New Smile

शुभ नूतन सम्वत्सर: !

May this new year shower you with overwhelming joy !

புது வருடம் மகிழ்ச்சி வெள்ளத்தால் உங்களை மூழ்கடிக்கட்டும் !

नया साल में आप आनन्द में भीग जाएं !

Keep rocking, Tamil !

When Tamil Nadu Government announced tax exemption for Tamil movies with Tamil titles, I did not feel bad. This act was different from the usual Tamil-fanatic acts that the ruling party is known for.

I was never amused by titles like 'Jeans', 'New', 'Run' etc. in the past. An occasional English name that is relevant to the movie's theme was ok, but a sudden surge of English names for Tamil movies was a plain marketing gimmick. After the announcement, this trend has almost disappeared ! I like innovative Tamil names like 'vETTayADu viLayADu', 'Ayutha ezhuththu', 'kAkka kAkka' etc.

These small acts will go a long way in saving the language from getting wiped out by socio-political environment of the country. I might sound backward, but I really marvel at Chennai that has been in the forefront of development while laughing at 'Hindi-only' speakers of the country.

Go to Mumbai - you cannot hear Marathi. Go to Bangalooru - you can survive without knowing Kannada. Go to Chennai - In one year, you WILL learn Tamil ! I don't find this to be rude. I equate it to Japan where you cannot live without knowing Japanese.

I agree that patriotism takes priority over one's language, but neglecting a 2000+ year old language for the sake of a 50 year old nation is stupidity, mildly put. A language cannot live on its own. It needs great poets and poetry lovers. It needs great personalities who speak it proudly. It needs native speakers who are proud of it. It needs the socio-political conditions to be favorable too.

Christianity would never have survived more than a couple of centuries without the political support of Rome. English is all over the world not because of just Shakespeare, but mainly because of the gun power of Britain in the last few centuries and the power of the US today.

Tamil lives on, thanks to its passionate native speakers.

Insane Evening

I and my friend Deva went out for Dinner 3 days back. What happened was strangely funny.

'Pizza Hut' in CMH Road. We were feeling clever to have chosen the un-crowded 7.45 pm time. Lots of empty tables gave us a very un-bangalorish feeling.

We started ordering: "Tomato n Basil Soup - One by Two."
The waiter said: "Sir, I will give you one soup and an empty bowl."
Deva jumped: "What ? Why can't you divide the soup in 2 bowls ?"
"Sir, our manager has instructed me to do so."
"We have had a proper one-by-two here before."
"Not anymore sir. Everybody is asking one-by-two. That is why..."

Deva was exploding now. He started questioning the customer service of the place and stuff. The waiter did not agree. Deva decidedly said: "Dei, let us go somewhere else."
We left the place with half-anger half-grin and headed for MG-Brigade.

'Three-Quarter-Chinese'. The receptionist offered us a table at the entrance of the restaurant, which felt like a side-upper berth in a train.
"No, we want a better table"
"Sir, can you please wait for sometime ?"
"No, thanks"

'Dalia- Japanese Cuisine'. We were so eager to taste the food of the land of rising sun. Both of us being vegetarians, the menu teased us to death - Most of the items were marked as non-veg. Some were even marked as veg+non-veg ! Of course there was a tiny percentage of veg items, but by then we started wondering how the Japanese might define 'veg' ! We left the place grinning at the waitress who failed to promise us a dish without any citizens of the Animal kingdom in it.

'Tangerine'. We wondered why this restaurant was located in such a secretive place. No wonder there were n't too many people eating there. Buffet. Looked tasty. We agreed to eat, but not before enquiring about the wallet factor. 250 Rupees seemed too much for the number of dishes, but the thought of finding a fifth restaurant quickly fixed us in the trap. Never in my life had I eaten a buffet which had no hot dishes like this one. Cold they were all - Pulav, curries, spaghetti. The quiet ambience was the only consolation, that was obviously because of a stupid location and mediocre food.

Is there a restaurant that serves decent food and has good service and is not too crowded and that does not vaporize my credit card ? I can hear Bangalooru shouting : "Get out from me !"

Ordinary Life

Most of us try hard to remain ordinary throughout our lives.

Every facet of our lives is plagued by ordinariness. We often fear that we might become different during the course of life. We try everything to prevent it from happening.

We make sure that we wear the leading brand of Jeans (If we can afford it).

We listen to the top 20 songs in the music channel. And believe that they are the best songs and try hard to 'like' them.

