Solitude - a bliss??

Is solitude bliss? Yes it is for some people but definitely not to me. But I have been forced to loneliness to some extent in the recent past. This has gone grown gradually right from the time I came back offshore.

It started with office, every one was a stranger for me and I felt I was isolated. Somehow, I could not easily mingle with new people easily. Don't really know what happened. It really took months to get a limited number of good friends at office.

Then i t was at home. I was with out any real work @ office and was coming back home early. After suresh and Senthil had left, most of the days I would end up at the home early and sit down with out really knowing what to do. Cell phone, SMS and TV were my companion. It really hurts, when mocked for being over phone when my friends come back home. I know it’s for fun but still I wan my dear ones to understand my position. But again they are not to be blamed. I always feel happy when people like Visu, thennal come down to my house and we have a chit-chat.

While I was in the verge of making some friends @ J-16 I've been transferred to Amb-4; a decision taken by me for my career prospects. Now back to square one; I've got used going alone to lunch breaks and tea breaks. Now, the real question....Does physical distance draw a big line emotionally as well? I really can't answer this question.......

Hot Hotter Hottest!!!

Guys 'n' Gals no wild guesses, this post has nothing to do with SS Music.

Chennai is getting hot day by day. I have learnt in primary school that there are four different seasons viz. summer, autumn, winter and spring. But in southern part of India it is just three. Summer, summerer summerest (read hot, hotter, hottest). With peak summer knocking its door it’s becoming tough job to have a ride in the bike till office in the morning. I get drenched at least twice a day apart from me getting drenched while taking bath. I spend more time @ office just because it’s cool out there. S2 Mahalakshmi apartment is getting worse during peak summer. Finding it real tough to get peaceful sleep; it’s real hot.

Is AC the answer for this?

Recent Updates....

Have I became lazy? No, it's an underrated statement; I've been lazy for almost 24 years now. There are so many things that I have been wanting to do both in personal and proffesional aspect in the near future. Few of them are:-

• Disturb my roomies with my vocal chords; heard Swaralaya is a good bet
• Become a SCWCD
• Prepare for my PDGBA exams; jus 9 more papers to go
• Organise my belongings in the room

The latest news is that we have augmented our Vasantha Maligai at VadaPalani with a LG Flatorn 21" TV set. Unfortunately, have to live with the tamil channels and the new channels for now; settop box is something in the future agenda.

I have been driving my Alto pretty well; looking for 4 people to experiment my drive over the hi way. Looking forward for a drive from a Pondy to Chennai in few month's time.

Expecting the arrival of 'Perusu' Sai from UK after his short trip of three weeks :P....

The song that has been looping in my system at office is "Newyork Nagaram urangum neram...."

USil irunthu Chennai Varai

3rd August, 2006 my last day at Montvale, NJ, I was heading back to my home country after coming to the much sought United States of America almost an year back. I had a strange itenary from NJ to India Newark -> Chicago -> New Delhi -> Chennai. My US visa had expired. Hence, I had no other option than to take a direct flight.

My flight to Chicago was at 1600 EST at Newark Liberty International Airport. I reached the aiport at 1300 hrs, well ahead of the scheuled departure. I was really excited as I approached the check-in counter of the American Airlines. It was now my turn to check-in. The lady at the check-in counter was taking a long time to complete my check-in process. Though I had ample time left a sense of urgency and tension was mounting on me. After a while I heard the disappointing news from the lady in the counter, my flight to Chicago was delayed and hence I cannot make my connecting to New Delhi from Chicago. "I want to board my flight to New Delhi. Please do whatever you can"- This is what I could tell the customer representative of American Airlines. After a while, the customer representative presented me with a new intenary New York(JFK) -> London -> New Delhi. I wasn't sure if that was indeed a valid itenary as I didn't have a transit Visa. I raised my concern and they convinced me saying that it is an unvolunteered change and hence there was no need for a transit visa. I somehow wasn't convinced and I kept repeating the same question. I decided to take my chance. American Airlines provided me with a cab to New York JFK airport which was over 30 miles away from Newark Liberty International Airport.

