Slice of life !

Magazines !

2007-10-27T06:59:00.000+05:30

Despite the fact that live has been at its lively best and eventful over the last year or so, it was only yesterday's ten minute long wait in Guindy Railway station that supplied me with some blogable ideas. Three strong reasons made me walk towards the magazine stall and browse at what is available - To kill time, To distract myself from the disgust I felt every time I see someone spit right in the middle of the platform, To keep myself away from the shop that sells Lays, Kurkure, Groundnuts et al. Predominantly, I saw a bulk of the bollywood crap with glossy pics of skinny women on front cover, a chunk of the Tamil weekly s with flashy pics of traditional looking Tam actors and actresses. ( You can find the non traditional ones in the middle page.) Lots of English Weekly with surveys and politics and movies and sports and other mundane stuff. There were also a couple of kids magazines which deeply interested me and that is what this post is going to be about.

Till I turned ten, as a kid I never did any reading but for the text books and occasional story books - once in a while. My father tried very hard to make me read novels ( Enid Blyton) when I was in class four. Noddy and Amelia Jane's Toy books just put me off mainly because I could never relate to them. Thus I never read anything consistently - An Amar Chitra Katha during the holidays or some other Indian simple story books. It was in Class V , one rainy October day when my friend Bhairavi, and some other girl was discussing some magazine called "Gokulam". I was not even aware that such a thing existed ! After listening to their animated discussions, I purchased my first issue( October) of Gokulam. I found it interesting and more important realistic. I could relate to the stories as a school girl. Then I waited anxiously from the monthly issues of Gokulam and fortnightly issues of Champak. I bugged the Magazine stall guy in the railway station and the Newspaper seller near my home every month end to grab the next month's copy. Somehow we never made any arrangements for the newspaper guy to deliver it at home. It was more exciting to buy your copy on your own!

Now I would like to recollect some of the most exciting things and some stories from these books. Champak had allegories in large quantum though I liked stories with real people rather than animals talking. So I always read the stories about read kids first and then read the stories with animals in them. Some of my favorites from Champak which I can still recall are ....

A short story on one detective boy named Vijay who would help a King to track this treasure through a series of mysterious clues. The clues were very interesting and ingenious. It was published as a serious of seven parts across seven issues.
An interesting story about a little boy who was told by his friend that "Seven" was his lucky number. The friend would have given a series of explanation on why "seven" should be his lucky number. Like - you were born in the seventh month, you like in flat number seven and the sum of your roll no is seven etc. But his sister crushes his superstition by giving a similar set of explanation for another number - "four". I felt that the sissy was very clever in forming those explanation !

One boy comes to town from village to sell fruits with his cousin for a livelihood. They wait with ripe mangoes each in a cart at the threshold of the market place. The cousin was a strong believer of the concept of Boony or the first sale made that day and he insists that they sell the fruits for a price less than the cost price to make a good start. Mail me if you want to know the rest of the story ... ;)

Then there were the Undir series in Gokulam...Which a series of stories about a rat family. As a school kid I could relate to it so very well.

Then over a couple of years I grew of old for these books and I became voracious reader of the Famous Five, Secret Seven ... The Enid Blyton's books on boarding school... I simply loved them...Then came Nancy Drew... Then the conventional Sweet Valley Twins and friends....Then Robin Cook and Archer and Clarke so on....

In between I tied some Teen's Mags which was a utter disaster. There was nothing I could relate to.There were issues about Teen Love and other questions which was distant to me then.

Now all that I find interesting is Reader's Digest... sometimes The English Weekly s...
How I wish there were a good English Magazine with out the Masala and the hype and the glossy photos ... without endless surveys on which college is the best , which city is the best... without tips on how to reduce weight, stress .... without political content about the ridiculous fights at the parliament....But with interesting short stories, meaningful articles about people around us and nice cartoons ... Something that can rekindle the goodness in each of us.....

Some assorted thoughts !

2007-04-29T17:24:00.000+05:30

I am sure all of us simply enjoy predicting the future. How will the next generations of storage devices look like. In what ways our children will be different from us ? I am sure they will have something new to teach us like we had something new to tell our parents. What will change. Will it be better or for the worse ? Obviously I have no answer.

