amazing Race 8.
I GET an introductory e-mail from my personal-life outsourcer. Her name is Asha. Even though the firm's called Your Man in India, I've been assigned another woman. Hmm. I suspect these outsourcers figure I'm a randy men's-magazine editor who enjoys bossing around the ladies. I e-mail Asha a list of books I want from Amazon.com and a birthday gift I'd like her to buy my wife, Julie—a silicone pot holder. (Romantic, no?) Both go smoothly.
In fact, in the next few days, I outsource a whole mess of online errands to Asha: paying my bills, getting stuff from drugstore.com, finding my son a Tickle Me Elmo. (Actually, the store was out of Tickle Me Elmos, so Asha bought a Chicken Dance Elmo—good decision.) I had her call Cingular to ask about my cell-phone plan. I'm just guessing, but I bet her call was routed from Bangalore to New Jersey and then back to a Cingular employee in Bangalore, which makes me happy for some reason.
Every day Asha attaches an Excel chart listing the status of my many tasks. The system is working—not counting the hitch in the drugstore order: Instead of wax paper, we get wax-strip mustache removers for ladies. My wife is insulted.
IT'S THE FOURTH morning of my new, farmed-out life, and when I flip on my computer, my e-mail in-box is already filled with updates from my overseas aides. It's a strange feeling having people work for you while you sleep. Strange, but great. I'm not wasting time while I drool on my pillow; things are getting done.
As on every morning at 8:30, I get a call from Honey. "Good morning, Jacobs." Her accent is noticeable but not too thick, Americanized by years of voice training. She's the single most upbeat person I've ever encountered. Whatever soul-deadening chore I give her, she says, "That would indeed be interesting" or "Thank you for bestowing this important task." I have a feeling that if I asked her to count the number of semicolons in the Senate energy bill, she would be grateful for such a fascinating project.
Every call ends the same way: I thank her, and she replies, "You are always welcome, Jacobs." I'm starting to like her a lot.
One task for which Honey is thankful is e-mailing my colleagues. I've begun to refuse to communicate with them directly. Why should I? Honey can be my buffer from the unpleasant world of office politics. I'll be aloof and mysterious, like the pope or Mark Burnett. This morning, I ask Honey to pester my boss about an idea I sent him a few days ago: an article on modern gold prospectors.
Mr. Granger, Jacobs had mailed you about the idea of "gold prospecting." I am sure you would have received his mail on this. It would be great if you could invest your time and patience on giving thought about his plans. Do revert and let Jacobs know about your suggestions on the same. As you know that your decision would be accepted with utmost respect. Jacobs is awaiting your response. Thanking you, Honey Balani
Another advantage to this strategy: My boss can't just e-mail a terse "No," as he might to me. Honey's finely crafted e-mails demand a polite multisentence response. The balance of power has shifted.
IT'S JULIE'S birthday today, and I've kept Asha busy with celebration-related tasks. Picnic orders, reminder e-mails to Julie's friends, and so on. Asha is more distant than Honey. I now have a vague sense of who Honey is—she's a mere twenty years old, likes to go bowling and go-carting, wears sleeveless shirts—but Asha? Nothing. In my few phone calls with Asha, I've noticed that her accent is slightly more pronounced than Honey's and that she speaks in sort of a monotone, so I can't even tell if she likes me. Which makes me insecure. And I'm even more nervous about her boss, Sunder P. He's been monitoring Asha's orders and sent me a note that she "missed the point" and bungled a communication about a kitchenware item. He's tough. But then today, the YMII team up and sends Julie an unsolicited birthday e-card—with butterflies and a Robert Louis Stevenson quote. I feel much better. I shoot back a thank-you.
Sunder P. writes back:
Looking at the things we have been ordering on behalf of you, Asha almost was feeling like being part of your household. So isn't it befitting that we wish your family and be part of your celebration. (Remotely . . . from 10,000 miles away.)
I tell him that we feel she's part of the family, too. I don't have the heart to inform him that Julie was kind of disappointed that I had asked Asha to call 1-800-Flowers. The roses and lilies looked fine to me, but apparently 1-800-Flowers is the McDonald's of florists, and she was expecting more Daniel Boulud.
I THINK I'M in love with Honey. How can I not be? She makes my mother look unsupportive. Every day I get showered with compliments, many involving capital letters: "awesome Editor" and "Family Man." When I confess I'm a bit tired, she tells me, "You need rest. . . . Do not to overexert yourself." It's constant positive feedback, like phone sex without the moaning.