We eat Rasam Rice with a spoon in the office cafeteria so that others do n't think that we are not modern enough. Others too eat it with spoon and they too are thinking the same !

We yearn to buy that cool car the moment we know we might be able to afford it. What if somebody asks us : "Hey, you are a software professional for so many years. No car yet ?" So we buy the car partly to kill that question.

We read business magazines to make sure we don't lag behind our colleagues and friends.

We go to Adyar Anand Bhavan because everybody else goes there. How can we miss something that everyone else thinks to be good ? Long waiting time at the counter, no place to sit. So what ?

We go to Shabari Mala because everybody else thinks it is a good way to earn Positive Karma in 41 days. We too think so because we are afraid to think differently.

A certain amount of uniformity in our thoughts is required to keep the society from collapsing, but sometimes we go overboard - like a set of computer game characters with programmed lives.

Black Dot

A beautiful new white shirt - with a tiny black dot on it near the collar.

The first thing that one would say on seeing the shirt will be:
"That black dot has spoiled the shirt"

That is how most of us view life. One small imperfection is sufficient to make us eternally unhappy. We cling to a few imperfections and ignore all the beautiful things that we are blessed with.

We keep worrying about a few tiny black dots. Till we die.

Did nature design us to be worriers ?
Or is it nature's way to put a few imperfections in everyone's life so that the world is not full of 'ordinary' people ?

Bhel Puri Wisdom

When I was a kid, I used to love spicy food. I did not like too much of sweet stuff then. It wonders me that these days I have developed a better liking for sweet food and am slowly moving away from spicy food.

I do not know the exact reason, but I like to believe that I have had too much of spicy food and hence nature is asking me to change my ways before I cause damage to my body. I like the idea of 'going with the flow of nature'. The trees sway in the direction of the wind. They never rationalize. And I guess they are pretty fine too.

Adyar Anand Bhavan Bhel Puri is usually a bit spicy for me. The first few spoonfuls are really exciting, but it soon turns out to be too spicy for the tongue to truly savor. I wondered if it is only me or the Bhel Puri is really spicy.

Recently, I went for a walk on a beautiful Sunday evening. Rain had just stopped. The air was pure. Bangalore was at its best. I visited the Deenabandhu Temple in CMH Road. The Vedic chanting and the serenity of the place relaxed me very much. I continued walking in CMH road with Norah Jones crooning through the earphones of my MP3 player.

I reached Adyar Anand Bhavan and decided to stop for a snack. I bought a plate of Bhel Puri. Norah's Voice was shielding me from the noisy restaurant environment. I took the first spoonful. What a shock it was ! It felt like a spoonful of needles. I tried to ignore the feeling, but stopped after taking a few more spoonfuls.

Realization dawned. A highly relaxed mood was in great contrast with the spicy Bhel Puri. I still like Bhel Puri, but realize that most people fail to notice that it is sometimes too spicy to relish - because they are in a rush. The mad rush of modern life.

Tongue-burning Spicy food. Deafening music. Aggressive corporate culture. Dil maange more ?

Sundaram Samskritam

"The Sanskrit language is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either"
- Sir William Jones, Third Address to the Asiatick Society of Bengal

It is very unfortunate that most Indians lack the knowledge of Sanskrit - That means we have a big chest of treasure, but do not have the key to open it :(
A huge amount of literature full of wisdom, exquisite poetry and science is inaccessible to us.

Though my knowledge of Sanskrit is just the tip of the iceberg, typing in Sanskrit, printing out verses of wisdom, etc have been my wishes for quite a long time.

Like Kuralsoft quenched my thirst of Tamil computing, Baraha was the end of my search for a good Sanskrit software, This was created by a gentleman called Sheshadrivasu Chandrasekharan. He started with Kannada - with an aim of sending emails to his mother who did not read English. It was then extended to other Indian languages too. Though some Sanskrit experts say that certain complex consonant combinations are not supported well by Baraha, it suits most of my Sanskrit typing needs.

Baraha integrates nicely with standard Windows Apps like MS Office. It has a transliteration scheme that allows you to type using the standard English keyboard.


Baraha can be downloaded for free here.

