Tasting SRK item

As part of my wife's routine pre-natal visits, when we visited the clinic @ Bascom Ave, San Jose for some tests, the French doctor told us about the Indian dishes he relish. He said he likes "tandoori and chicken biriyani" of Indian restaurants in US. The american lady nurse then said with a smile that she likes Shahrukh Khan very much.

Then the doctor retorted "Oh, I haven't tasted that sharookaan, I will have it next time, but do they include that item in the buffet ?"

My wife being a hardcore fan of SRK didn't like his comment at all. Nevertheless myself and nurse had a big laugh at his comment. But who knows, like Mallika Milkshake which has started (honouring Mallika Sherawat), soon they might have "Shahrukh Naan or Shahrukh Biriyani" !

Karuveppila Aakraantham

For a long time as we were buying curry leaves (karuveppila) from Indian stores of US paying 1-2$ per packet, I am now happy to see it here on Chennai supermarkets selling it for free ! Aakraantham kaanichu I took an extra big bunch of curry leaves from Spencers the other day and the cashier lady returned a brow beating look. 80-90 roopa koduthu vaangiyirunna saadhanam OCil kittumbo why not take more ?


Anyway I hope my aakraantham will soon die down. Naattile veettilaanenkil dhaaraalam karuveppila chedikal undu. Pakshe muttathe karuveppilaykku manamillennaanallo chollu.

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A Day Without a Gay

Today on December 10, 2008 the gay community is taking a historic stance against hatred by donating love to a variety of different causes. Gay people wants to show their strength by boycotting work today. No Gays would go to work today !

The HR office has probably never encountered this before: People across the country are being urged to skip work Wednesday after calling in "gay." !


The loosely organized protest, called "Day Without a Gay," (www.daywithoutagay.org) is intended as a statement against California's ban on same-sex marriage, along with other political developments considered anti-gay. Some are calling for a boycott of all economic activity to highlight the gay community's financial power.
The motto has stirred a tempest of online debate about the wisdom of skipping work during this deep recession time.

Are the people here mad ? At such times I feel our India is much better. I don't want to comment anything on this to hurt that community. Their views may be right and my perception need to be changed. But for me, I would like to stick to my beliefs, values and culture.

What is more shocking to me is to find that except the PV lead (myself), the Product Line Manager, CSIPT Lead, Engineering Lead and my PV Manager - all of these folks have not turned up today in office. I wish to believe this as a strange coincidence !!!

Siddharth - Our Treasure

Story So Far ....

What am I doing now

Gayathri's Delivery in US. We couldn't get our Parents from India to be here in this timeframe. I am the ALL-in-ALL and hence we are together attending child birth classes, labour support, parenting & breastfeeding classes, child care classes and Iam trying my best giving her all the physical and mental support. Unlike India, here father needs to be in the labour room along with the mother.

So other than 40hrs office work, what am I doing ?

After 2 long years

Was out of the blogging world for 2 long years !
Lot of things changed - important events happened in my life.....

Gayathri came into my life..... relinquished "bachelorship" degree...... became a responsible husband..... a family man.......now waiting for our new LIFE......to become a responsible father.......

Samu (Refer Samu, Myself and Our Encounters) is not with me anymore..... Took a pic with Gayu before setting off to US.... Now Samu is in my Canon Memories.....

Love & Murder of Miss Zanzara

He still remembers when she visited his house as a complete stranger on a cool romantic rainy day. It was around 6:30 pm on the 1st of July in the mid 90's. She was Zanzara - sweet cute lovable and friendly. She seemed so reserved and shy type and probably that attracted him towards her. Their acquaintance started from there and gradually evolved into a much intimate relationship with neither of them realizing the same. Her visits to his house became more frequent and he also couldn't stop her from doing that. She used to live near the temple pond aka "ambalakkulam" adjacent to the lush green paddy field. But he made it a point not to visit her place due to specific reasons.





