Butterflies in my stomach.....

Butterflies in my stomach.....

A sleepless night where I keep looking at the clock often and actually wake up even before the alarm rings......

A shower still thinking about the times to come.....

A dress chosen days in advance....

A taxi ordered 2 days before stands at the door......

A suitcase that started getting filled up weeks in advance is loaded into it......

A boarding pass, from a ticket booked months ago, in one hand.....

A passport, with a photo taken years ago, in another.....

An airport that looks so much better than usual.....

A flight where the food, movies, flight attendants nothing matter too much, its the time to destination that always catches my eye.....

An announcement from the pilot.....

A peep through the window to look at the familiar sight, the roads, the lights, the city....

A song in my ears....

A landing gear in place....

A touchdown.....

A hurried run through immigration....

A restless waiting at the baggage pickup while still staring at the visitors area.....

A familiar face....

Another waving hand....

A ripple of smiles....

A burst of excitement....

A trolley moving haphazardly....

A rush to the exit....

and finally a warm hug.....

Yes, I am home, I am home again......

No matter how old I get, no matter how often I go home, going home always means butterflies in my stomach.....

Like like same same

If you grinned while reading the title, you are totally a Micheal Madana Kama Rajan (MMKR) fan, like me! I fell in love with the movie the first time I saw it and here is a short version of the love story....

Bangalore, May 3, 1991: It is a pleasant afternoon in Bangalore and we were out for a walk with our relatives whom we were visiting for the summer hols. We pass a theatre that displays a poster of 'Releasing tomorrow - Michael madana kama rajan'. My father remarks that we should try to watch the movie in B'lore since getting tickets in Chennai for a newly released kamal movie would be next to impossible. We all vigorously nodded our heads and continued walking.

Bangalore, May 4, 1991, 4pm:
Mama thatha (my father's uncle) comes in and says ''get ready, the movie starts in an hr'' and before I even had a chance to realise that it was MMKR, my mom was hurriedly plaiting my hair ! In those days, B'lore was a simple city that was known for its good weather, lalbagh and roses and we didn't have to fight traffic for hours to get to the theatre !

Bangalore, May 4, 1991, 5:15 pm:
The theatre looks a lot different than in Chennai but since its the first day first show, noone is complaining !! The movie begins with the kadai kelu song and I am thinking if they finish a good part of the story in a single song, what will do they do for the remaining time ?! Singeethem Srinivasa Rao had a perfect answer to that !

Bangalore, May 4, 1991, 5:30 pm:

hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha

Bangalore, May 4, 1991, 6:30 pm:

hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha

Bangalore, May 4, 1991, 7:30 pm:

yawn....since this is where they unnecessarily drag the climax but since they gave us almost 2 hrs of hahahaha, we condoned it !

Bangalore, May 4, 1991, 7:30 pm:

We are still talking about the movie and we are still hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha and here is why:

Kameswaran & Thripurasundari

- sundari neeyum: the venpattu madisar, pattu panchakacham, sandanam, azhagana veedu, kanaru and everything abt it

- yaaruku kalyanam, nekka (shocked tone), nokka (relieved tone), nekkum nokkuma (unbelievably shocked tone!)

- thirpura sundari illa thiruttu sundari

- pommanti karanja nekku thangadhu kettaya

- I mean what I mean but they cant be so mean - enna ezhavu ellarum meen meengra ?! ROFL !!

- and this whole sequence is actually ingrained in my brain and that I can perform it even when I am just half-conscious and I cannot keep track of how many times I have performed it for friends, cousins....in hostel rooms, weddings, on the stage (won the first prize for extempore mono-acting :D)

Subramanya Raju

- rum bum bum

- his response to Madan's ''catch my point'' - shokka sonnayya, dhoolya, adhellam apdiye varadhu dhan illa, nyabagam vechukaren, naanum engayavadhu adhichu vittudaren and this is brilliant yet subtle humor about human nature at its peak !

- one nimute

- neenga flower likera, naanum...like like same same

- en muzhu peru Madan, friends ellam chellama surukama subramanya rajunu koopduvanga

Micheal

- the 'like-am-bothered' attitude in saying 'note adicha police dhan varum'

- slaps his father: enna pa appavaye adikara - this has a special meaning to me since my dad tells me ''enna micheal appavaye adikara'' anytime I punch him playfully :)

Madan

- his NRI english 'sorry I had to barge in on our meeting like this..'