Unusual Week

My energy has been unusually high this week. Some unusual things I did:

• Tried (and succeeded partly) to stay consciously relaxed throughout my day - be it at office or home.
• Walked from office to home on 4 days of the week (more than 3 kms distance). My legs did not ache a bit. On Friday, I became more walk-hungry and hence did a round each inside 2 nearby parks before going home. I was a bit baffled when I found myself enjoying the process !
• Got a caprice to try out an interesting idea that sprung in my head, at work in the morning. Finished implementing it on the same evening, which I had thought would take longer.
• Cracked a couple of data structure problems with unusual ease, thanks to the new fresher in our team.

Contrastingly, today(Saturday) was different, still unusual though.

• Got up in the morning and decided to do something serious that I had n't planned at all. Anxiety shot up.
• During the day, I was involved in something that kept me anxious.
• What I had always thought to be my strength - let me down totally.
• Used auto rickshaw and walked very little. Now, its time to go to bed, my legs are aching !

Do I see a pattern ? The first point in each of the above scenarios tells me something...

Tonnes of thought

Patience. Patience.
My mind is alien to this concept.

Restlessness. Hyperactiveness
They are good buddies of my mind.

Well, don't mistake me to be a hyperactive guy. I am among the laziest.
Its my 'mind' that I am talking about.

The constant chattering of the mind. Its judjemental nature. Its sentimental nature. Largely drives my life.

I want more control over my life. I want my mind to simply shut up when I ask it to.

I read this somewhere recently - 'An ounce of action is better than tonnes of thought'. I have promptly added this thought to my thought library. No action yet.

Customer Service sans Service

I get very irritated when I get unsolicited calls from Credit Card / Insurance companies offering their products.

The bad part is that they will not let you speak, but keep telling you how wonderful their product is.

The worse part is that they will not be able to answer basic questions in a sensible manner, and will conveniently hide the fine-print stuff.

The worst part is, the moment you agree to try their product, you are trapped. Then on, YOU have to call them 'n' times for simple things such as mispelt name on the card, unexpected charges etc.

"La La La...Please continue to hold the line. Our customer executives are having coffee. They will be with you in an hour...La La La..."

"Sir, You say that you have placed this request last week, but my computer screen does not show anything like that. It shows 'Flying Objects' screensaver now. I will take a fresh request now and make it high priority. Please call us again after a week. We will tell you the same story again. Is there anything else I can assist you with ? ..."

In software teminology, every rainy day test case will fail multiple times. It will pass after weeks/months, but by then you will be fully drenched.

I am going to collect the phone numbers of these free-credit-card-people and call them one by one. I will tell them this:

" Hello Ma'am,
I am calling from the Bangalore Electricity Board. Based on your excellant electricity usage, you have been chosen for a special gift from us.

The gift is a premium cat-mark-candle. You can use it for urgent light requirements when our services are temparorily down.

Please come to our office in Shivajinagar on 1st Sep 2006 between 10.00 am and 10.15 am to collect the same. Carry your PAN card, Passport and Voter's ID for our verification purposes.

Thank you. Have a nice day ! "

My friend, Gopi Chinnasamy triggered this idea in my mind. In fact, his ideas are far more explosive ! He has posted some nice photographs in his Flickr page.

Loving your Job

SWill I ever truly love my job ? Should I ?

Five years in the IT industry have made me realize that work is just work.
The fire that burned in my belly when I was a fresher is no more.
There was a time when I admired mere source code. Now that illusion has dissolved.

I get thoughts about making my favorite hobby my profession - Composing music, which is the most satisfying thing I have done in my life.

Practical difficulties aside, will a hobby remain enjoyable when it becomes a job ? Will it not change to an exhauster from being a rejuvenater ? Will creativity survive when deadlines loom ? In such a case, I will have to ensure that my creations are liked by others too, which is not necessary when it is just a hobby.

Similar thoughts have been blogged by Anjana.

But then, there are people like A R Rahman, who are like creativity-factories - delivering with a punch every time. Touching the fan's heart every time.

Probably, I should make living a hobby.

Friends are Angels

I am my friends.
That is only slight exaggeration.

My friends influence my life very much. My interests, my ideas, my choices in life - all have been touched by my friends'. To me, friends are angels who are there to make me smile, who don't expect much in return, who make life a lot lighter than it is.

Friends are gifts from the divine. We don't realize this most of the time.

I strain

Things I need to do.
Things I want to do.
Those I hate to do, but need to do.

Things I did right.
Those I did wrong.

What I think I am.
What others think I am.
What others think I think I am.
What I am.

What I want to change.
What I want to retain.

These thoughts.
flood my mind.
Always.

May I relax ?
May I forget myself ?
Please...

How to name it ?

