Colonization - An amazing Pic !

Just finished watching the movie blood diamond. Got intrigued by the term 'conflict diamonds' and went on to look it up on my most favourite information source- The wikipedia. Found a lota related links in the blood diamond wiki and while reading some of them , i came across this term 'post colonoization' which got me hooked on to the underlying basic word - colonization. Guess this would be old news to a lot of the netizens, but then this 'GIF' image attracted me a lot. It gave me wonderful historical information in a matter of few seconds.

Here you go. Click on the link to see the changing eras and nations that involved in colonization.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Starting with USSR, France and turkey, its amazing to see even small countries like belgium joining the colonization bandwagon. No prices for guessing who were the sole proprietors of India (almost in its entirety) - The brits. The major difference i guess is between 1822 and 1855 (appealed more prominent to to the naked eye). A plethora of colours in African region (1914 & 1938) - clearly indicates the fact that almost every country was keen on cashing in on africa's natural wealth and resources. Even in 2008, the colours continued to exist. Wonder how it would be 50 years from now !

A truly wonderful pic. Hats of to the creator !

Whadddaaaa Team ...!

Therez  this  fantasy league type competition thats going on at our workplace for IPL season 2. Ahead of every match every member who has registered, can select a team that comprises of  3 batsmen, 3 bowlers, 4 allrounders and a keeper.  Take a look below at the team , that a colleague of mine came up with for the first of the double headers , Punjab vs deccan.  She obviously din have a clue of the playing XI's and  dragged & dropped players at random. Gosh u gotta take a look at the awesome  DREAM (NIGHTMARE ?)  TEAM. I couldn suppress my laughter, Not even one figured in the playing XI !! Herez the team for you (Click on the image for a better view)

Goat Mowers !

Am sure for most of us, even entering the google campus is a dream come true. The chances of that becoming possible is gonna be real easy. No algorithmns, No data structures, No programming .. nothing at all.  All you have to do is hurry up, rush to a nearest farm and get a coupla goats. yes GOATS !! With everyone trying to do their bit for reducing the carbon footprints they are leaving behind, the googlers have decided to use GOAT MOWERS instead of the traditional lawn mowers.  

Though it costs them the same  as the lawn movers , "goats are definitely cuter to watch" , says an entry in the official google blog !  Interestingly yahoo has been a harbinger in this approach as the goad to use goats for mowing has come to them pretty early! 

Thats a Ripppperrrrrr !!

Whoa.. wat a contest it was today. Absolute cracker of a match on a superb pitch that  was a heaven for batsmen and had a bit in it for the disciplined bowlers as well. 

It all happened for CSK today. Runs from Mighty matty's blade, raina's consolidation in the middle overs,  amazing hits from badhri, unexpected contribution from the dark horse - JAKATI at death. Though the flurry of wickets in the middle overs , was a terrible set back, CSK wrapped up the innings with a pretty defendable 163, given the bounce in the wicket.

 The daredevils  certainly pulled things back  after the strategic break and wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals.  Got a feeling that the CSK batsmen went for shots, one too many. One disadvantage in batting first on belters like this is, you never know what is a competitive total.  In the process of finding out  that , team chennai was in too much of a hurry. Thanks to the lusty blows from the top order  failing which chennai would have only managed to fetch a below par score.

If there is onething that kick started the momentum in the second half for the csk,  it could be none other than the absolute blinder of a catch from the superman raina. "you are not gonna see a catch better than this in the IPL this time" screamed danny from the commentary box.  Next came a peach of a delivery from tyagi for which ABDV din have a clue. Pitched in line , moved  away a lil and left him flummoxed.  Dilshan threatened for a while before he was  beaten by a corker from jakati. This time it was i who shouted "Thats a ripperrrr.." having robin jackman in mind.  Amidst all this warner was waging a lone battle on the other end before he found a able partner in DK. Gosh, you gotta give credit to DK (wat a shame- this chennaite almost knocked CSK outta the match), who took the pressure of warner's shoulders so quickly and gave a mild heart attack to  millions of chennaites.  DK played a gem of a knock, getting the boundaries early in the over and running well between the wickets.  When warner reached fifty, a placard in the crowd read "Don u dare. It's delhi". 

It was jakati again, who gave us the break through. Warner went down the pitch to hit jakati out of the park and it took dhoni's street smart work to see warner's  back.  The much unexposed daredevil's lower order couldn handle murali who was too hot for them.  In the process of  keeping up with the RRR, DK too perished after a magnificient innings, held in the deep by murali. Wow, murali went cock a hoop after taking the crucial catch. Guess it was danny again in the commentary who said "Look at that.Can you imagine Hayden hugging murali and saying You little beauty. IPL, Take a bow".  

At last CSK moves to the top  4.  In the other match, the rajasthan royals have beaten the deccan chargers and the royal challengers have had 2 wins on the trot as well, akin chennai. Season 2 of the IPL is gonna be a cracker of a competition. The gates are wide open now and lets wait and watch whoz gonna make it to the semis. But beware folks, as ravi shastri said towards the closing moments of the match today  "The Super kings are back in business. Make no mistake on that !!".

Are we Back ?