- his tug of war with Nagesh: ettu ponnu mela sathiyama solren, naan panatha edukave illa followed by Bheemboy jumping out of the window !

- his Bheemboy

Gundas

- oru thadi al, oru podi al, ivan pala sizela adiyal vechurukkan da

- indha al kitta namma ala kamicha indha al boss, vera oru al kooda serndhu namma ala mudichiduvan, to which boss replies ''evalo al da, enda kootam sekareenga ?!''

I can go on and on about every other character....is undoubtedly the best comedy movie of all time ! And now all this writing makes me want to see this movie again....so am off...you dint think I would not have a copy of this movie on my laptop after all this hype, did you ?!

Rock on rocks !

A Rock band ''Magik'' breaks up and gets back together - sounds simple enough and maybe even a touch ''predictable'' but the movie still works because of the people, music and screenplay.

What was refreshing: Screenplay, No unnecessary drama be it a husband-wife fight or lovers breaking up or the band breaking up, the climax, the actor being the playback singer too (so that you did not have to deal with totally different voices between the scenes and the songs)

What was interesting: Subtle changes in Aditya with and without 'Magik' that still make a huge difference

What was cliched: one of them having brain tumour

What was jaw-dropping: Aditya's house - the interior decoration probably cost the earth....although I can never see myself in living such a luxurious house (it would simply be too weird !)

What was contagious: the Nana na na from pichle saat dinon, Killer Drummer or KD's great attitude (well, hopefully), one line from the tumor patient - agar jana hi hai to why not with a bang ?!

What was funny: KD through and through

Verdict: If you have nothing against rock bands/music, you would really enjoy this movie ! I thoroughly did !

Wanna be my friend ?!

Imagine a simple question posed to people in different age groups - how did you first meet/know your best friend? These are the responses (am articulating them for the benefit of the reader)

a LKG student: We are both in LKG 'D' and she sits next to me. We both like Cadbury!

a IV std girl: She lives in my street and we go to the same dance class. We will do our Arangetram together !

a VI std boy: He lives next door and we play cricket everyday. Proudly adds: We are the sachin-sehwag pair!

a XII std girl: She lives in my colony and we go to the same tuitions. Rendu perum tuitionla thoongi pesi neraya thittu vangirkom!

an undergrad student: We shared a room in the hostel. Our hostel warden called us the ''bandit queens.''

a grad student: We lived in the same apartment. We are like family!

a fresher at work: We had interviews on the same day and attended the same training.

an office-goer: I have some good friends at work but my best friend is my college mate.

a housewife: I wish my best friend from school was in the neighbourhood.

why is that as you grow up, you need more and more things in common with someone to be best friends with them ? why isn't just liking the same toffee not enough anymore ? When does common tastes in music, sports and movies stop being the basic criteria? It is a sad fact that as the innocence in us decreases, we become more and more judgmental and it becomes harder and harder to make new 'best' friends.

Its true that friends that you make in a certain phase of your life (mostly student life) become more or less like siblings to you (and sometimes even more). And at one point, you are either content with your really good circle of friends and/or you just lose your inclination to make new friends because it costs you a lot of time and effort.

I am trying to remember when was the last time I made a really good friend...am not talking about those with whom one exchanges hi/bye, an occasional phone call but am talking about those people who you can call at an odd hr and start a 'hey, its me' conversation....my memory tells me sometime in 2004, when I was a grad student.

This is not getting any easier even with all the social networking tools available today. Why? Because there are only a handful of people that I can chat with – people with whom I can carry on a good conversation with; ergo my good friends. Talking with anyone else is simply small talk and am losing interest/lacking patience for that.

I moved to Munich 3 years ago and although I have made a couple of hi/bye friends, there is noone that I would willingly spend a day with ! Maybe it is also a personality thing – am just not the kind to chat with strangers in chat rooms or in skype or ‘wherever’. I make exceptions now and then when I really ''hit it off'' but these people are ''real''', they are friend's friends and they are who they say they are, atleast there is no identity theft (which is fairly common in online forums).