She felt much comfortable beside him cheering him up and he also felt happy to have her by his side. She inturn became an energizer - freshening him up giving him a new life. Many a times he wanted to ask about her detailed whereabouts but never she seemed interested in disclosing it and hardly he worried about it. As long as the relationship is healthy and smooth going, he didn't want to bother about her nationality or religion or whatever but he had heard the villagers saying that she has her roots somewhere in Italy. His father was always against this relationship as he knew the dire consequences of this affair.
The hero could visualize the problems he might face because of this intimacy getting deeper and deeper but he could not just control it. So it just went on...His mother was always by his side and wanted him to go on with his wishes and dreams though she never encouraged her son's relationship. He felt affectionate towards Zanzara as he was interested in music and she was an equally good singer.
The hero's elder sister often seen as an emotionally phlegmatic lady reacted one day sharply to Zanzara for her untimely visits and meetings with him. His sister was indeed his well wisher and wanted him to be cautious while giving too much freedom to Zanzara in their house. Once Zansu comes, she gets into the bedroom which she considers as a secluded romantic spot and stays there for hours, sometimes till late nights though parents didn't like this at all ! They kept mum as they had good faith in their son that he won't get into any unhealthy relationship. It later happened that his father could not tolerate it anymore and would not let the doors open for her. Though hero loved her much, he wanted her not to come during night times as it may create rumours among his neighbours. Days passed by and they didn't realize that they were becoming more and more closer.She always used to boast about her soft shining long legs which even he felt was indeed her USP.



Over the years they understood that they have so much in common, their tastes, likes and dislikes, the change of moods everything had a good frequency match. They both loved to spend time together during night times when his family members were out. She was crazy in having candle light dinner romance with him though he was not much inclined to it. Slowly but steadily both got entangled in the deeper pleasures of this affair and they started treading the wrong paths on many such unguarded moments. But he noticed that Zansu was very much afraid of fire, and he noticed quite a few times Zansu fainting near the candle light !

Their secret meetings continued - sometimes during the moonlit nights amidst the lush green paddy fields....sometimes in his bedroom itself... Everything was going perfect for him....he was ecstatic and proud for getting such a wonderful companion....But....that night, it happened! Most painful and traumatic night of his life! It was unbearable when he felt that his loved one has walked out of his life. Just like that.....Yes, she has literally kicked out all those sincere love and affection they had developed over the years...when that Italian lady with long legs went in search of a new guy in his absence. Hero was returning from grocery shop by 9 PM when he heard some strange sound from his neighbour Arun's house. He approached Arun's window curiously only to see the heart breaking scene....She has let him down! She ditched him all these years... He thought she is for him....He considered her as his own....But reality is different....she is not his anymore.....

She has shared the bed with Arun....Hero was spellbound and was panting and perspiring and peeping thru the window, he could see that the bed room lights were off except a dim light on the corner. Hero could not digest the fact that Miss Zanzara whom he thought was his own had a clandestine relationship with his neighbour Arun!!



Arun's Sony 15.4" 1280 x 800 resolution LCD screen laptop monitor was seen from outside and behind the laptop, vagued out by the monitor brightness, he could get an obscured vision of Zanzara on top of Arun. He slammed open the door and barged in to Arun's bedroom to catch the love making duo red handed...Seeing him, Arun put on his clothes immediately and apologized him for what all happened. Arun told he is innocent and was preparing for his US University distance education online MS course when she entered his bedroom with clear intentions. But hero was not willing to lend an ear to Arun's excuses. But hero noticed Arun's browser page which read http://masters-degrees-online.us/vocabularium/Zanzara

She was mesmerising.....her love SUCKS....but he had no option left than to take her life. He went near her and before she could even utter a word, he beat her to death !!! A brutal murder !May be he is insane, mad in love but he had to do that ! He sacrificed his love for his sustenance, his survival, his long life.



Next day early morning before the village was waking up, Arun's servant maid took out Zanzara's body which was lying under the cot in a pool of blood. While the maid followed up with the cremation proceedings, a paper note left unnoticed was lying under the bed. It read : "Most of the people claim that they don't let little things bother them, but those people were never ready to share their bed and sleep with me ....But you gentlemen did...Thanks a ton!"

While Zanzara's body was taken to hospital for postmortem before the cremation, those gentlemen were diagnosed anaemic and admitted in the same hospital.....

May Zanzara's soul rest in peace !
I hereby dedicate my small poem to Zanzara....

An Elegy

She hated the DEFINITION of LOVE until they met
She hated the PERCEPTION of LOVE until they loved
She realized the POWER of LOVE only when they started missing each other....
She was Zanzara, she sucks and her love sucks!

Sasneham
Sanbalas

A Rendezvous to Remember

Time - 3 PM
Venue: NSS School

It was the get together of the school mates....after a long long time...for the first time...after the school days...

The school witnessed a handful of happy wonderful moments...the fabric of moments strung together in our school premises with the delicate thread of time spanning 200 mins with just 4 people! It was the the NSS School 95'Batch re union with a much meagre count...