At last CSK has registered  a win, its first ever against the defending champion royals.  This should definitely be a morale booster for team chennai.  The man with the midas touch, dhoni, finally got  what he wanted from his bowlers and fieldsmen yesterday. To put it simply, CSK clicked as a unit 

Though matty and li'l parthiv din trouble the scorers much ,  raina certainly did. What  a match he had. You could never miss him in action yest - Be it the mighty hits while batting or  with the wily spinners and catches during fielding. It was absoutely his day (and mine too - I added raina as the last player, in my fantasy league and i needn say that my points soared). Dhoni and badhrinath too chipped in with useful contributions. 

Bala gave us the breakthroughs at regular interval, ably supported by morkel and oram.  Grame smith failed again at the top and that opened the flood gates.  After their match winner - yousuf pathan departed, it was virtually curtains for the royals. They sorely miss the services of tanvir and watson. One can see the heavy reliance on pathan. He just has too much to do and you can't expect him to win them match after match. Shane - Law of averages ain't spare neone mayte ;)

So that gives us 5 points from 6 matches and the 5th position in the table.  We meet the daredevils tomorrow and its a more of  must-win match for us.  The momentum is defintely with us but then lets hope that gauti,viru and ABDV dont  break it.

Freddie's Flop Show

Well, well.  IPL season 2 is for sure gonna be a absolute humdinger.Previous year's  super stars are now facing the heat.  Deccan seems to  have got the rhythm going this time around and the daredevil's are some serious contenders for the golden trophy.  The royal challengers have gotten onto their old habbit of loosing whereas mumbai indians are definitely a better outfit.   The defending champ Royals are  hampered by the absence of tanvir, watson and   Grame smith's loss of form hasnt helped them either. The  'Reloaded' Knight riders - lost a close game with yusuf  pathan  delivering a severe blow to their victory chances in a sensational super over. Punjab - Let the rain gods  spare them. I think all punjab matches could be shifted to chennai, to make sure we have a complete 20-20 game.

So that leaves us with chennai. Well at this juncture i've got mixed opinions about them. They seem to be strong on paper, websites and other possible media whereas, they are definitely lacking the firepower towards the death, as i had mentioned in my previous writeup. The unit clicked against the lacklustre  bangalore but then freddie was really benevolent as he  opened the flood gate for the daredevils, towards the end overs.  These crucial runs  really hurt  csk, and  next time around Dhoni should give a serious thought before tossing the ball upto Freddie towards the end.  He's not yet learnt the trick of the IPL trade.  Fielding also wasn't up to the mark. Albie's drop of his team mate de villiers proved too costly.  And one can't hide the feeling that therez the absence of a buzz in the unit, in the field, compared to the other teams.

During the chase aginst the daredevils, Hayden gave us the perfect start. However he could have  gone on a lil fiurther.Freddie again played a real useless  shot  and god only knows what dhoni was trying to do with that  vettori delivery. Raina's heroics weren't enough and  the fact that vettori still had an over at death , made things worse. He conceded only 8 runs and there were few mindless run outs as well. Albie is a mere shadow of his his past year performances. Just not his day perhaps and CSK's as well.

So that leaves us with just 2 points with  3 matches  and the 5 th position in the table, at the time of writing. But then lets not forget that csk was in a pretty much similar situation, last time around, when the foreigners left for their national duty after the initial matches.  Even though they lost to the daredevil's today, they can take heart from the fact that they almost made a match of it, by notching up 180.  They are facing the desperate  kinght riders tomorrow. Should be a cracker of a contest this. Last season, it was the CSK that halted the kolkata juggernaut, but this time around they just have to rub salt on KKR's wounds. 

IPL Season 2 - Did we miss the wily fox ?

Been a long time since the last post.  Now IPL season 2 has given me a lota things to ponder about and scribble as well.  Being an ardent fan of the CSK , the first thing i would sorely miss out is the buzz around the chepauk stadium. Had the IPL been staged in india it would have been a different story altogether. Hmm.. neways no point in talking about suppositions.  

Well, the very first match, your home team playing, a saturday evening , who could have ever asked for more. First 10 overs, having had the  mumbaikars  at 65/1, i fancied my chances. Not so after the next 10 overs but, where that tea kada nair really came in and spoiled  every single dream of mine.  Neither did the piece of commentary "How many ever millions worth, u might be, but if you are gonna bowl half volleys like that at death, you are gonna be taken to the cleaners" , from ravi, when freddie offered those dollies to nair,  did any iota of good to my sombre  mood.

The second half was virtually over after hayden departed,  falling victim to a wonderfully anticipated grab from zak.  Mighty matty meant business right from ball one (well, except while handling the 'same old 'obnoxious weed' bhajji).  This giant's ferocious shots continued to amaze me and the immediate thought that flashed my mind was the kangaroos are definitely gonna miss his services in the upcoming ashes. But then the  life  he gave to sachin , earlier in the day,  was the "citi moment of failure" for me. 

I don really understand y the csk unit is clinging on to joginder sharma. He cant be a hero every day and he has nothing special  at all to  grab attention. The veteran murali should have taken his place instead. His absence was so palpable  when bhajji  made things so diffcult  for csk, freddie in particular.  Though freddie made 20 odd runs, he never really looked settled. He was constantly swishing his bat at everything and had a coupla awkward boundaries, for which even he himself couldn suppress a chuckle.