I am glad I have some friends I cannot really go on without, some friends I am really proud of and some friends I like to spend time with.....so what more do I ask for ?!

Fire, Fire, Fire !!

"When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse. A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box." - an excerpt from one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories, 'A Scandal in Bohemia'.

When I was reading the story, I wondered about what I would do if there was a fire in my apartment today given that I neither have a baby nor a jewel box :D ! I made a list of things I would try to save, starting with the highest order of priority
- My photo albums: these custom made hard copies are the result of hours of hard work and they have photos of my choice, of my nearest and dearest ones, in the chronological order with my comments.
- My external hard drive: soft copies of all the photos and videos I have.
- My passport: I live in a foreign country where my passport is the only form of identification I have. I would prefer not to pull a Tom hanks in ‘Terminal’!
- My documents file: I have a file with everything right from my driving license to my tax returns to my degree certificates and I know it would be a pain to get duplicate copies of all of them.

In a way, I think I will be able to save all of these since they are all on my computer table. But this also makes me think of the ‘back-up’ strategy – I do have scanned copies of my passport and documents. I do have a backup of my photos and videos, so the only things left out are my photo albums..hmmm...not bad, not bad at all....

For the sake of my clothes, furniture and ofcourse my apartment owner, for the sake of firemen and above all, for the sake of peace, let there be no fire….roaring or not!

Isosceles or not?

Abcissa, ordinate, corresponding angles, trapezoids - if all these ring a bell and if you actually remember what they mean without using google or wikipedia, then you can give yourself a pat on the back for having been a diligent student and your school math teacher can be really proud of his/her teaching !!

So what made me think of the Cartesian coordinate systems ? A question from my colleague asking if I would be willing to tutor a 16-yr old on a Sunday on these topics to help her prepare for her 'board exams'. I readily agreed and did not think too much about it until Saturday. On Saturday morning I am out grocery shopping and I notice 2 teenagers on the road, dressed as weirdly as possible and talking in an equally vile language. It was then it hit me that I had probably committed myself to a herculean task - teaching a teenage girl a popularly-hated subject before a popularly-dreaded exam and to make this more interesting, I was going to teach her in German !!! Talking about gleichsenkliges Dreieck (isoceles triangle) and Drachenviereck (a form of quadrilateral) is a whole new game, trust me !

When I went to the girl's house on sunday afternoon I smell something very familiar and as her mom very warmly welcomes me into the house and takes me to the dining room I see hot sabji and basmati rice on the table. The surprise on my face turns into relief causing broad smile when I see a really shy and cute girl, petting her cat, walk into the living room with a pleasant smile. The girl introduces herself, thanks me for taking the time and asks me if I would like to join them for lunch. She begins lunch with a prayer :). The sabji is not spicy but tasty and while I am trying to figure out how the Brazilian-German family (mom is from Brazil and dad is a German) is having such a lunch, the mom proceeds to explain that she spoke with my colleague, found out I was an Indian vegetarian, googled for a 'simple' recipe and prepared it for me ! Before I even had a chance to show how overwhelmed I was, the mom comes in with a Brazilian dessert - a layer of milkmaid, a layer of Brazilian chocolate (very different from any chocolate I have had so far) topped with a layer of pista icecream. Although my head was screaming calories, my mouth was watering and the taste buds won !

After the sumptuous lunch, we sat down to study and she shows me the problems she has trouble with - I was so excited when I realized that I could solve them all without batting an eyelid (and hence could also explain it to her) - there was the parabola intersecting the straight line at 2 points which together with another point on the x-axis form a triangle and our task was to determine if it was an equilateral or an isosceles and then, there was the weirdly shaped garden formed from 3/4th of a circle and a trapezium whose area we had to figure out and many more exercises that totally made me feel like I was in class 8!! I was also amazed at how she was allowed to use a scientific calculator and a book of formulae (and I remembered how we use to go with our worn and battered-from-use clark's table for our exams!). Interestingly she always spent a lot of time searching for the right formula - the focus was only the concept, once you figure out the concept you look for the charateristic equations or the area formulae in the book, instead of in your own RAM like we used to do !