Sometimes the relentless admiration makes me feel a little awkward, perhaps like a viceroy in the British East India company. Another cucumber sandwich, Honey! And a Pimm's cup while you're at it! But then she calls me "brilliant" and I forget my guilt.
Plus, Honey is my protector. Consider this: For some reason, the Colorado Tourism Board e-mails me all the time. (Most recently, they informed me about a festival in Colorado Springs featuring the world's most famous harlequin.) I request that Honey gently ask them to stop with the press releases. Here's what she sent:
Dear All, Jacobs often receives mails from Colorado news, too often. They are definitely interesting topics. However, these topics are not suitable for "Esquire."
Further, we do understand that you have taken a lot of initiatives working on these articles and sending it to us. We understand. Unfortunately, these articles and mails are too time consuming to be read.
Currently, these mails are not serving right purpose for both of us. Thus, we request to stop sending these mails.
We do not mean to demean your research work by this.
We hope you understand too.
Thanking you,
Honey K B
That is the best rejection notice in journalism history. It's exceedingly polite, but there's a little undercurrent of indignation. Honey seems almost outraged that Colorado would waste the valuable time of Jacobs.
Along the same lines, Honey wrote a complaint letter to American Airlines for me; the flight I recently took offered only shrimp for dinner, a dish I don't eat. "Since it has caused such an inconvenience, I demand reimbursement," she wrote. Don't mess with Honey.
Incidentally, Honey and Asha don't know about each other. I'm constantly worried about getting busted for my infidelities, for my life of outsourcer bigamy. What if they run into each other at the Bangalore hardware store? What if I call Asha "Honey" and she thinks I'm hitting on her?
MY FATHER-IN-LAW has come to town, which means a dinner filled with a series of increasingly excruciating puns. Asked whether he ever suffered gout, he replies, "No gout about it!"
Damn, do I wish I could outsource this dinner. Where's Honey? Where's Asha?
I've become addicted to outsourcing. I am desperate to delegate everything in my life but have to face the depressing reality that there are limits. I can't outsource those horrible twenty-five-minute StairMaster sessions. I can't outsource taking a piss. I can't outsource sex with Julie. Not that I dislike it, but we're trying to have another kid, which means a whole bunch of sex, and enough is enough, you know? It gets tiring. I can't outsource watering the ficus.
Still. . . . every weekend, I place a dutiful call to my parents. It's a nice thing to do, I figure—but it's also a huge time vacuum. This weekend it's Mom and Dad's anniversary, so I can expect it to eat up even more of my day than usual. Mr. Naveen to the rescue. I e-mail Mr. Naveen—the YMII employee who will be on duty at the time—a few concerned-sounding questions and a couple of filial sound bites. Next day, I get this e-mail:
I made an out bound call to Jacob's parents. They very happily received my call. I first introduced myself to them. Then I wished them Happy Anniversary they both told me thank you. . . . I asked them how is the weather in their place. They told me that it is pretty nice temperature here and the garden looks beautiful.
I won't reproduce the whole transcript, but apparently my mom's sprained foot has gotten better (though the rain does not help), and my dad's law practice is going along very well. As for me, I had a good week, apparently. This was highly successful outsourcing, saving me at least half an hour of sweaty-eared phone time.
MY OUTSOURCERS now know an alarming amount about me—not just my schedule but my cholesterol, my infertility problems, my Social Security number, my passwords (including the one that is a particularly adolescent curse word). Sometimes I worry that I can't piss off my outsourcers or I'll end up with a $12,000 charge on my MasterCard bill from the Louis Vuitton in Anantapur.
In any case, the information imbalance is pretty huge. I know practically nothing about them. So I e-mail them both to request a minibiography.
Honey sends me a two-page file called Honey4U. She's a jazz and salsa dancer, loves Friends , reads Jeffrey Archer. She has a boyfriend. She works from 2:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M. her time and has an hour-and-a-half commute at either end. She trains people in customer-handling skills and in how to lose their Indian accent. She likes broccoli, coriander, and orange juice.