The difference between the two units was cleary bhajji and his parsimonious spell.  Its pretty blatant that the spinners  have held the aces in almost every contest till now(wat a coincidence, as i write this , vettori has been decided as the mom in contest 3).  Hope CSK learn from their mistake and  let joginder carry drinks and other cricketing paraphernalia alone. Time indeed for the wily fox to spin a web.

End of an OZ Era ?

Phew...The long wait is over and for a change am seeing aussies in a position where they put all teams of world in , almost for a entire decade and more. They have been well and truly beaten by the proteas. Throughout the  test and one day series , the proteas portrayed amazing team spirit and surprisingly it was the fledglings that took them to nadir. Indeed, SA rided on the shoulders of some young guns like Duminy, Botha, Steyn, Morkel(Albie)  and Villiers. Not to discount the effort put in by the senior blokes, as this victory wouldn have been possible without those experienced campaigners as well.

Well, gone are the times when i remember, i switched on ESPN , hoping to see a bad aussie batting scorecard, instead would end up witnessing a score of 335/1 (Hayden 111* and ponting 45*, langer departed after inflicting enough damage). Gone are the dreaded times when we hoped the poor pair of kumble and srinath facing mcgrath & co, build a partnership and take india to victory, with the sccore being 112/8  and another 125 runs needed for victory. Gone are the times when strauss watched agape a scorcher from warnie, rattling the timber and finally the aussie unit's victory laps are becoming bygones.

So ruthless they were ,that any cricket fan (except the aussies,of course)  would be cursing them under every breath of theirs and praying for a heavy aussie loss. To be frank i had even wondered,  if in future the  oz would turn world cup finals into a mere formality. There were even forwards going on, after 2007 WC, which said, hence forward the aussie team would  only play the finals, to avoid time wastage. Every aussie loss was celebrated ( i still remember the match were bangladesh beat them in england). But even before one finishes saying the phrase - 'That's it, this is the end of the aussie domination.' , the aussies would just give a faint shrug and win the series with amazing ease.  True that they have given nightmares to one and every cricketing team.

However, one can easily feel the lack of momentum and absence of 'going in for the kill' attitude in the current aussie unit. The absence of the senior pros are heavily felt. Infact there was a call for warne some time back , after the indian tour loss, but it sounds very absurd. They need to try and build up a young team for the future rather than banking on the old champs forever. Its blatant that the aussies are undergoing a transition phase and it always takes some time and experience, before they can gel together as the same old marauding gang. However the problem is the heavy expectations that these young inexperienced baggy greens carry on their shoulder. OZ have always been a juggernaut and defeat for such a unit is perceived unusual and 'OOO'  in the cricketing world. 

Punter's leadership will come under heavy scrutiny and am sure his team would be lambasted by the aussie media. Its gonna be hard time for that champion cricketer (well, am a fan of his batting and nothing else) who is coping to come to terms with the raw fellas, he has been provided with. It will be really interesting to see how  punter grooms the newbies and gets the aussie team back on track

It is a real unusual situation for the OZ to be in, who now have been well and truly been ambushed by the Indians last year end and now the Proteas.  They bet a lacklustre kiwi side, before the SA tour, but then the kiwis are coming back for one dayers this week.  It should be a pretty interesting contest, this. The kiwis would definitely be  influenced by the SA series victory and would be believing that they can do it too.Hope it peters out to be a even contest rather than the same 'OLD' aussie show :).

Eezhathu Tamizhargazh (Lankan Tamils) !

Place :  A Forest camp in Srilanka (Eezhathu kaatu pagudhi)

Inhabitants: A Tamil Eezham Family

The Family: Father , Mother and 3 little children

Family's survival -  Occasaional food items and other supplies,  from the relief materials that reach them via various helping organisations in Tamilnadu and other places. 

One fine afternoon. Surprisingly no bombings and fights in their area. More important they have some rice in hand for their lunch. The mother goes into the forest, gets some wood for fire and comes back. She starts preparing rice by making a fire out of the wood that has been just bought.  She  is extremely happy that her hunger struck family is gonna have something to cheer about today. A FEAST indeed, given their circumstanes. 

Cooking's done. All 5 in the family  gather around for a meal,  something that has become a rare occasion for them. Happiness gleam in their faces.  By the time they would have had  coupla mouthfulls, they hear the roaring of fighter jets in they sky.  'They've come here too. Not even a single day we can think about peace', says  the dad, as he moves out of the hiding to see  what's actually happening.

As soon as he comes outta the house, he is able to witness destructive bombs being dropped a little far ahead, from their place. Realising the fact that  jeopardy is just a few metres away, he rushes into their hiding,  takes his children with him, runs  and shouts at his wife to follow him to the safety trenches, that have already been prepared, having in mind such sudden attacks.   Realising that their mom's not following behind, the little ones shout out on top of their voice, asking her to follow suit immediately. Poor mom, stores the the just cooked in a safe place , in order to safeguard it from stray animals & crows and then starts running towards the trench. Half way through, a powerful bomb strikes her and  she falls down to the ground. The  hepless father and the littles ones witness their mom suffering a  horrible death, in front of their own eyes.