After 3 hrs of math, we decide to take a break and her mom comes in with coffee and chocolate lemon cake...was heavenly ! While I am thinking how many rounds of jogging would burn those calories off, she gives me a box with some cake and another with some dessert we had had for lunch. To top it all, she asks me how much she owes me for the tuition and I am flabbergasted ! Noticing this expression she says 'Its not fair that you spend your precious time for nothing' and I tell her 'Noone cooks so much for a tutor and if she can cook so much for someone she had never seen in her life then I can spend a couple of hrs teaching her daughter' and it was time well spent - time that I would have otherwise spent dancing or blogging at best or eating/sleeping at worst !

In short, a great Sunday, now I am keeping my fingers crossed about the girl's exam and her results....

To say or not to say - that's the question, really?!

"I cannot believe you did not tell me this all these days!!''

''You knew but never told me ??''

''When did you first know this ??''

Sound familiar ? If it does, then you would know exactly what I am talking about. There are 2 things about information - the content, and the one that seems less important but causes trouble more than one would expect is ''the temporal'' factor. So it is not just important to give news but when you deliver it is of paramount importance as well !! I can understand this w.r.t work since everything revolves around deadlines but when one takes this into the realm of personal life it simply becomes impossible to keep track of communication especially when it is complicated by a timeline, not to mention the time zones that make it all the more spicy !

Consider the simple example of one getting engaged....obviously there is a whole list of people who are going to get invited for the wedding but how soon does one tell everyone ''informally'' about the engagement ? it would be simple to post it in a social forum (like facebook or orkut) to let all friends know.....isn't it ?.....well you would think so ! Then comes an email from a friend saying she (it could be a ''he'' too) was shocked that she had to find out this way and that she wasnt informed personally.....then you would think about sending an email blast to your friends....but then comes the next fone call from a friend who says ''why couldn't you give me a call''? Then you are stuck wondering if you are going to spend all the time with your fiance or informing people about him ! uh...it never ends, does it ?

But there is a next level to this problem...what if the information does not even concern you ? Lets say you know a friend, A, who just broke up with his/her fiancee/fiance and the planned wedding is not even happening anymore but this is not something you are going to shout from the roof top. What happens when another friend, B, asks you about the wedding ? Well, in that case, I would try to get out of it diplomatically and not reveal anything to B about A because it is simply not my business ! Secondly, there is something similar to ''attorney-client privilege'' that made A trust me with the information and I want to be true to that trust. Does A want B to know now or later or not at all - very simply, it is A's choice....I do not even come into the picture.

It doesn't end there. B raises the question of trust w.r.t you sharing the information about A since your relationship with B warrants that trust....oh...dear....well, my answer here would be if B has so much faith in our relationship then he/she will already know to respect my discretion and not hold it against me. This probably sounds logical (unfortunately to very few people) and paradoxical to the others. This is probably where benefit of doubt is most required !

If you are too inquisitive and want to know everything - good or bad- about everyone all the time, then either you were the brains behind wikipedia or you simply have too much time - go get a life and/or do something worthwhile !

It never ends, does it ?

Day-before-yesterday: in-land letters - I remember a scene with my mom making a list of people with a bunch of in-land letters on the side, all with same text (some snippets - shemam, anega namaskaram, upanayanam, asirvadham) inviting a few elders for my brother's upanayanam and this is besides the formal invitations that are sent out. You are expected to ''re-invite'' some people with your own handwriting.

Yesterday: Phone - I remember making a list of people to call before I left India to come to Germany for my higher studies. This was besides the email I sent out giving people the good news. You are expected to receive a ''personal'' bon-voyage from certain people.

Yesterday/Today: Email - I remember compiling multiple different mailing lists to send out 3 different kinds of my wedding invitations. This was besides the wedding website I had created to let people know what was going on before, during and after. You are expected to invite certain people in certain ways and for certain parts of the ceremony (be it the wedding or reception)!

Today/Tomorrow: Orkut/Facebook/Twitter - I already have an orkut profile and I am fighting in vain to not accept invitations in Facebook since maintaining the existing social network accounts by itself is challenging ! You are expected to invite certain people, send them regular ''how are you'' messages, comment on their photos, visit their blogs....am not even going to bother finishing this list...