Asha, as expected, is a little less prolix but still gives me some nuggets: She's also a salsa dancer, oddly enough. She used to do something called "value-based education through dance." She studied electrical engineering, got married in February to a guy in real estate. She works from 9:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Bangalore time. She lives with her in-laws.
I'VE REALIZED something: Asha and Honey never say no. I find myself testing them, asking them to perform increasingly bizarre tasks, inching toward abuse of power. Read The New York Times for me. E-mail me a bunch of questions from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire . Send me a collection of Michael Jackson jokes (e.g., "Why was Michael Jackson spotted at Kmart? He heard boys' pants were half off"). I keep pushing, but I haven't yet found their limits. The closest I got to a no was when I made the admittedly odd request that Asha play the card game hearts for me, since I was wasting too much time playing it myself on my PalmPilot. Asha replied that she thought this was a "good idea" but that maybe she would do it after finishing the other projects.
EMBOLDENED BY Mr. Naveen's triumph with my parents, I decide to test the next logical relationship: my marriage. These arguments with my wife are killing me—partly because Julie is a much better debater than I am. Maybe Asha can do better:
Hello Asha, My wife got annoyed at me because I forgot to get cash at the automatic bank machine. . . . I wonder if you could tell her that I love her, but gently remind her that she too forgets things—she has lost her wallet twice in the last month. And she forgot to buy nail clippers for Jasper. AJ
I can't tell you what a thrill I got from sending that note. It's pretty hard to get much more passive-aggressive than bickering with your wife via an e-mail from a subcontinent halfway around the world.
The next morning, Asha CC'd me on the e-mail she sent to Julie.
Julie, Do understand your anger that I forgot to pick up the cash at the automatic machine. I have been forgetful and I am sorry about that. But I guess that doesn't change the fact that I love you so much. . . . Love AJ P. S. This is Asha mailing on behalf of Mr. Jacobs.
As if that weren't enough, she also sent Julie an e-card. I click on it: two teddy bears embracing, with the words "Anytime you need a hug, I've got one for you. . . . I'm sorry."
Damn! My outsourcers are too friggin' nice! They kept the apology part but took out my little jabs. They are trying to save me from myself. They are superegoing my id. I feel castrated.
Julie, on the other hand, seems quite pleased: "That's nice, sweetie. I forgive you."
I shoot off another e-mail to Asha: Could you thank her for forgiving me for not getting cash? And tell her that I, in turn, forgive her for forgetting to tell me about the Central Park date with Shannon and David until I overheard her talking about it with a friend.
The next morning I get CC'd on another Asha e-mail to Julie. Am happy you forgave me for not getting the cash. And I am glad to do the same about the Central Park date with Shannon and David. It's human nature to forget. Perhaps, I could do better by having Asha put up a calendar and sending us reminders about these little things. Love AJ
Good. At least this time I got my little dig in. But Julie just brushes it off—it's hard to trump a hugging-teddy-bear apology note. Like it or not, those damn stuffed animals improved my marriage. Asha should take care of all my bickering; she's my better nature.
HONEY SEEMS to be lavishing me with even more adulation these days. She tells me that she waits eagerly for my e-mails. I'm beginning to feel like David Koresh without the guitar or weapons stash. It's a little stressful. I'm forever afraid of disappointing her, of not being creative or brilliant enough to merit her acclaim. On the other hand, maybe she's just doing her job and actually despises my white imperialist ass.
At the least, I figure I can take advantage of the exaltation. I ask Honey to write an entry in Wikipedia—the online, open-source encyclopedia—about me and my recent book, The Know-It-All . It reads in part:
"A. J. Jacobs is a not so unheard of international figure, who can threaten the most au courant wizards with his knowledge. . . . [He] is a writer and editor of phenomenal grey matter."
Perfection.
FRIEDMAN QUOTES outsourcing advocates who argue we should embrace it as an opportunity. If someone else is plugging away on the lower-end tasks, that frees Americans to work on higher-end creative projects. Makes sense. After all, Jacobs is the creative genius with phenomenal grey matter. The world is better off with me focused on the high end.
But lately, Honey has started sending me unsolicited ideas—and some of them are pretty good. Granted, there are a few clunkers in there, and the English sometimes needs to be decoded, like a rebus. But there are also some winners: Honey suggests Esquire conduct a survey on what women want men to wear. Could work.