Also sometimes it is extremely thrilling to realize that the future's stars are probably one among us. My lab mate may probably win the "Turing award". The girl who used to win prizes for the school in singing competitions may become synonymous with our era's music in our grandchildren's text books. Again GoK.

My mind was filled with such thoughts when I saw the following "Wiki Quote of the Day:"

" They say that each generation inherits from those that have gone before; if this were so there would be no limit to man's improvements or to his power of reaching perfection. But he is very far from receiving intact that storehouse of knowledge which the centuries have piled up before him; he may perfect some inventions, but in others, he lags behind the originators, and a great many inventions have been lost entirely. What he gains on the one hand, he loses on the other. "
---------- ~ Eugène Delacroix

How extremely true. Every decade has something new to teach its children. In the form of inventions or wars or art. But that does not mean that the child should be deprived of some niceties which his parents got. Sometimes I wonder that if we dont pass on what we have to the next generation, probably down the line someone would keep reinventing the wheel. Also suddenly i understand the importance of keeping up some traditions, doing some rituals and sticking to some culture. But how I wish that my forefathers had passed it on to me with more care and rigor than just as a bunch of rules. That way I do not need to spend time questioning and brooding over them.

It is very good to think of finer ways of doing things. To expand our knowledge base and to redefine rules. Every man ought to do it to full fill the purpose of his life. But shunning our predecessor's lifestyle completely is slightly uncomfortable. This is slight hypocrisy on my part
because many a times owing to other comforts I want to do away with certain practices.

We can in no way get the total essence of all our ancestor's knowledge. We should at least pass on what we have acquired and what we have refined with logic and reason to the next generation.

Temple tour : part I

2007-01-09T06:28:00.000+05:30

Pilgrimage trips have become more and more enjoyable and interesting over the past few years...
It somehow makes the trip "purposeful" to the elders at home.The stopover at my aunt's home in a near by village ( vishnupuram), the long never ending drive and decent good food leaves me happy and engaged in various ways over the course of the trip.
If we choose to visit the celebrated temples like tirupathi there is this fear(and fun) of waiting in long queues for ages before we get a glimpse of the "murthy" amidst all "jargandi".But the "not so famous" temples offer a lot of calm and a quiet corner to sit and dream(or meditate).

Our first stop was at the "Koothanur" Saraswathi temple. It is I believe the only temple to have a "murthy" for goddess saraswathi.The temple has got lots of fame and loads of devotees off late after the publication of many articles in "Bakthi" type tamil magazines.Its renovated .(after a kumbabishekam a couple of years back).The temple is thronged by youngsters(like me) who pray for excellence in education(kalvi) and art(kalai).The vigraham is clad in beautiful white Saree and lotus is offered.Also the temple authorities have kept a black board where kids write their school roll numbers( of course even i wrote) with the belief the goodness will be showered.The Almighty does not need a uniquely identifiable roll number to be written on the board to bless us nevertheless such trivial practises are a prototype for belief and in turn confidence.

We had a overnight stay in vishnupuram (not very far from koothanur) at my aunt's home.Next day was a "kula deivam" visiting routine for me. Our ancestors were initially settled in a village called senthangudi very close to mayavaram.But they migrated to another village Ponsai later. So our family considers both the temples "Kula deivam".

Senthangudi has a Mariamman temple. It is a very small temple and they distribute excellent Chakkara Pongal prasadam.This one in a village corner is a classic example of old beautiful temples spoilt in the name of renovations and donations.Gaudy , flashy tiles in all possible shapes and sizes are pasted on every possible wall and floor. Some tiles had irrelevant writings also on it like "Brook bond tea".The temple itself is painted in some cheap quality artificial looking colours.But the worst vandalism was by the donators themselves.Just because they have donated a ceiling fan or have sponsored money to fix a tube light there is no need to emboss their names on the fixtures.Every equipment in the temple comes with the a tag consisting of the donator list and their details et all.Somehow these issues are at present beyond my reach .But I believe when people renovate old structures they ought not to spoil existing architectural theme. Just because newly built temples have marble or the like flooring we don't need to redo the existing mud/cement/rock flooring in every temple.Such masking sometimes coagulates the mind and removes the sanctum of the temple itself sadly.

Next we headed to Ponsai .Ponsai can be broken as Pon(gold) +Sai(do). Meaning the crops grow like gold.Here again we visited 3 temples.The spacious Shiva temple, Mariamman and the Aiiyanar temple.