Tomorrow/Day-after: Google latitude - Among others, you are probably expected to give your lat long coordinates to certain people.

Inspite of all this, who among us have not had complaints about having missed telling someone something at the right time (not to mention ''right'' is totally a matter of perspective !) !?!?

With all these tools in hand, it looks like we never give people a chance to miss us or each other but isn't the truth the exact opposite ?! Don't we always complain how about how we hardly talk or catch up with a friend, a cousin, a colleague and in some cases, a parent ?! Is it because we always only expect others to do it ?!

On another note, Technology changes, develops but People do not.

So what is happening with Darwin's theory, are we still ''fit to survive'' this technology boom ?! I wonder....

Can u spel rit ?

There are 3 kinds of people - people who cannot spell right, people who can but think spelling right will take a lot of time and believe in riting lyk dis and people who dont do the former and totally hate the latter ! ....and this exclamation point (and actually the blog itself) should make it clear which category I fall into or always strive to fall into....

''The sweetest words in any language are those of one's own name''

I think it is actually superfluous to use an adage to make such an obvious point - do not misspell someone's name when you are writing to them. There have been umpteen times that has happened to me be it in a email or a scrap and what I do not get is how ?! My name is in my email id and also in my orkut profile right next to where one is actually typing and how can one still not spell it right ?! And I am not talking about typos (not that they can be condoned all the time), am talking about someone taking the liberty of giving a whole new version to my name ! I am all the more appalled when someone does that in an official email, more so in case of a prospective client or partner - if you cannot spend time in getting the names of your clients or partners right, then you can be sure that you are not going to be in business with them much longer !

Not everyone is a walking dictionary; not everyone has command over languages and above all, not everyone is used to switching between desktops, laptops, blackberries and whatnots - agreed !

But is putting in effort to not massacre the language too much to ask ? There are certain short forms that I have come across, that I would rather not discuss in a public forum, that are totally ''inappropriate'' and people tend to use them unknowingly for years until someone comes along and corrects them.

The objective is communication - also agreed !

But how is ''dis'' instead of ''this'' helping ? I can even condescend to accept these in a sms but seeing people write emails or chat like this is simply too annoying !

I do not claim that I never do this, I do but I draw the line when it comes to saying ''sthing'' instead of ''something''....that for me does not constitute an abbreviation, acronym or any short form for that matter !

Abbreviations kill a language, its vocabulary and the nuances that come with it. I have known a lot of people who thought ''come-on'' was spelt ''common''...no wonder....since most people simply write c'mon !

The frequency of English words is ever increasing in German, French and not to mention the Indian languages, mainly because of technology growth and sharing. So with English being the one language strongly influencing all other languages, let's strive not to strangle it and develop a lustre-less (and maybe soon word-less) language lyk dis !

AccuTerra

Launching on June 17th is a real cool set of Apps for the iPhone – AccuTerra.

This is just in (June 12, 2009): Apple World Wide Developers Conference awarded Intermap's Accuterra App for the iPhone "best iPhone 3.0 App. of 2009"! More details at http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ada/

These detailed outdoor mapping Apps (click on the image above for a better view) allow you to plan, track, take pictures along your hike, share the hike with friends on your iPhone or email, and post the 'hike' to Facebook or LinkedIn. Friends can click on the link you put on your page and find themselves viewing your hike in Google Earth or Google Maps. Check it out now at http://mobile.accuterra.com/ or find it in iTunes by searching ‘AccuTerra’

Although this is a shameless marketing of a product my company is involved with, I wouldn’t do it if I did not consider it worthwhile. I have seen and used the application on an iphone and it’s simply amazing!!

If you are a regular hiker and you have an iphone, this is just for you !

You can watch some demos of the product here - http://mobile.accuterra.com/index.php/demo/

What does/would Google do ?!

I recently saw an interview of Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Google (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer - very very impressive !!) and I have jotted down a few things that got my attention. They are listed below (in no particular order) with my comments.

Future of search engines:

Voice-based search: Using speech-to-text for search results - Imagine typing ''love'' in youtube and getting all songs/videos/conversations that has the word somewhere in it !? I bet 50% of all videos will show up but Google sure will have a smart way of figuring that out by offering suggestions or grouping them into categories right from ''Mother Theresa'' to ''love at first sight'' !