The point is, she's got talent. If Honey is a guide, the Indian workforce can be just as innovative and aggressive as the American, so the "benefits" might not be so beneficial. Us high-end types will be as vulnerable as assembly-line workers. (Friedman's other pro-outsourcing argument seems more persuasive—that free trade will open up the huge Chinese and Indian markets to American exports.)
Regardless, if I end up on a street corner with a WILL EDIT FOR FOOD sign, then at least I'll know that I've lost my job to decent, salsa-loving people like Honey and Asha.
DESPITE THREE WEEKS with my support team, I'm still stressed. Perhaps it's the fault of Chicken Dance Elmo, whom my son loves to the point of dry humping, but who is driving me slowly insane. Whatever the reason, I figure it's time to conquer another frontier: outsourcing my inner life.
First, I try to delegate my therapy. My plan is to give Asha a list of my neuroses and a childhood anecdote or two, have her talk to my shrink for fifty minutes, then relay the advice. Smart, right? My shrink refused. Ethics or something. Fine. Instead, I have Asha send me a meticulously researched memo on stress relief. It had a nice Indian flavor to it, with a couple of yogic postures and some visualization.
This was okay, but it didn't seem quite enough. I decided I needed to outsource my worry. For the last few weeks I've been tearing my hair out because a business deal is taking far too long to close. I asked Honey if she would be interested in tearing her hair out in my stead. Just for a few minutes a day. She thought it was a wonderful idea. "I will worry about this every day," she wrote. "Do not worry."
The outsourcing of my neuroses was one of the most successful experiments of the month. Every time I started to ruminate, I'd remind myself that Honey was already on the case, and I'd relax. No joke—this alone was worth the $1,000.
I'VE OUTSOURCED my marriage and filial duties, but somehow my son has gotten overlooked. It's time to delegate some parenting to the Jacobs support staff. Julie is out watching her childhood friend do a stand-up-comedy gig, and I'm stuck alone with Jasper. It's 7:00 P.M., Jasper's bedtime, but I've got to write some semi-urgent e-mails. No time for hungry caterpillars or jumping monkeys.
"Mr. Naveen? If I put you on speakerphone, would you be willing to read to my son? Oh, anything. The newspaper's fine. Yeah, just say his name once in a while. It's Jasper. Okay, I'm going to put you on now. Okay, go ahead."
A pause. Then I hear Mr. Naveen's low but soothing voice: "Taiwan and Korea also are subscribing to new Indian funds in their markets." Jasper isn't crying. I'm tapping away on my PowerBook. "European Union . . . several potential investors . . . parliament." I glance at Jasper again; he seems perplexed but curious. "Aeronautical engineers and technicians." Jasper seems to like aeronautical engineers. "Prospects of a strong domestic demand." After three minutes, I start to feel guilt-ridden. I've officially begun to abuse my power. Why didn't I just turn on the Wiggles? Then again, Mr. Naveen's lilting voice is so comforting; if there were bright-colored cartoons of strong domestic demand, this would be ideal.
SPEAKING OF the Indian domestic economy, it's looking pretty rosy. My team is good, cheap, and absurdly eager. They will do anything short of violating the Geneva Conventions. And with most of the tasks—online shopping, thank-you notes, research—my crew saves minutes or even hours of my day. Admittedly, the outsourcing of my life is sometimes counterproductive—an ill-fated order of an eggplant dish from a nearby restaurant comes to mind. But overall, it's working. To me, it seems the future of outsourcing is as limitless as . . . blah, blah, blah.
You know what? I'm kind of bored writing this piece. I'm going into the other room to enjoy some Entourage on HBO. So I've asked Honey to finish up writing this article for me.
Once, I was watching I, Robot with my wife and I thought Life would become so easy with a robot. Then, the next instant I thought not just a robot but more of a humanized robot. In the book The World Is Flat , the author wrote about an interesting job that could be outsourced to India, which provoked me to have a Remote Assistant. Though I have never seen Honey K. B., I speak to her almost everyday when she calls me. Though our communication is not visual, I still know that she is a reliable assistant. Our interactions that we have had through mails and telephonic conversation never made me feel that she is miles away from me. To conclude I would say I did not get a robot but yes a Human like me who can think and work for me.
Yes, America, we're cooked.