SModern Indian society is going through an interesting phase in the area of child-naming.
Suddenly realizing his/her global identity, the young Indian parent is breaking traditional conventions while naming his/her kid. Trying to find that perfect balance between modernity and tradition, he/she hopes to build a great brand for the offspring in the society.

Some seem to exercise creativity at dangerous levels when synthesising new names. Some seem to be fascinated by uncommon Sanskrit names. Some want to make sure that the name sounds cool in school, college, corporate, parties, international airports and the other side of the globe. Should I mention the numerology craze that garnishes the confusion ?

While taking too many factors into consideration, the cultural/geographic identity of the kid is sometimes lost in the process of naming. For example, the craze for chic Bollywood style names among some South Indians robs the Southern identity totally.

Anirudhdh. Beautiful name. Krishna's grandson in Mahabharata. But, who would imagine that this is the name of a Tamil kid ? Well, it is.

It is debatable whether we need to preserve regional identities within a nation. I think India's richness is largely its diversity. Each region has undergone cultural evolution over millenia. Trying to crudely mix them all in a big culture pot to create uniformity is outrageous.

An easy way to retain the Tamil/Mallu identity while picking up fascinating Sanskrit names is to suffix it with 'an'. Anirudhdhan ! Well that looks definiely Tamil/Mallu ! Does it sound old fashioned ? I pity those who consider their ancestors an inferior lot. For girl names, we don't have such an easy suffix algorithm, but there are plenty of Sanskrit names used predominantly by South Indians. Pure Tamil names are on a decline these days. A former colleague of mine was very thoughtful and mature when he was particular in giving a pure Tamil name to his daughter.

I am talking more about South Indian names because I am a South Indian who knows more about South India. I believe these things can be easily applied to other regions to India too.

I can't help but wonder at the name of my close friend - 'Devanathan Varadarajan'.
What A Punch !

Creativitea

Most activities that I enjoy doing seem to have some scope for creativity.

Each time I lay my hands on my musical keyboard, I seem to play a different tune that I have not heard anywhere. I cannot say all of them are good ones. In fact most ones are not. My brother calls it plain randomness.

I am mad. Now I am switching between writing this blog and another one. I am unsure which one I will finish first. What should I call this state of mind ?

Each time I cook Sambar, I can't resist doing something crazy. Once I made it with carrot, radish and beans. Tricolor. It did not taste bad.

When I play carrom, I often miss easy shots. When I find the possibility of a new kind of shot, I can't help not attempting. Sometimes when I succeed,I fly. My friends call it fluke.

Sometimes, when the mind wants to be creative, it ends up being restless.
Sometimes, when the mind is calm without any desires, creativity flows out like Ganga.

Maybe, creativity is my cup of tea.

Cooking - with love

I started cooking.
When I had to.
When I was sore of eating hotel food.

My friend used to say.
Food made for money will not contain love.
I think he is right.

I started cooking.
I discovered a new pleasure.
A great way to unwind.
After a day of monotony.

I can experiment.
With colors - of vegetables.
With aromas - of spices.

When crazy experiments succeed.
The joy is unexplainable.

One hour to cook.
Fifteen minutes to eat.
That does n't put me off.
I relish both.

Food made at home.
With lots of love.
Has no comparison.

I am glad I started cooking.

Joy of living

S'Sumeru Sandhya', an evening of spiritual music, philosophy and meditation in Chowdiah hall, Bangalore was much more than I imagined. Conducted by senior teachers of the 'Art of Living' foundation, the event was as modern as it was traditional. The Kurta-clad teachers connected effortlessly with the predominantly young urban audience by singing Bhajans with the electric guitar and answering spiritual questions in a light manner with plenty of humour.

It was amazing to hear the Bhajans with a rock music flavour without losing its true Bhajan-spirit. What was more amazing was the response from the audience that included college students, young BPO and software employees. Lot of them were dancing and singing along ! They asked questions that really mattered to them like friendship and love. And they got answers with a spiritual dimension. There was a guided meditation session too, which was similar to the one in the 'Art of Living' 3 day corporate course.

The philosophy and practices of 'Art of Living' derives largely from Vedic/Vedantic thought with some Zen/Buddhist ideas, though no particular religion is emphasised. The focus is on happiness and love.

More than anything else, the event made me realize that today's youth is willing to live a life that is happier and healthier than what the society and their jobs offer them. 'Art of Living' has the potential to become a great spiritual movement of this century teaching millions the beautiful art of joyful living.