Image-based search: How much information can the search engine recognise from a picture - Imagine using a photo of a disneyland ride as an input and finding all other such rides in disneyland or elsewhere or looking for a house you liked !

New Products

Newest Release is GoogleLatitude (http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html): no better way to keep tab on friends, you will literally know where they are, in terms of lat and long ! - Stalkers are sure going to love this :D ! Kidding aside, abundance of information always causes a conflict between privacy and transparency and although Google claims its upto the user, I am still not 100% convinced !

News-related Advertising in GoogleNews: This is more tricky than it sounds. For example, nobody wants to see air tickets ads right next to the news about a plane crash

For Entrepreneurs

Google's Strategy on Featureitis: Don't waste too much time on including features you think the users might want, instead get the product out there, wait for users feedback and then improve your product. For example, GoogleNews implementors had enough time only to include either a sort by date or sort by location feature. Since they were unable to come to a decision they included neither of those. Out of 305 emails they received on the day after the release, 300 asked for a sort for date - bingo ! thats the feature !

Keep looking for improvement opportunities: What is the one major advantage of reading a hard copy ? ''Zero'' seconds to flip through pages (amazingly I never thought of this inspite of reading so much online - I seem to have always had a good internet connection !) and that is exactly where they want to go with the Google Reader as well - whatever you read, whereever you read, you dont have to wait to flip !

Google's mantra for hiring/work culture:

Past performance speaks for future performance => maximum weightage for references - if you are looking to be a googler, then it helps to make peace with your current boss :D

Best of ''both'' - both being ''smart'' and ''getting work done'' - it seems like the former implies the latter but it is amazing how in real life its not always true !

Really small teams and possibly in the same office to avoid meetings - when I think about the time I spend every week attending meetings with colleagues in all possible time zones, I can totally understand why this would help !

Trivia:

Google employees are called googlers - When google is used as a verb these days, I would imagine anyone using google is a googler but since Google says otherwise, are we all then 'googlees'' :D ?!

Google Nap Pods: Googlers can take a power nap at work in Nap pods, that block out sound and light. Google it to see a picture of it :D !

Orkut: The only reason orkut became a hit in Brazil and India is because the latency of the released version (that was not scalable then) did not bother Brazilians and us ! - appo evalo peruku vettiya evalo time irukku ?!

Lets ''Dash''....

When you write a product review there is usually a question - ''would you recommend it to your friend'' and in case of the this product, the answer would be ''he/she better buy it!''

Wonder why ?? Because its technology and marketing all combined into one !

Dash Express is apparently the first two-way Internet-connected GPS navigation system (homepage: http://www.dash.net/ ). The system is based on a dash driver network where the dash servers receive timely updates from ALL dash users and this updated information is periodically sent to ALL dash users. This is pretty much like a friend calling you and asking you to avoid a route because he/she is already stuck in traffic there. This reminds me of OSM (Openstreetmaps - here is a really cool link where you can see the road network grow in Munich - http://www.geofabrik.de/en/gallery/history/index.html#munich), where one can upload GPS tracks to populate the road network and everyone mutually benefits from it....its amazing to see how this live and let live policy has populated the Germany road network from virtually nothing to nearly 80% (rough numbers, dont hold me to it) !

As cool as this is, it also means the more the dash users in a region, the better your information and henceforth issuing updates are going to be. Currently this is available only in the US and when I queried google for a review, this is what I found.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/dash-express-review/ - some excerpts from the review (Note that this review is from 2008 and there have been quite a few updates in the last year):

''almost every GPS can tell you where the nearest gas station is, but the Express actually looks up the latest prices for you and points you to the cheapest.'' - somehow makes me feel like getting closer to ''machines over man'' scenario.....

''Once you enter a location, the Express calculates three routes based on traffic, distance, and time, and you can pick which one you'd like'' - I wonder how this will work in T-Nagar area (or in any city in India for that matter)......I would dare dash express to try it :D !

Well...the next time I am in the US, I would definitely try to get one just for the sake of using it and seeing how helpful my dash network friends are !