Myself though always arrive late for the assembly and jump in on the last moment just to say "Assembly Dispersed" took a conscious effort to be a responsible school leader atleast now to chip in early on the school premises after almost 11 years of gap !

The Gates were closed - the main gate, the small side gate as well as the NSS Working Women's Hostel gate on account of Onam Hols....
Njhaan parungunnathu kandu oru 50+ aged man samshayam thonniyittu ennodu chodcichu "hmm enthaa vendae...enthaa kaaryam"

I said that I was a student of the NSS school and passed out in 1995 and we have planned for a re union and get together of the old batch at 3 PM here. He was delighted and asked how many is expected.
I retorted: Around 20 + minimum...
Little did I know that it would be just 4 to sum it up !!!

He told his name as thankappan - the peon and said has been here for the past 10 years and mohanan and bhaskaran (paakkaran as we used to call) are still working there and told about Vincent Sir, Happy Miss and few others.
I was delighted to see his courtesy in offering me the meen(fish) curry he had packed for his lunch though I said "No, Thanks!"
He opened for me the side gate and I found myself the comfortable cozy place - none other than our "paalappoo thara" located just after the main gate on the right side. Awaiting others, it was nostalgia raining for the next few moments with absolute silence as the backdrop creating an aura of ecstasy - a moment of tranquility personified !

Afterall it is still a Bachelor's blood flowing thru - so looked around and caught first in sight the working Women's hostel adjacent to the school compound separated by a wall. The school boy in me still consider that as a taboo - well I convinced myself that being an eligible bachelor, now I have every right and the privilege to google there! A horizontal scanning followed by a vertical scanning across the floors resulted in zero results....- hopes died down as all the windows were closed - it is expected as its Onam time!

Looked behind....The INDIA MAP is still on the wall - is still looking FRESH.....quoting of the different cities/places of INDIA there refreshed my geography knowledge and position of many places still seemed an INFO to me.....

I felt the rains haven't faded the MAP wall paints or rather the COLOUR of INDIA...
Neither our spirits have got dampened over these years or rather the SPIRIT of NSS BATCH....Else the get together idea would not have even kicked off....

Looked around to see the PIPE area, the taps were seen slightly rusted here and there.
My memories went back to the school days and the manner in which I got elected as the school leader.Me and my friend Kishore after lunch always go together to the PIPE section to wash hands. With lunch box in left hand, everytime when we cross the Principal's office room to reach the water taps, we both used to give a RIGHT-HAND 'HALF NAMASTE' (with the unwashed hand full of rice and curry items spread over) to greet him with graceful gesture slightly bowing the head. This made us to get in to his good books and inturn became the prime reason for choosing me and my friend as contestants for the school leader post during my 10th std stint.
Moreover we were supposedly belonging to the 'padippists aka toppers' fraternity.

Both of us were called to the Principal's room and asked : Can one of you become the school leader ?
As it was like a bolt out of the blue, we both were hesitant to say YES.
He left us with no option and called in the LKG Class teacher over the phone to bring one of her students to the Principal room. We were caught unawares and looked at each other puzzled. Principal tore off a page from one of his scribbling pads kept on his table. Tore it into 2 halves and wrote on one piece "Santhosh Balasubramanian" and other piece "Kishore.P.Radhakrishnan". Folded both and threw into his table. LKG student was told to pick up one of the folded pieces and thus I became the SCHOOL LEADER !!!

Back to present....By this time about 20 mins would have had elapsed...A thick moustache guy in Kinetic Honda arrived....
Oru Chandana Kuriyum undu....Kandaal Oru Sathweekan...Onnu shangichu.....It was Vijay Narayan of Class 10B... It is not a lonely planet anymore....I felt happy....

Pinnae we had lots of kochu varthamaanams.....about IT, software etc etc....Not seeing others turning up, Vijay one of the prime organisers called up the other key group 'activists'. They had their own busy schedules and was sad that they could not make it for the event.

Rajesh joined us who took some time off from his Branch Head activities of Centurion bank. We continued our school visheshangal when a GYM BODY in Full Formals in his BULLET slowed down near NSS school gate - it was our Sarin Poulose. Hats off to him as he drove down all the way from Kunnamkulam for attending our get together! Called up all the possible numbers from our contact list to woo in the oldies and have some fun time - but in vain!

We four went inside the school premises and 2hrs we spent time inside discussing about our teachers, class mates, batch mates, memories associated with every nook and corner of the school - the ground where we used to play hand cricket, the principal room, the drinking water taps, the toilets, the cycle stand, the LKG UKG swing or the oonjhaal, padarnnu panthalicha maavu and many other stuffs.