Shiva temple: It is a very beautiful temple.Period.Decently maintained.It is one of those very few temples where the inner praharam( ie where the mulavar is placed) is so huge that an elephant can circumambulate.The Koothadum pillayar which literally means a dancing pillayar is the first vigraham to be seen.The temple has a Shiva lingam, Subramaniya and ambal sannadhi.

Mariamman Temple: The rituals performed here was very similar to the ditto temple in Senthangudi.
Aiiyanar temple:This temple has load Aiiyanar(Aiiyappa) and goddess Buvaneshwari as Mulavar. Apart from this the Veeran present in all Aiiyanar temples are also present. It is a family custom to pray god with Mavillakku ( Mavu + Villakku). Rice floor, Ghee , Jaggery and grated coconut are used to make a tasty mixture.This is further placed in the shape of a Villakku . Ghee is used as the fuel to light the lamp and this is decorated with flowers and Agarbathi and Kumkum.
Later the mixture is distributed as prasadam to everyone in the temple.

That evening back at home in Vishnupuram I visited all the temples of the village ( similar ones). Then I had the pleasure of crossing the arasalaaru ( kaveri) with waist deep cold water . The dis tributary of Kaveri is not so proper these days owing to quarrying for mud and other bad maintenance. A great part of the river channel is chocked with wild bushes. The approach path is also very thorny and bushy.

To be contd in Part II
( Visits to vaitheshwaran Kovil, Seergazhi sattanathaswamy Kovil and Madhuranthagam Ram temple ;) ;) ;)

Who is the "indian"of the year ???

2006-12-11T10:41:00.000+05:30

Dates and days probably do not have any absolute significance.Maybe an enumeration of "time".
Like how the stone age guy would count his goats with pebbles .. In a refined fashion we count our time with dates. And thus we keep track of passage of time in terms of earth's revolution around the sun which is dependent on some cosmic distances... blah ..blah...

And Voila..We have a new year every 12 months. What is so new about the new year.. For many the new year is never quite a "new" year. Most most school kids its not the beginning of a new academic session.. Dec is not the "year" end for many offices... But somehow " new year" fills some like me with a plethora of energy and a newer bunch of resolutions...Some lil personal joys..

But something has been irking me for the past couple of years.Come December all channels esp the 24 7 news channels ask people of the country to vote a "person" of the year..I hate this rating business because

It is boring
It hurts my ego

C'mon.. Why should some random filmi star or sports star become the "person" of the year. Still worse some damsels get nominated every year. And what have they done... Acted in some cliched movies wearing beautiful clothes( and sometimes no clothes). And there are some dormant cricketers ... And some crazy politicians...It is boring.

Sometimes times are good.We are successful and happy in our own way. Life is frustrating and agonizing once in a while.We look back and say "good" year .. or we pray "Oh God.. Let things get better".Even for the sake of masala or entertainment( which anyway it is not) I dont want to see anyone rated as "Indian" of the year.. It hurts my ego.Lets keep things simple.

a song

2006-11-21T13:57:00.000+05:30

poga poga boomi virigirathe
poga poga vaanam therigirathe
theda theda yaavum kidaikkirathe
oda oda ottam thodargirathe
mudivillai etharkum inge
irul mudinthuvittal pagal thuvangividum
mazhai mudinthuvittal veiyil thuvangividum
alai mudinthuvittal karai thuvangividum
sumai mudinthuvittal sugam thuvangividum
ethai unarndhuvittal ellam mudinthuvidum
ellam mudinthuvittal manam urangividum..thelindhuvidum.. nimirndhuvidum

poga poga boomi virigirathe
poga poga vaanam therigirathe
theda theda yaavum kidaikkirathe
oda oda ottam thodargirathe

urchagam enge enge ullam thiranthuppar
kondattam enge enge thannai marandhuppar
anandam enge enge kaigal rendai thattippar
santhosham enge enge kalin keezhe uttruppar
ethayo ethayo thedi thedi nammai tholaithome
hey vada vada nammai naame kandu pidippome
thulli kuthippom vinnai idippom
innum innum nenjam kalappom

poga poga boomi virigirathe
poga poga vaanam therigirathe
theda theda yaavum kidaikkirathe
oda oda ottam thodargirathe

pogattum thappu thappai potta kanakku
thondrattum innum innum vazhkai irukku
kaikkettum thoorathil thaan vaanam ondru irukku
pookkattum medai mele vazhkai undu namakku
veliye veliye nimmadhiyai thedi thirivaan
ulle ulle manasukkulle theda marappan
silar sirithaar silar thudithaar
sutri sutri nammai ethirthaar

poga poga boomi virigirathe
poga poga vaanam therigirathe
theda theda yaavum kidaikkirathe
oda oda ottam thodargirathe