Thathuvam Corner

2006-02-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

1) Bus la collector-yae erinalum.. mudhal seetu driveruku than......
2) Cycle carrierla tiffen-a vechu eduthuttu pogalam Aana... Tiffin carrierla cycle-a vechu eduthuttu poga mudiyathu... ???
3) Ticket vangittu ulla ponna adhu cinema theater anna ulla poittu ticket vanginaa adhu operation theater.
4) Enna than meenuku neendha therinjalum adhala meen kolambula neendha mudiyadhu
5) Nee Evalavu periya dance master'a irundhalum un saavuku unnala aada mudiyathu
6) trainukku ticket vaangi platformla okkaralam ana platformukku ticket vaangi trainla poga mudiyadhu
7) railway stationla police station irukkalam ana police stationla railway station irukka mudiyadhu
8) Train yenna thaan fasta ponnalum , Train ode kadaisee potti kadaiseeya thaan varum!
9) Bus poita bus stand angayae thaan irukum aana cycle poita cycle stand koodavae poogum!
10) Cellula balance illana call panna mudiyathu.... Aaana.... Manushanukku call illana, Balance panna mudiyathu....
11) nee evalo periya padipalliya irundhalum exam hall la poi padikka mudiyadhu..
12) School testla bit adikkalaam......... College testla bit adikkalaam....... aannaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa BLOOD testla bit adikka mudiyaadhu........
13) ENNA THAN NAAI NANDRI ULLATHA THAN IRUNTHALUM?? ATHANALA 'NANRI' NU SOLLA MUDEYATHU!!!!!!!!
14) kovil maniya namma adicha saththam varum... aana kovil mani nammala adicha raththam than varum....
15) meluga vachchu melugu vathi seyyalam... aana kosuva vachi kosu vathi seyya mudiyathu....
16) kosu kadicha tortoise aethivakkalam aana tortoise kadicha kosu aethivakka mudiyumaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last but not least
Ulagam theriyaama valandha avan veguly

Cricket theriyaama valandha avan ganguly....

News Station

2006-02-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

Good News INDIA: Must Watch Video

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1679753

Bigotry and Prejudice: the Depiction of Hinduism in the West

http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/01rajeev.htm

His own radio station

http://www.ndtv.com/andfinally/showandfinally.asp?slug=Bihar+village+lad+makes+waves+on+radio&id=2336

Yen Ayal Desa Vazhkai-----Calling my Home land

2006-01-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

Before even I came to US, I found out from my friends that Reliance is the best calling card provider with good quality at a reasonable price. But later I found out that its costly (they increased) and Hence I found a card from Simple2Call.com called "Call Pack" which offers 16 Hrs for a $108 card. I bought one card for a month since I used to call my home,brothers, friends etc etc. After coming here I felt the importance of them and hence would never forget to call them at least once in 2 weeks.Later I hear from my US friends that Alosmart.com and ReliableCom.com offers even cheaper cards with Ok quality and hence started using them. callnation and quest were good. Here the presence of telugu is such that It can anytime replace spanish in US and seems it is just 4c/min to call hyderabad when it is 8c/min for other cities in India. See how many customers :)

If you want to call anyone in US, you can use satyam iway or use dialpad.com (online service).