This isnt some cooked up fiction , but a true story that happened very recently in the forest areas of srilanka. In lieu of the recent fightings there between the tigers and military, millions of tamilians are subjected to such horrifying incidents. Families ruined, women raped, children killed, the srilankan tamils are  living in hideouts in their own land and therez very little being done from out govt, which is aware of the  fatalities that are happening there almost on a daily basis. With the Military forces in lanka, planning for a complete wipeout for Tigers within febraury 2009, only god knows what is gonna be the state  of the tamilians there. Let us sincerely pray  and hope that this attrocity comes to an end soon. 

'Koyambatu'

Was waiting in Tiruvanmiyur-ECR junction, for catching a share auto to office. A guy, appearing to be a north-indian, was arguing with a auto wala near by. Strained my ears li'l bit to hear what was happening. This northi was telling the driver that he wanted to go to 'Koyamaptu'. Auto wala was trying to explain the northi in his own version of english, "Coimbatore ellam poga mudiadhunga,no go, romba dhooram, very long..go train.not coming". This northi was however flustered and was still pestering the auto wala to take him to 'koyambatu' and told him that was ready to shell any amount, as he was in a hurry. This was going on for 5 minutes as even i was scratching my head as to understand what the northi really wanted.Thank god he finally mentioned the word "Bus", once to the autowala. I immedly understood that the place that he was referring to was "Koyambedu" . Intervened and explained that to the auto wala who finally burst into laughter (well the northi had a nervous laughter as he was still looking at his watch) and agreed to drop the northi there :).

One night @ Jubilee Road :)

Was uploading my pics from mobile to comp after ages. Got hold of these shots while doing so. These were taken on November '08 , when chennai was reeling under heavy rains. Coupla pics of jubilee road under street light, from inside my house :)

'Gloomy Economy' !

So bad has been the economy off late, that every leading news dailies are carrying such diastrous news day after day.  Some  really intimidating/worrying ones that happened to catch my eye recently were

• 4 million job cuts, since past 4 months, in the U.S. One of the articles in 'The Hindu' carried this news under the title 'U.S economy hasnt been that bad, but worse'.  Another noteworthy point  - The retail sector, has just been waiting for the holiday season and once thats over, foresees a lota job cuts.

• As if to prove the above said news on Retail industry, the famous WoolWorth Uk closes , not 1 or 2 but around 200 stores. 

• U.S people have started using credit cards to pay back their housing loans.  If the current economic situation remains bleak for yet another year, then therez a very good chance that 'credit crunch' is going to be the  next villain , thats gonna boomerang and hit the ppl of U.S hard.  Huge questions loom over payment of credit card bills.

• Leading automotive industries including Hyundai, Maruti, Ashok leyland, TVS -cutting production and reducing their number of shifts, thereby adding to the unemployment woes.

• EU as a whole fears that this is one of the worst recessions since 1937-38, with UK facing the brunt of the situation and finally declaring Recession 'officially'. 

• People in many countries queue up for Ration and free meal, after years. Berlin seems to have gone a step above in showing concerns not only to their ppl but even to their PETS, by reopening pet food centers after a epoch !

• Zimbabwe releases 1 million dollar note in a measure to tackle inflation.

• People in haiti have started eating 'Mud Cakes'/  'Dirt Cookies'.  Spare a thought !  The current world economy and rising poverty have really amalgamated well to achieve one of their gory successess - Making people eat MUD.  Not able to  'Digest' this piece of news.

• The bailout money that is being offered to the market giants, are being misappropriated.  Looks like instead of using this bail out money to help people, some of the companies have started giving pending bonuses!!!! Now this is cruel ..
  
  
  

Well, the above said are a few that i could recollect. Most of the people that i have been talking to  refer to this as a 'slowdown' optimistically, rather than a recession.  Some even say this as a opprtunity to seize and act smart, learn from  mistakes. Whatever be it, but with the way this is progressing, looks like worse times are yet to come. Not sure when the current economy is going to reach its nadir yet, to commence a resurge, but then lets all sincerely and whole heartedly hope that its gonna happen soon.

Parking Sense @ Chennai !

A typical  dull sunday night. Was driving home form one of the popular restaurants in the city. On my way back , the roads were deserted and i was hitting 60 kmph constantly.  While i was approaching malony road, hindhi prachar sabha junction, i slowed down, as it is a relatively sharp turn.  After making the turn comfortably, i noticed a car with both its back door open, almost at the middle of the road. A young girl was getting out from one end and a oldie from the other. The car was parked precariously. More worse, the  girl was talking to someone inside the car, standing in the middle of the road, as if they were in the middle of a family outing.  Thank god this isnt a bus route anymore, with burkit road, made one way already.  The fact that it is a sunday night, makes it more dangerous coz one never knows what to expect, at a blind turning in one of the common areas in the city.

This is just one example, of the parking style that the city drivers have developed off late. I personally have been a victim of a lot of such horrible parkings, esp in and around mambalam tnagar area. These range from pretty trivial ones, where it would just take a coupla honks to get the obstructing vehicle cleared to more complicated ones, where your patience would be tested to the core.  Most often , it's the horribly parked bikes, which turn out to be the culprit, standing right royally in the center of the road. The owners would've parked it in such a fashion as if they had bought the road in a recent bidding with the govt.