It was a flash back - dived into the memories of school life - the innocent boys in trousers/pants and girls in skirts and all naughty stuffs done to teachers and fellow mates.
We sipped in the school tap water to get ourselves into the school days and feel rejuvenated but we felt chlorinated rather !!

Sarin repeatedly was talking about my "class leader role and varthamaanam perezhuthal" and sarin always in my 'TALKER'S LIST' and always getting "chutta adi" from teachers. I apologised saying as 'part of the process' though he didn't ask for it and all was fun and laughter. We noticed few new constructions - one more floor on the Prinicpal's Office building side and one special cemented construction resembling a "pashu thozhuthu" (cow shed) in Rajesh's words near the aaalthara for reasons unknown. The trio except me had all their 12 yrs memories attached to the school - from LKG to 10th standard. Sarin was calculating the fees he had given to NSS school right from his LKG and Vijay and Rajesh assisted him in calculation. The Vincent Sir's previously thatched roof tuition centre was no longer there behind the school and instead he has constructed a 3 storeyed building for it !

We did a pradakshinam around the school and checked the latrine and toilet cleanliness which was always neglected and seldom bothered when we were having our academics there. The dilapidated walls and broken benches were seen inside the classrooms thru the partly opened windows and snaps were taken at various places to capture the old memories and infact they were the moments of exuberation. Calls from many old batchmates during the time helped us to boost our morale and raise our spirits !

We planned to have some juice from the adjacent Mayor Stores but Sarin was afraid to have an encounter with Mayoraettan aka Robin as there were lots of UNACCOUNTED biscuits/juices/ponds powders taken from there years ago! Along with Jimmy,Joby and others NSS team has sneaked in and snatched a lot of items from Mayor stores - which can be attributed to childish recalcitrance or innocence or follies or whatever. My tongue has still the taste of those unaccounted cream biscuits my fellow friends procured from this shop. Since the "kutthippokkal cases after 20-30 years" being the toast of the season and headlines in papers, Sarin didn't want to take chances with Mayorettan for his possible "PALISHA SAHITHAM KANAKKU VAANGAL"and so we set off to the Varkeys supermarket after taking a BYE BYE photo from NSS compound.

The peon Thankappan had finished his late lunch - rice & fish curry and also seemed had a good evening nap as well.....His eyes were searching for those 20+ NSS oldies supposed to arrive there..... Thanks to him, he had enough common sense and understood the grim reality and hence did not ask me infront of the other guys..... He posed for the Canon infront of the Women's hostel and his smile seemed contagious and we said alvidaa to him as well....

From Varkeys supermarket, we had apple shakes and some puffs items and we departed by 6:30 PM.

I sent a long mail to the recently formed NSS Group id detailing the get together.
I concluded like this....

"Folks, this was for those who could not make it for the event..... This re union was just a prelude....Next Time we must have a BIG crowd attending the get together and let us take a sanguine stand and we would make it in a much better way....But it was really a nice time to ruminate those good old school days with our fewer friends around and the vast NSS school compound to witness all these and share with us the happiness and be a part of those treasured moments !!! "

Sasneham

Sanbalas

'Idle Argument' & IT Industry - A philosophical study

(1) Either I will be laid off from the company or I will not.

(2) If I will be laid off, I will be laid off whatever precautions I take.

(2*) If I will be laid off whatever precautions I take, then all precautions will be ineffective.

(2') So, if I will be laid off, all precautions will be ineffective (from 2).

(3) If I will not be laid off, I will not be laid off whatever precautions I neglect.

(3*) If I will not be laid off whatever precautions I neglect, then all precautions will be superfluous.

(3') So, if I will not be laid off, all precautions will be superfluous (from 3).

(4*) A precaution that is ineffective or superfluous is pointless.

(4) Therefore, all precautions are pointless (from 1, 2' and 3').


The conclusion creates confusion as it seems logical at the same time sophistical. It comes in as a direct blow to the people who cashes in on judicial deliberations.


The argument implies 'whatever happens in the future is already unavoidable'
No matter you take precautions or not, if event X is destined to happen, it would happen.
It asserts that any event bound to happen would happen independent of your actions, deeds, thoughts and efforts.
Agreed…..but does it mean that our precautions we take or the planning we form or the estimations we come up for a Project… all are pointless ??
Pointless just because irrespective of all these, if the Project is destined to be a failure in the future? Project you work on may get shelved because of sudden lack of funding or business breakdown or economy slowdown or change in business strategy – reasons galore.