Quality of IT Life

2005-07-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

With more competitive and Project offshoring boom,lets take a look
how it really help economies of third world

Does IT offshoring really helps third world countries:

Not really.For reasons Indian IT companies compete for cheap
project cost/hours and pay inturn less salary to its employees.Lot
of Indian IT companies expect there employees to work for very long
hours during week days and to take permission for absence on week
ends This results in poor Quality work and over all health and
social life is greatly affected.

This is one of the reasons many MNC have started there own offices
in India.For next 5-10 years if you look for a good Quality IT life,
try to work directly in MNC companies such as Oracle,
IBM,Microsoft,World Bank,Office tigers,Yahoo,American
Express,Citigroup,GE etc etc....

The western MNC companies Pay good salary,maintain better work
culture and best Process methodologies with no week end work hassles.

Indian IT Professionals always have there own market share in
US.With current offshoring the same Indian consultant will generate
less money in India when compared to his earnings in US

The real beneficiary of IT offshoring is the countries which
offshores it for less cost.Its purely economic cost calculation.
Its not love or any fond affection western countries are offshoring
Projects to India.If not today India ,they will look for new
destinations where cheaper resource are available in abundant.

The prevailing scenario will continue good for next 5-10 years.

There are new areas apart from IT where India is really benifitting
like

1. call centres
2. Bio Technology
3. back office (accounting,billing,auditing)
4. research
5. Hospital industry
6. Medical billing etc etc.................100's

which are indeed generating lots of money to Country.offcourse the
English language proficiency helps India on all this a lot.

Once offshoring started big scale in all areas ,real estate cost in
India has started soaring all time high.Rising economic hopes in
India have spiraled a chain reaction where by NRI who have till
date showed least Interest in India have started to rediscover and
and investing heavily.

They have started investing there billions of dollars back home on
Land,Industry etc.

we Indians always tend to Jump in to same bandwagon or follow
enmasse rather to be trend setters.Try to explore avenues like Trade
(export/import),Manufacturing,Ever Green(shelter/food/clothing)
industries,inventions etc

Indians have great potential/talent with there rich culture and
moderate approach from there upbringings.Also they lack to identify
there own potential,which needs to be identified and tapped by
others.

For those who take risk there is always reward.

Cinema, Fries, Latte ---- Anniyan

2005-07-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

One Saturday night I went to "Anniyan" film in
Innovative complex here in Bangalore. They have someway
gambled the show timings so that 11.15 was night show.
After waiting for long, the crowd started pushing people
even before the previous show ended.

Film starts with a Irish (sorry iyerish) essence
showing agraharam vikram ambhi. First half of the film
was damn shit that I wish i cud have come to the second
half directly. Felt bad for the people who pushed
through the gates to see the show. Only vive was the
Anniyan in the first half to give some good comedy to
make people sit.
Songs were all not that good that people went out for
fag whenever there is a song though the picturisation
was good. Music was not that good.
Since it was a night show some people utilized the
time properly by sleeping.Then came the interval as a
rescue for everyone. Like boys, I think shankar has
given the direction to someone in the first half.

Second half was good enough to give “The Value for
Money “solution for people like us. There is one
matrix fight which was good and vikram scored well in
the second half. The concept of following the rules
and killing the people who violates by shankar was "
Old monitor in a New bottle ". Anyway kasaka thaan
poguthu.
And the concept of multi-personality vikram is similar
to chandramukhi (remade from a 5yr old malayalam
movie) and hence was boring. People never think on
their own.
Second half went faster and hence made people to sit
and watch. Unnecessary graphics, expenses and one
macho romantic personality of vikram spoiled the show.
Sadha's role was saadha. Not that great.

Shankar in general can give up direction and can
produce movies giving chance to directors like one he
Did for the film "kadhal". Five star hotels cannot
produce good "Kothu parota" (which people like) kathai
thaan intha Anniyan.

Anniyan --> Onion ( Vengayam nu solla vanthen

After writing this blog post, I have seen this movie for 3 times. Contradictory. Thanks to my american life and Thanks to the tamil film industry which couldn't provide a film better than this till then