I was in the cab to JFK and the I was having a last sight at the beautiful Hudson river and the Sky Scrapers of NY. My transit at London was over 2 hours and I decided to call Sai Kiran that I can meet him at the airport. I even thought it was a blessing in disguise for me to meet my beloved friend after an years time. While all these thoughts were wavering in my mind, I reached JFK airport.
I was waiting again in the counter for my turn to check-in. I didn't sense the disarray that was awaiting me until the Customer representative asked me for a London Visa. I was dismayed when I was asked to present a London Visa; it was a mistake by the customer representative at Newark. I cannot take a transit at London unless I have a transit visa or a valid US Visa. I had neither of them with me. American airlines apologized to me for the confusion that they caused. I tried to emphasize that I wanted to board a flight by all means on the same day. There was a flight to Chicago at 1600 hrs from JFK. American Airlines booked me as a Stand-By passenger on that flight. I went to the appropriate Gate and kept my fingers crossed if I would get an opportunity to board the flight. At the tick of 1555, I heard the announcement " Chicago flight is closed". With total disappointment and unaware as what was bound to happen next I walked back to the check-in counter. The first news that I got is that my baggage had gone in the Chicago flight and I will have to claim it in Chennai, Holy Crap!. I was desperate to board a flight to New Delhi on the same day but all the efforts to book me through Air India, Continental and other Airlines went in vain. All the direct flights to India were booked. Now with all the doors closed, I had no other option than to take the next day's flight. I wasn't sure if I could reschedule my domestic flight from New Delhi to Chennai. I was provided with accommodation for the night and food coupons for three sessions. With no access to Internet and a computer, I conveyed the news to my family and friends in India with great difficulty with the help of Prabhu.

4th august, 2006 I was at JFK to board my flight to Chicago. This time no difficulties, I managed to make it to New Delhi on time. I reached Indira Gandhi International Airport on 5th August at 2045 hrs. There was a notice at the Gate asking me to meet the customer service representatives. My baggage was held at New Delhi as they to clear customs. After all the formalities I headed towards Domestic terminal. I straight went to Jet airways counter and got my ticket rescheduled. After waiting for over eight hours at the airport Lounge, I boarded the flight to Chennai on 6th August, 2006 at 0645 hrs.

In over two hours time I was flying over Bay of Bengal. I could already feel being at home. I landed at about 0920 hrs. My parents were waiting for me at the arrival Gate and after a gap of over 12 months; I was back to "Singara Chennai"....

Sorgame Endraalum Athu namoora pola varumaa......

Nama Veedu

Templeton, my apartment in saligramam, Chennai is really progressing well.
I n Visu will be proud owners of two houses in this appartment by somewhere in May '07.
I was happy to see the photos of work in progress...
Here are the photos
Home sweet Home

Holi

Hi friends wishing you all a very Happy Holi....
All I could do is only think about the Holi celebrations that we used to have in the college and the cleaning that we had to do in the final year after messing up the classroom with Holi Powder.

Mood : Nostalgic

June?

Why is it that june always come after May and not after march....???!!!!

A week at India

I had the great opportunity to travel for a week to my motherland.
I had to lot of dialogue with my PM to get an approval for the weeks trip.
I wanted to take up the trip as I had no task in my project plan for a week.
It was really exciting to land at the Country almost after 6 months. The autos, MTC buses, two wheelers, road side T shops, I really missed them all in US.
The first day at India, I reported to my office at J16, Anna Nagar. All I did was go around the office, meet my colleagues and chit chat with them about my experiences in US and my lucky vacation for a week.
Then I spent the evening with my friends for a dinner. The next day I went to pondy to spend time with my parents. I went to PEC, the paradise where we enjoyed for almost four years. Incidentally I met my immediate juniors there; all working for HCL.They were so eagerly asking me about the Onsite opportunities at HCL. While I was answering them the unexpected happened.
I started hearing some beep sound.
It was from my cell phone...It was morning 0630 AM in Montvale NJ and my alarm was ringing...
All I could do was snooze it and go back to bed...

Happy Married Life

One of my close friends Padma, got married to Senthil on 2nd Feb '06.
She is the first to get married among my close friends and I feel sad missing the great occasion. (Off course the first member of chauvinist gang to get married).
She has been a real good friend of mine for past 5 years. One of the persons who was admired by almost everyone in the class for her good nature.
She is going to travel to CA by the end of this month along with her hubby...

I wish her a very Happy Married life.

The Elixir

Not many things better than driving a car in Hi Way with "Ennai Koncham Maatri" from "Kaakha Kaakha" in the background...............

Driving @ US

After due consideration and lots of confusion, I decided to buy a car for myself.
The basic reason was that I had no other means to commute to my work place.

I bought my car on 7th Jan. I completed all the formalities like registration, insurance, etc on the same day. I was ready to hit the roads by almost noon. I had to right away drive on a hi way to get my car back home. Though nervous initially, started enjoying the drive with time. I just roamed around the local roads, to feel more comfortable.