--- Movie : Pattiyal

tryst with music

2006-10-08T08:27:00.000+05:30

I got this new idea.To rekindle my interest in Carnatic music( and good music in general) I thought maybe should maintain an archieve of ragas that I listen to, the observations I make and similarities that strikes.However trivial the fact is an OL archieve can help me get certain facts straight and iron out misunderstangs ( Anu,Aruna,Sriram ..Listening ??? ).The posts will primarily be some concepts which I had understood ( ie some fundas flicked from the net),the songs I listened to this week and some trivial observations made....

In the last few days I listened to MS & Bombay Jayshree.
Some Mira Bhajans by MS( Yaad Aave , More tho Giridhara Gopal).I simply love the 2nd song . We had learnt that poem in hindi classes sometime in 9th std.The verse thatha ,matha,bandhu ,bratha appana na koi.... is simply beautiful sung with so much emotions of Mira.

One thing I believe I can do ( though I am not very sure) is to identify Bhairavi ragam.I must have hreard this song called "E Nati Nomu Phalamu" a haazar number of times.I heard an MS solo version of this and one with Semmagudi & MS.I like the way this line Sundaresha suguna brinda dasharatha goes..I dont know the technical terms..But when the line is repeated a number of times every time a kind of break is made at different places..And this break in the line kind of bubbles up the verse..Initially the whole line is sung in one go, then whole minus the last word and so on.

Then there is the "Bhavayami Gopala .." in Yaman Kalyani sung by bombay Jayashree.And some more in Nalina Kanthi and madhuvanti ragam.Also one song "Amba..." in Neelambari.

Thats it I guess...

The Golu Saga

2006-09-22T08:09:00.000+05:30

After Diwali, Navarathri is my favorite festival.(Though off late my enthu for both have mitigated owing to various mundane reasons).Both were( and I guess still are ) highly entertaining festivals and digresses from other routine south indian festivals which primarily involves pooja and eating in some flavour or the other.
Diwali is of course fun with crackers ( I like calling Deepavali as Diwali)..

But Navarathri is really unique in many ways.It fetches around 10 days holidays for school kids giving a big breathing space.Golu being an integral part of south indian Dusherra gives a beautiful opputunity for creativity,fun and family get togethers.My happy memories related to the golu itself is because of the awesome time I used to have till a couple of years back.All teachers from school who are also mom's friends go on a Golu visiting spree.Of course I used join them.It was a great fun time for us( teacher's kids).We hired a cab and Finished the Nangalallur area first followed by madipakkam and T.Nagar .Almost every teacher had a special gift for the kids and something unique to eat.Then we were all made to sing too.Some people make "Theme" golus though of course we never managed to come up with any theme at our place.Some golus have fancy lightings.One guy near our home in Bang displayed all this mini projects(like the moving ship , and some sound sensors etc) in their Golu !!!
Then their is an aunty near by who displays some of her very beautiful paitings and Kolam in water in her golu.

Not that I study everyday .. But somehow for the past 4 years I invariabily end up studying on the saraswathi pooja day !!! Some how this post seems like a fifth std kids essay on "My fav festival" .. and here are the pics of our Golu ...

Arbit Stuff

2006-09-18T09:14:00.000+05:30

In a serious attempt to shrug off a chunk of laziness which had amassed me for the past some time(say a few months ;-) I am planning to write some regular posts. It may be a little redundant also.Here are a medley of things I want to tell about.

1.Apart from people at home what I miss most abt home when I am not at home ( ie Occationally when I am in hostel ) are the Pickles or the (oorgas) . It took me less than a month to realize that nothing actually comes close to home food . ( Something which I failed to acknowledge for the past 21 years !!!! ).Somehow I dont think anyone will ever get fed up of the home made tayir sadam.The primary savor of tayir sadam is the contrast between its blandness and that of the side dish.I always prefer a pickle or vatha kozhambu to anything else.So I miss all the tokku and togayal and the mavadu and the mavadu jalam.Of course I do have all these during the weekends.