A common commuter in the mambalam tnagar areas would be well aware of the  pretty narrow roads that they possess.  According to my knowledge and observation, its the kuppiah street junction and station road residents , who have been witnessing some of the nasty parking issues off late. Esp in kuppiah street, which is pretty narrow, that if a big vehicle comes at one end, the road would be almost fully occupied.  Despite knowing the width of these roads, i  often find vehicles parked there. Once it turned out to be so bad that, because of one poorly parked santro, the road was jam packed with continuous honkings and commuters had to step on the outer walls of houses, which were generous enough to hold a pair of foot, cling on to the  street lights, do a nice hip twirl and jump on to the road, just to move a few metres, ahead of the obstruction. Imagine the state of old ppl. After some 10 , 15 mins the santro owner raced outta his house,  moved his vehicle, paved way for the traffic. Once i passed that point (i was walking from office to home) , thinking myself that he would have learnt a lesson only to find that the owner parking the vehicle a few hundrd meters ahead after the jam got cleared ! I just told myself "thirundhadha janmam" and marched ahead.

One other thing that ppl can witness , esp in station road - bargaining from a car. So often i have seen women, haggling over prices with the fruit vendors on the side of the road. If a vehicle comes behind and honks, the car would move a little and so does the fruit vendor's cart. Same thing happens so many times that, by the time the sale is over, the vendor would have moved almost a hundred metres with the car. Makes one think how lazy have ppl become. Not only are they adding to the traffic woes, but losing on a chance to get a nice little walk.

Such permanent and temporary parkings are a becoming a big public nusiance off late.  I can understand that there are'nt abundant parking spaces in the city, but then a little bit of common sense while parking would help save a lota commotion and disturbances to the public. High time the drivers in the city realised this. It isnt fair to blame the city traffic police for all the utter nonsense parking style that the drivers adapt. For them its just their comfort and their vehicle's safety, none other. Surprisingly Parking fines, chaining of vehicles and more such measures , though have been implemented, doesnt seem to have taught a lesson to many. More strict measures are the need of the hour and with the increasing number of vehicles hitting the city roads, its our duty to make sure that we spare a thought on the public, when we park our vehicles. 

Height Of Insanity !!

Getting a Visa for US has never been so easy.  No consultants, No hefty fees , Absolutely no documents(whoa !) , poor bank balance and an absolute impromptu speech. Thats it !!. Now, ppl who happen to bump into this blog sometime and happen to read this (now, this is height of optimism!) , should be wondering what on earth am talking about. Well let me come to the point. Managed to watch the film 'varanam ayiram'  this weekend and there is this scene in the film , where the hero 'Soorya' decides to go in search for his girl, to the U.S. He being a typical careless youth and a real funky chap, does not have the slightest interest of pursuing his M.S (leave alone PG,well he has some uncleared arrears as well). He wants to go to the U.S just for being with his girl. One fine morning , we get to see Soorya, standing in a queue , en facie the US counsellate in chennai (well that is my guess, seeing the white coloured and tall compound walls). When its his turn, he gets in and is confronted by questions from the supposedly tough visa officers. One of the officers asks him "well you do not have a good bank balance and the other required paper work, why do you think i should give you the visa. why do you wanna go to the U.S". Our super hero replies saying that  "well,  am going to the U.S , to find my girl , be with her, propose to her, get her consent and take her back home after that, to get the consent of our parents. I don wanna study in U.S". Now the most funniest part is where the visa officer replies "Frankly, I have never encountered such a case. Am going to give you a 5 year multiple entry visa(gosh, din i tell you it was so simple)!!!. All the best for your pursuit" and stamps his passport. Thats it. Done.Well next time you enter the U.S counsellate , get a photocopy of the love letter that you wrote to your girl or your girl's pic. Should be more than enough to get you a entry clearance. God save U.S !

Timor-Leste !

                       

Was reading  this article in vikatan diwali malar last week and thought this is worth a post. Its about a twenty first century country named 'Timor-Leste'. Thanks to the gruelling routine people undergo these days and their drastically reducing reading habbits, most of them hardly notice or even aware of such minor novelties that have happened in our globe. 

A bit of history, before going on to some niceties about timor-leste.

• Separated or rather obtained freedom from the portugese in 1975. But in the same year, its neighbour indonesia invaded it added the minnows as their 27th state.

• Thanks to the persevering guerilla warfare by the local force, right from 1975 ,spanning a mammoth 25 years, the whole of timor portrayed a battle ground in this period.

• On August 30, 1999, a poll was conducted (known as the Referendum, then), supervised by the UN as to who the ruler of timor should be. As a result of a overwhelming response (79%) from the people, raising their voices for a independent nation, the country timor-liste came into existence.

• It was only after a steely resolve for independence, timor was able to free itself from the gory clutches of indonesia and peace was restored

                                          

                                              Flag of East Timor                                                                                 

Now lets get some interesting tit-bits about Timor and the Timorians as well:

• "Timor" - comes from timur, which means "east" in Indonesian and Mala. Its capital is 'Deli'

• It was the plethora of sandalwood trees and oil reserves that attracted the portugese and a lota other countries towards timur in the 16th century. This isnt the case any more now. Its a poverty struck nation with unemployment levels soaring. 