Prabhu, me and prashant decided to go to karthik's house for the long weekend which fell on Jan 14. Karthik and I succeeded in brainstorming Swami also to come from the west coast in just a single phone call. We were all really excited to have the grand get-together. Prabhu, me and prashant decided to rent a car to go to Karthik's house which was just over 100 miles from my place. I was very eagerly waiting for that so that I can do a part of the drive. There came the twist. Prashant decided to back out of the get-together as he had some official work over the weekend. Within 24 hours of this shock there came another shock from Prabhu, he also backed out owing to a release that he had to do the following week. All we could do was, just discuss on how this profession kills us.

With Prashant and Prabhu backing out, the option of taking a rental car from NJ was completely ruled out as it turned out to be an expensive option. I had only two options; either take the train or drive my car. After a series of thoughts, I decided to drive all the way myself. The only concern for me was that I had no navigator and not even a CD player in the car. The day before I started, bought a FM transmitter so that I can enjoy some good music using my small mp3 player.

I started on Friday evening 0445hrs from my office at Montvale, NJ heading towards North Wales, PA. The drive was real good at Garden State Parkway and was then I entered I-78. It all took a fraction of second for me to miss the route. I was gazing at my route to see the exit number from I-78 and before even I could do something, I was on the wrong lane that merged to some other Hi Way. All that I could do was get into the next exit and then go to a gas station and get the route back to I-78. I almost wasted 20 minutes on this. Things were real smooth after that until it became dark. That is when I remembered the Weather forecast for the day. It was a real foggy day and I almost had zero visibility in US 202. I could not see the lanes or the sign boards clearly. For a few minutes I became real nervous. I put the car on the shoulders, had a gulp of water and then relaxed myself and started driving again. I kept following US 202 S as the map asked me to merge into US 202 S through various roads, All I kept looking was signs for US 202 S as I kept driving on 202. As time preceded US 202 almost became like a local road and the drive was even more terrible. I wasn't even sure if I missed the right turn into Summneytown Pike that I was supposed to take from 202. I could see a road named North Wales road and my instincts told me that I was somewhere around North Wales and didn't go too far. All I could do was again look for the gas station. Hurray! There I found the gas station. Unfortunately I came past the turn that I was supposed to take, fortunately it was just over a mile from the gas station. I reached Karthik's house by 0830. I was a real long drive for 110 miles. Had some food and after some chit chat, after which I went to hit my dreams.

We had to pick up swami from Phili airport at 1200hrs. I n Karthik went to the airport and picked him. We then had to go to Indian grocery stores, so that we can have some good Indian food for the next 2.5 days. We started cooking lunch at 0430pm and we ended up having it as a dinner, Swami didn't want to go out anywhere, so we decided to stay home see movies, cook, eat chit chat, and speak to friends in India thru conf call. We really had good fun doing all these. We had a wide variety of food like kara kozhambu, rasam, kovakkai poriyal, pongal, thakkali saatham, paneer butter masala, etc

All good times have an end. We three had to part on Monday AN. I dropped Karthik and Swami at the train station, so that they can go to airport. After filling my petrol tank, I started from North Wales at 0315 pm. The return journey was real smooth. I managed to reach back home by 0545 pm. I was back to my usual routine. After all, life is all about this.

license license license....Caru Caru Caru

I got my NJ driving license on 14th Dec. The experience in getting the license was pretty good.
I took my written test on one of the Saturdays, I failed. Its not like an Indian written test. I had to get 40 questions correct out of 50...oops that is 80%..
I was asked to come and take the test the following week...This time I went in with more preparation and strategy...oops Murphy came in my way...The computer system was down in the DMV(RTO)....
I had to wait for more than an hour and the server was still lying down...guess it wanted to enjoy its Saturday...then we were asked to take a paper test...when I saw the question paper, there were only 30 questions and I knew answers for most of them..i almost completed the test...then came the person in the Spanish accent "We gave a wrong question paper.."..oops a test again!!!!
this time it was 50 questions…I somehow managed to pass the test this time..
Happy News : i will get my license without road test
Bad News : Computers are down, so we can't get you now...
I had to go to DMV again after three days…I went there..they made some entries in the comp, and i got a printed plastic card in jus 5 minutes time...these ppl really have a good process and system...

Now I have to get my hands on the car. Last time I drove was more than two years back in India, that too when i took my driving class.
I decided to take three hrs of class here so that I can feel comfortable...I would say I really drove well than I expected. I drove at great speeds when compared to India. Where in India can we drive @ 40 mph in a town. The prime reason here is that the traffic pattern here is homogenous with 99% of the vehicles being four wheelers.
Since most of the cars here are Auto, driving is also so simple.