Let us stop here and go back again to the argument of Fatalism and take Buller’s analysis to start with.
Let us analyze in greater detail…

(2) is ambiguous between

(2a) If I will be laid off, then I will be laid off and the precautions, if any, that I will take will not help me from being laid off
and
(2b) If I will be laid off, then I will be laid off and there are no precautions I can take which are such that I would not be laid off if I were to take them.

I will be laid off and the precautions, if any, that I will take will not prevent my being laid off
But its not true that....
If I will be laid off, then it is pointless to take precautions

Though I am going to be laid off, if I were to release the product in time or perform better (which I will in fact not do as its destiny), I should not be laid off....
Of course the company itself must not be in a loss to lay me off

Consider this way - I am going to be laid off,
And there is a precaution I can take which would prevent my layoff. It is not pointless for me to take precautions, since by taking precautions I can sustain in my company.

So....
If there are no precautions I can take which are such that I would not be laid off if I were to take them, then it is pointless to take precautions.

Fatalism requires that, if I actually will be laid off, I will be laid off no matter what my circumstances are.

But fatalism does not assert the view that there are some situations in life in which the outcome is beyond our control, rather, it is the view that all situations in life are those in which "the future will be of a certain nature regardless of what we do"
Sometimes, in spite of our efforts, we cannot do things that we want to do.
Although it seems reasonable that we can do these things. .. It was fated that.

The design was perfect, the coding was equally good. The test plan covered every possible scenario to test the product. All corner cases were looked into and all possible bugs were found by the QA and fixed by the developers. FCS is all set in and release dates fixed.
Suddenly an FCS blocker pops up from nowhere ! The release dates get pushed…..whole team back in action burning the midnight oil to release at the earliest….
The FCS happens smoothly…..
Still…..when it goes in the production network, the customer finds a P1 bug !

We call it ill-luck or fate and go for the postmortem analysis. Team does an RCA (Root Cause Analysis) and finds how the imperfection came in and closes the issue.

On the other hand, there are cases where we very easily do things we can not dream about. In such circumstances naturally emerges the idea of fate.

There is no chance he can get through the interview as he performed badly – still he is IN !
There is no chance that he could have got promotion as he faired poorly but still he fetched it !

I have tried all the ways to avoid encounter with traffic police, but still I get caught somehow. Why so ?

It seems very easy to achieve x. I do whatever is usually needed to achieve x, even more than that, but I fail. Or, it seems practically impossible to achieve y. I do something to achieve it, usually regarded as definitely not sufficient to achieve it, and I succeed. How come?

Perhaps it is psychologically easier to give a name "FATE" and blame - for our failures than ourselves. Since this form of argument applies to anything that happens, if sound, this argument shows that we can not make any influence whatsoever on the course of events. If this really is so, then a rational mind would dare to make a try since
there is no way we could prevent events we do not want to happen, nor way we could bring about events we want to happen.

Now let me come out of the philosophy and get back to PRESENT and start working !
The release date is nearing….. It may happen on time or dates may get pushed too far as well. I cannot take a laid back approach clinging onto the ‘Idle Argument’ and say to my Manager “Whatever happens in future is already unavoidable , so let us keep cool for the FCS”
He may reply: “Sanbalas, your lay off also is already unavoidable”

The above was a peep thru and my blatant analysis to the concept of Fatalism and as I read somewhere this is just a logical culmination of “an overflow of emotions collected in tranquility”. Let us take a sanguine perspective and learn from all our mistakes and failures and aim for improvisation in every aspect – be it in our sharpening of the skills or shaping up of the human values. Our LIFE is too short to LEARN LIFE in its entirety. Every moment counts….

Sasneham
Sanbalas

July 27th....It has been 5 years since .....

July 27th... Today it has been 5 years since I .......

Called up my parents and the PERSON to whom I am so much
obliged....
I am grateful to her....for all the help & affection.....

Looking back.....
Where I was and Where am I now......
Some things are there which cannot be forgotten..... wherever the LIFE's vicissitudes take you through.....whatever be the vagaries of fate..... certain experience in LIFE never get buried under the sands of TIME.......
Yes.... I can NOT forget HER ever in my LIFE.....

Let me express my heartfelt sincere thanks to her and if at all I am in a better POSITION now, 80% credit goes to HER support and motivation though she may deny.

Sasneham
Sanbalas