• One of the primary occupation is collection of coconut oils from surrounding villages and selling them in the cities like dili. East timor has a lot of coffee estates. Besides selling them in open market, they also export them. Another significant occupation is fishing.

• Vernacluar : Bondia  - "Good morning"  and Bodarthe - "Good Evening" (Just in case u happen to visit Timor :))

• Initially Timorians did not indulge in idol worship. After the migration of indians to timur, idol worship has obtained its importance, with the key ones being Krishna and shiva. One another cool info. The proprietor of a hindu temple in timor is - JOHN :)..(sorry, couldn't resist writing this one ..hehe.:))

• The state of ligyaga has a big beach and its the place where the historical  underground prison, built by the portugese, resides.

• No age limitations for marriage, it seems.Pregnancy in school days is a pretty common sight. Now another interesting fact. Men pay dowry here, before marriage :).(Hmm...why shud boys have all the fun ?) 

• Predominant Races:  Catholic Christians, Muslims and Hindus

For more info , check out -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timor

 

Don Print 'em all - Instead Clip 'em

Recently bought a HP DeskJet 4185 -  Prints @ reasonably good speeds + Photo printing is its speciality along with  Scanning and photocopy.

Looks absoultely compact for the functions that it performs. When the dealer elaborated its functions, a reasonably heavy gizmo was what i had picturized and i was preparing myself for a muscle-aching walk back to the car. But then after the box came and i laid my hand on it, voila it wasnt all that bad. Pretty light to be earnest.

Coming back to the device, one wonderful aspect worth mentioning is the 'clipping' feauture that it provides.   During the device driver installation , coupla new options gets appended in the Internet explorer's (version 7 is what i employ), edit menu.  They are 'standard selection' and 'hp smart selection'.  There in lies a real paper & ink saving effort. 

   

Once you are on a page and you want to print stuff from it, clipping helps you in zeroing on the exact content you need. By default its enabled in IE. So you just drag it like how you do for a text selection and say print for printing at once or clip to clip stuff and store it in a separate window(all those clips can later be merged together, more or less kinda stitch photograph, if am not wrong). Simple, ai'nt it ?

Right now the feauture is only supported in IE. Expect it to be a integral part of chrome too, pretty soon.  Not sure if such feautures are already provided by other players in the market , but then this is defintely a move towards better and sensible printing.. I love it..Way to go HP !

Jumbo - A True Legend

Guess it was around four' o clock in the evening.  After a post meal slumber , i woke up with half the right eye open and its counterpart still trying to come with terms to the bright light. It was a nice sunday afternoon and also the fifth and final day of the cricket match between india and australia.  Since a draw was looming large i decided to check the scores late in the evening.

When i switched on the TV and tuned into neo cricket, a scroller at the bottom of the screen caught my eye immed'ly. It read "Anil Kumble has announced that he would retire after this match..".  That very second it stuck me as a real obscurity. I started to think if the senior players have really started succumbing to the pressure from the board and the stupid media, one by one. Were they indeed, what ravi shastri says, "falling like a pack of cards" ?

But after listening to jumbo, later in the post match conference  where he  said "It was a difficult decision indeed and its definitely not due to any external pressure but it was all within" i realised that i was wrong. How true. Jumbo is indeed a man of his words.  He wanted to give his hundred percent always and when he realised the fact that he was not at is best he decided to hang up his boots.    

To be frank am not a true fan of jumbo but then have been amazed quite a lot with his bowling abilities,commitment, persevearance and gentelemanly conduct.  He  might not be a wizard like shane warne but still was a proven match winner. How one can one forget his winning partnership with srinath against australia , the ten wicket haul at kotlah, "skull covered" bowling performance against the windies , where he got lara (also had hopper caught of a no ball i guess) , century against England , leading india to a test victory in perth after the controversial Sidney test... the list goes on and on.. Even in his last match , the catch that he took (despite the injured left hand), running back, of his own bowling, speaks volumes about his commitment. After the catch, he threw the ball back to the stumps probably wanting to make a statement that "Am still not done with..beware guys". 

Sure that his performance had begun to wane, especially in the recently concluded series against srilanka as well as the ongoing test series against oz. Batsmen started reading him better besides  age, injury woes and the lost charm.  He was no more the jumbo we all knew, who came thrusting in, hit the rough and bamboozled many a greats in the world of cricket. He himself realised that. "I did not want to let the team down and also stand in the way of a young player. I certainly was not able to give my 100% to the team."  True words from the champ. 

At the end of the match, it was glad to see jumbo being given a great send off. One of those moments that stood apart from the rest was mahi carrying dhoni on his shoulders.  Quite fitting was'nt it ?  Dhoni indeed is ready to carry the burden on his shoulders and take over the mantle from jumbo. But then the whole of india will sorely miss jumbo.  Pretty sure he has secured a place in the hearts of millions of cricket crazy souls.  A true legend indeed ! Hats off, for one last time, jumbo. 

Viva Cuba !

Been pretty long since i posted something. So decided to pen down my thoughts about a movie that i saw today evening. Thanks to UTV world movies. Have become a fan of the channel off late.  