Should I buy a car or not? A question that has been confusing me for a while..the budget, the insurance cost, my period of stay here...all these factors together have been confusing me a lot...but there is no 12B or 23 C here for commute to office...
Let me see what I'm going to do...

Winter - Update

Its pretty long since I posted something, I atlast decided to come out of my hibernation.

Winter has started here, I already witnesses four snowfalls till day. The whole place looks beautiful with all the snow. Can't roam around much because of this killing weather.

For thanks giving holidays I had been to California to meet my cousin Raja and my friend Swami. Swami had plans to go to Seattle and Vancover. So he could accompony me only for a day. Went around with him and my cousin to San Fransisco. The most exiting thins was the food together with friends and family. Swami, me and Raja's family wen to Saravana Bhavan for a delicious dinner.

I could not get any great deals on the thanks giving day sale, five o' clock in the morning to the store was not good enough. People were waiting outside the stores from midnight.

The best part of the three and half days food was meeting more people. I had a great fun time with Shreya, my cousin's little daughter.It was really disheartening to come back to New Jersey, but I had no other alternative. I felt, should have taken one or two days leave so that I could have spent more time.

On the whole I liked the bay area more than the east coast.

Update from me is that, i got my license here and I did a little bit of driving also.
Hoping to do more.
Had nothing great to do in the christams week end. Looking forward to meet Prashant, Karthik and Prabhu for newyear.

The end of a legend

Peter F Drucker, revered as the father of modern management for his numerous books and articles stressing innovation, entrepreneurship and strategies for dealing with a changing world, has died at the age of 95 in LA.

An article from a news site quotes the following words about him.

Drucker was considered a management visionary for his recognition that dedicated employees are key to the success of any corporation, and marketing and innovation should come before worries about finances.

I started appreciating his principles as I read them as part of my PGDBA course.
I always wanted to read more about his 'theory of Management', but I couldn't win over my laziness :)

He has left this world physically, but this world will never forget his concepts and thoughts.

Treat or Trick - The Halloweens day

Halloweens day was celebrated here in US on Oct 31. I found it so interesting that I tried to dif in some of the history of it.

In early 1800, Halloween used to be more of a superstitious belief. It was observed the day before the "All souls day". People were under the belief that the souls and spirits would try to get over them, and to overcome this people used to dress up like spirits and roam. They believed that when they are dressed up like spirits, the real spirits would think that they are also spirits and would not harm them.

Now in this century, people are out of this superstitious belief. Halloweens day has become more of a fun stuff now. People now put on scarecrows which look more like spirits in front of their house. I could see that most of such decorations had a red light with them. To sight a few of them "A man was sitting in chair who is killed with knife", "Skeletons", etc where displayed in front of the houses. Also different art work on pumpkins are famous Halloween displays. On the eve of Halloween, people dress up in various different costumes, esp. like spirits and they have parade in the Village. Children also get dressed up and go door to door asking for candies. This is the reason why it is called "Treat or Trick".

I certainly missed up on taking the snaps of some of the good Halloween displays in front of some of the houses, I would get them if they are still available.

On the nowadays, Halloween is a day full of fun for the youth and Children in USA. (Its followed in European countries also).

More readings on Halloween

Wikipedia
History Channel

MANAGEMENT'S NEW PARADIGMS - Knowledge Worker

I thought that, I would share with you an Article that I read on Management Paradigms.
Its from Peter F Drucker who is considered to be a Management Guru.
Its on the productivity on knowledge workers. Though simple, powerful thoughts.

The productivity of the knowledge worker is still abysmally low. It
has probably not improved in the past 100 or even 200 years - for the
simple reason that nobody has worked at improving the productivity.
All our work on productivity has been on the productivity of the manual worker.
This will require, above all, very much changed assumptions about
what constitutes management. One does not "manage" people, as
previously assumed. One leads them. The way one maximises their
performance is by capitalising on their strengths and their knowledge
rather than trying to force them into moulds. Knowledge workers cannot
be managed as subordinates; they are associates. This difference is more than cosmetic.
The very definition of a knowledge worker is one who knows more about
his or her job than anybody else in the organisation.
For example, the engineer servicing a customer does not know more
about the product than the engineering manager does. But she knows
more about the customer, and that may be more important than product
knowledge. The meteorologist on an air base is vastly inferior in rank
to the air base commander. But he is of no use unless he knows
infinitely more about weather forecasting than the air base commander
does. The mechanic servicing an airliner knows more about the
technical condition of the plane than the airport manager to whom he reports, and so on.

Two years @ Work

It was exactly two years ago, I along with a bunch of people joined HCL Technologies Ltd., Chennai as a fresher with lots of dreams and aspirations. We had a good one month training filled with loads of fun. After that we had to join the work arena. As in every case, my dreams where shattered completely. I dreamt always to get into Systems programming, but eventually I was put into a team which was predominantly involved in Web Development. I made up my heart to move ahead. Initially started as a .NET programmer and shifted myself into J2EE in 4 months time. Now my views and conception on application development has changed completelly. There are lots of challenges in this part of the court also. A lot to learn, I would say. From being a normal programmer/engineer, I feel that I have gained good recognition in my team both as an individual and also as a team member. From here, I would love to augment my architectural and management skills more in years to come. I've already started learning these two skills. My current role as an onsite coordinator has laid the perfect platform for this.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish my friends Kala, Padma, Nilavan, Senthil, Visu, Joyas, JayaBarathi and all others who joined along with me for sucesful completion of two years. Good Luck! My dear friends.
And off course Good Luck to myself.

Katril Varum Geethame...

In recent past the Tamil music industry has been really healthy and hot.
There has been a good healthy competition between Harris Jeyaraj, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Vidyasagar and Bharadwaj.
All these composers have been consistently giving good music to the tamil audience and they have almost created perfect market conditions.
A few years ago, it was almost like a monopoly. 80's and early 90's was predominantly ruled by Illayaraja and then it had been my Fav ARR.
But things now are no longer the same. These four music directors have been rocking the Tamil music.
ARR has started to concentrate more in international arena and Illayaraja has almost moved out of the industry.

Under these cicumstances, its really a score of Ilaayraja in a recent tamil Movie "Oru Naal Oru Kanavu" that has attracted me a lot.

Fazil teams with Illayaraja again for his latest movie "Oru Naal Oru Kanavu".
The combination of Fazil and Illayaraja has been always a big hit, right from Varusham Pathinaaru.
The songs in this movie are pretty good, though not Illayaraja’s best. It’s becoming apparent that Sonu Nigam is becoming Maestro's fav singer. All the songs are good though not exceptional.

But still, there is one exceptional master piece in this album also.
The song is "Katril Varum geethame ..."

The song is sung by Hariharan, Shreya Ghoshal, Bavatharani, Illayaraja and Sadhana Sargam.

I would rate this as the best song that I have heard in recent past.
It’s a melodious, soothing, divine and classic number. The moment I heard this song, I had a sense of peace in my heart. Bhavathirini, who has sung most part of the song, also has doen a great job. Another master piece from Illayaraja in the Lines of "Janani Janani ..." and "Amma endrazhaikuthu...".The lyrics for the song is also penned well.
Illayaraja again proves that he is the best in the industry with melodies.

Listen to it and let me know..........

You can listen ot it online at http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/26/s/movie_name.7940/

Full Meal after two months

This Saturday was the best day after I came to US.
Wondering, why?
It's a silly reason, but still a good one for me.
I had a full meal after 2 months in Saravana Bhavan in New York..
The menu included Rice, Sweet Pongal, Cabbaga poriyal, Pachadi, Sambar, Kaara Kozhambu,Rasam, Appalam, Pickle, Curd and Butter Milk. Expensive lunch, but still a heart filling one. I met Seetha lakshmi in NewYork. She worked in HCL with me and she is now put up in Ann Arbor, MI along with her husband after marriage.(Most of the people reading this blog knows her). A nice weekend though. Thanks Seetha, for the mouth watering puli kaichal and Rava Laddu.

In to Books

Its 23 years since God presented me to this lovely world. All these years my favorite pass time had been music and sports. I spend lot of time listening to music. At some point I even wanted to learn classical vocal and its still in abeyance.
But after coming to the country of Liberty I somehow have not had much opportunities to listen to new music or see TV or other pass time.
So the one thing that I had to take up was read books. All these 23 years the books (novels and fictions) that I have read include "Harry Potter 1 & 2" and "Five Point Some One" though I have read most of the Dale Carnegie series. I again plunged into reading books here in USA. I started with Prey. I had heard a lot about this book. As a matter of fact, Swami wanted every one of us to read it. Now I have completed this book. I really feel bad that I haven't read this book all these time. It was really a wonderful book. It was indeed a good sketch with a nice composition of emotion and science. Having seen the authors other book "Jurassic Park" as a movie, I could see some common things in his narration. But still I would say hats off to Michael Crichton for a wonderful fiction.
Hope I will continue this good habit of reading. The books in queue are "Deception Point", "Digital Fortress" and "Da Vinci Code"....Hoping to have more fun reading...