As the title states its a cuban movie, shot fully around the awe inspiring cuba and havana islands. In a nutshell , the movie is about the friendship(at that stage i wouldn call it love or probably even infactuation) between two cute li'l friends malu(girl) and jorgito.

Malu and jorgito are school mates and pretty good friends, though their families are'nt, despite being neighbours. Malu's dad and mom fight with each other a lot and one fine day her dad leaves them and moves away. Malu's grandma whoz pretty sick is her best friend , since mom keeps yelling at her often.  Malu confides everything with her grandmom and is very attached to her.  Soon after their dad leaves them her grandma also dies due to old age. Malu is shattered. 

On the other hand jorgito is a fun loving kid whoz parents are pretty strict. They don like him talking to malu and keep stressing that to him often. Jorgito never cares though.   

After malu's grandma passes away her mom decides to move away from cuba to a different place in search of work and better living conditions. But for this to happen , her husband has to sign a autorization letter which allows them to move out of cuba.  Malu's mom calls her husband and tells him about that.  But little malu never wants to leave her friends esp jorgito and go else where. When she tells her mom about that , her mom reassures malu that she would get good friends again. Malu isnt convinced yet. She tells this news to  jorgito who is absolutely crestfallen on hearing this. He wants her not to leave him and the islands but is really clueless on what to do.

Therez a small rift between them after that followed by days of silence and loneliness. One fine day they realise that they have stop fighting and decide on a plan that stops malu from moving away. It is to leave their homes in search of malu's dad so that they can ask him not to sign the authorization letter which would enable malu's family to move out of cuba. 

Hence starts the kids adventuruous journey en route which a beautilfu story is woven. All their small fights, hilarious but realistic conversations, dreams and last but not the least the childishness, which adds to the beauty of the story. So damn realistic that you would start thinking that how did the li'l ones manage all these before a camera. 

The climax is also so beautifully crafted (I dont mention it here , though it is'nt something that's un-guessable). A tale of two friends that is so beautifully narrated and picturized. Takes a while to come out of their world, back to reality. All in all a must watch for those sore eyes which have been witnessing too much of  melodramatic and pathetic movies off late. Hats off to the creators and the kids.

Herez the trailer : http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=wnU1NTdF_qc

Once upon a time @ College..

Hmm..pretty bored at office...Wonder how many times, i've employed this phrase "bored at office" in the past few years.. Oops that is gonna result in a myriad,don bother counting that. Wanted to scribble abt this for a long time and am in a perfect position to do this, as iam "Pretty Vetti". No wonder,these two words rhyme with a perfect cadence...
I've hardly ever noticed ppl in my gang getting 'bored' during weekends @ college times.. How colourful were they and how quick those days passed.. We always had something interesting to ponder about or do.. Be it the assignments, weekend beach visits, late night dinnerz, GRE/CAT preparations, flooding the ever famous "kaiendhi bavan", movies at satyam, an more... We were just engrossed in whatever we were doing..Those were times when we yearned for a 25 or 26 hr day so that we could extend the fun and gayous moments..
Early in the morning, with a long standing grudge towards that tiny alarm piece , which wakes up the whole damn apartment,we begun the day. Then would be a quick sneak peek at the sports section of HINDU and without dadz attention, the 2 pages that contain the crossword section gets expurged artistically from the whole bunch. Next a quick sip of the fresh 'Kaapi'and a mad rush towards the bathroom. Bathing would become an additional payload during sem exam times.Thanks to all the denimz and axe effects, which kept other ppl around us alive !!
With 95% of our bag reserved for lunch box , 3% for news papers and novels the subject books got a really extravagant 2% space. That mean figure too, got dwindled as time progressed and we cleared sems!!
Now then With some adreanline rush and extra juices flowing around the whole body, we'd rush to catch the morning hogwarts express which took us safely to college. Real fun begins there. With a wrap up of the local and international news in a jiffy, someone from the gang wud start "machan therz a new girl in the ECE dept da..". That'll then trigger a huge discussion which lasts long enough until we reach college. The best thing abt them is nobody wud be spared.Right from the person who started the snippet, to the head of the department :-).. Train travel wsa always filled with fun an frolic!! Simply unforgettable..
Upon reaching college too.. the fun times continued. Itz Worth another post .
Alas...On the contrary,after getting into the IT world, things have reversed literally..We really wan the day to wind up asap so that we could free ourselves from the gory clutches of PM's, TL'S an rush home for some peace of mind. At the weekends ppl instead of meeting their close ones and freaking out, cite lame excuses and refuse to move their butts even. Therez this element of happiness missing definitely..But this is gonna be a vicious cycle, neverthless - office - home - office. Not even 2 complete years into this industry an here iam composing this blog, narrating the ennui at IT.. Life which was like a 40 GB external HDD then, has shrunk and resized itself into an ultra compact 1 GB flash drive ..... Huh damn this IT..even analogies are turning technical..

Banglore Mail and the Dreadful Journeys !!

First thigs first.. I owe a big apology to all those ppl who have taken some time from their busy schedules , read my blogs and had commented "don make it too personal..". coz this onez the final bit of personal stuff i have with me.. and without this i won be doing any justice to my blog theme (banglore mail) at all.. Read on..
So there was yet another "S/w Engineer in the m(oc)aking" at banglore and it was none other than meee!! Initial days at office were all perfect and just like what i had always dreamt off. Days passed in a jiffy and i had made quite a number of pals by then. At last training ended and along with it our fundoo times too..It was show time then, we had to pack our bags an move on to projects... A bunch of us were interviewed by a PM and were successfully 'hardlocked' to a proj. Now for ppl who wonder whatz all this hardlock is abt.. Its yet another jargon used in this IT industry with which the PM'S glue u on to a seat in the project and make sure u are no more visible to the HR (an that expands to Highly Ridiculous), who usually are in dire straits looking for resources and are so desperate that they start locking evrybudy,be it the floor warden or the bay sweeper,never mind!!
Right then, First day at project and i realised that my dreams of becoming a "hardcore developer" were shaken up a bit and had underwent a li'l transformation by then. It now read "Hardware Keeper" .. That waz what the jobz nature, precisely was.. "AM GONNNA BE A SYS ADMIN, DEALING WITH HARDWARE !!!" Whoa.. Doesn it sound great, if not atleast for the first spell out!!!
What was more gloomy was i had persuaded my mates too, to take up this new assignment, citing that "this is going to be a gr8 challenge. We will get a lot of learning opportunities.. we'll hve helluva development work..blah blah" .. Poor ones , they had got convinced by tat speech , which usually a PM manages to give everytime, during indcution of rookies into proj and they do listen agaped and of course thrilled..

So a bunch of clowns aka sys admins were brain washed and were trained to become effective sys admins !!! To make situations more worser we were scoffed and ridiculed by some (not all, though) experienced ppl who were already present there .. Tougher times were those and some hom we managed to grit them out all with a steely resolve..

Days rolled on , we had slowly accustomed ourselves to the new environment and we were no more 'rookies'.. Boy, we did almost everything that even a few senior guys didnt try. Sooner those ppl who were laughing at us earlier and made a farce, now termed our bunch as "the backbone of the operation".. Its really funny when u realise how pplz perception change as time does..

So i was really engrossed during the weekdays and it was the weekends that put me down. Since i wasn living with anybody, weekends were damn boring , to say the least !! Just had the TV for my company plus the 4 walls.....After spending a few morose weekends there at bang , i finally took a decision. "I am not gonna stay here for the weekends, watever be the case.".. . Thats where it all started. I began to frequent the banglore mail and weekend speicalz , sparing those odd weekends where in i was bugged by my TL who forced to come for weekend works (crap !!)..

U won blv me , i wud have spent almost all my sal for weekend travelz.... Friday night was the best that i cud ever get and the sunday nightz were the worst.. Coming home on sat morning , freak out with friends, taste ur home food , meet all ur college pals , continue all those late night phone talks ..all these became a routine , rather !! On the contrary the sunday nigthz killed me..There were times when i really din wanna go back so much that, i used to check NDTV & headlines today constantly, hoping to hear something like "Rains lash banglore.. all trains leaving from chennai to bang cancelled indefinitely.." ....

But since we don dwell in a fairy land, where all ur dreams come true.. i'd pack my bags at snail pace and with not even the slightest of a smile , i wud leave for the station.. Through out the way i'll just be cribbing and dreaming of a transfer.. More agony would be waiting for me there at the station where i'd bump on a romantic pair who wud really be excited, unlike me, to travel together.. I'll let out a big sigh (what else can i do !!) and move on.. When i travel with mates , i wud rather be ok since we always had snippets & hot news to ruminate on ..

This became a vicious cycle then.. banglore-chennai-banglore.. Hold ur breath , u havta blv me . outta the total 1 year and 4 months , almost all weekends I_WAS_AT_CHENNAI , except for a coupla them (or +1 , thats the max). I had booked so much tickets between chn - bang , that the Indian railways later decided to issue a special railway pass for me (of course with concession!!). Go to the url irctc.co.in and i'm sure that , those chaps wud have mentioned my name somewhere in the site or atleast in the disclaimer.. sumthing like "Accept.. if over 18 years of age, first name not like 'Kartik' & travel plan definitely != chn - bang :-) ".. for the amount of transaction that i had performed over there.. Also If u had tried booking a ticket last year at the irctc and should u have experienced a "server busy error" ..hang on.."I_AM_THE_CULPRIT .."

As in a fable ,where everything ends on a positive note.. this blog is also gonna do.. After constant pestering , bickers and 'I_AM_GONNA_QUIT' threats , i managed to obtain a TRANSFER... Know wat, the first draft of the letter that i was abt to send to my HR , giving a reason for a transfer read some thing like ..

"Hi,

The reason for the exigency in my relocation to chennai is that, i am exhausted, boarding the
banglore mail and all possible special trains , that southern railways had introduced for
reducing the congestion between the 2 cities and have exceeded the quota for maximum
number of tickets that can ever be booked by a individual bet 2 stations. As a result of this i
have been denied a ticket to my home town. Sensing the ultimate danger that i could never
board a train back to chennai , i request you to kindly gimme a relocation asap..

Regards,
Kartik

p.s : I have attached a mail from the Chief station master, banglore city with this, that will give
ya more insights into the issue..

"
:-)... Keep smiling..