2.Then comes my new theory on procrastination.If you always postpone things and previous trends seriously suggest that you have never managed to not procrastinate then its better not to attempt to start the work early.Anyways by parkinson's law work will expand and you may never do it on time cos you have a serious tendency to postpone half done work( like me !!!).After all why have the guilt feeling of starting early and finish late ??
I was wondering about my tendency to postpone things to the last second sometime.Like getting up early in the morning just to waste away the evening ( in the pretense of having high concentration early morning ).And then keeping stuff to read in the bus despite having time at home..And so on...

Thats it i guess :-D

Another post on education

2006-09-16T13:35:00.000+05:30

With a "Teacher Amma " at home we often have heated discussions about education, the schooling system and especially its impact on kids, the country, the globe , the milky way and so on...
Pararelly what my Sanskrit teacher once told us in class also dawned on me...She said that No teacher "teaches" anything to a student .. It is already within the kid and she simply taps it out of him..Viewing teaching in this new limelight I can now visualize the refinement involved in the profession.Education itself is simply a realization process within the student's mind and the teacher is a catalyst to aid the completion of this beautiful process...With four courses in theoretical computer science I am tending to be a mathematician, so I will pick up examples of teaching maths.
My ground rule now is
1.The teacher/guide should not give the solution to any problem in the beginning.ie No method should be written on the board directly.

2.The teacher should break the problem and maybe give an example of the expected results and not immediately go ahead and give the solution.Maybe you have a Newton sitting in your class..Give him enough motivation to rediscover calculus.

3.The full pleasure of education can be enjoyed when it self becomes a realization process.Reinventing the wheel is fun.In the process failing is fun.Retry is superb.And finally when the solution is presented the student understands the idea , the mind behind the solution and also appreciate the great thoughts..

If not calculus atleast some basic tricks..For instance dont tell him that if the sum of the digits of a number is divisible by 3 then the number is also divisible by 3.Help him discover it own his own..Give examples...Remodel it into a simple linear equation problem .And finally see the answer boiling out..

With this kind of realization process comes a new level of maturity.The maturity to appreciate great interpretation.After presenting a new algorithm to us in class which was better than the previous idea my prof remarks "Ah Ha!".
When I get a chance to teach..After I present someone's great ideaI want ppl to "realize" on their own..And then say an "Ah ha!" and not an "Ayyo!" .And I guess the Gurukula system is the best form of schooling.No doubt.

When Dunston Checked in ...

2006-09-08T19:35:00.000+05:30

Long long ago ... Not so long ago just one week long back..On a hot humid afternoon I decided to take one of my usual short nap before the four O clock class..After landing here in hostel a great chunck of time is spent on going home, coming back and deciding when to go home and when to be back and where to eat or sleep and so on...And the hostel room has given me complete freedom for my lethargic ultra extended sleeping habbits.Its almost become like an illegal license to sleep in the afternoons ( Mind You .. Not naps ... But "sleep").And Damn that guy who came up with the idea of "snooze" and "Recurrent Alarms" in cell phones.It never works .. atleast i never wake up...The art of Snoozing alarm from 4.00 to 6.30 am and then switching it off at 6.00 and finally waking up at 7.00 ..
Anyways .. So I was there sleeping.. As usual left the window open..Cos it gets too stuffy otherwise.But it was a disturbed sleep and suddenly I hear some paper crushing noise.I obviously abandon the noise subconsciously.Then more noise.On the window pane was a monkey..With my spectacles in some hand and the case in the other.It had managed to sit on the window pane..Open my zipped bag kept on a table alongside the window..pull out papers and spectacles ..
Obviously I got scared of it .. And did one of my dramatic , super noisely , screeching "yell"...Now it got scared obviously.And left everything else but got away with the spectacles and the case...

For my infrequent usage of glasses ... I had spent quite a fortune on it...Some anti glare plastic lens which some guy had marketed well to my dad..My dad felt that my profession involved using the computers primarily (ie chatting) it is advicable to use those high funda lens..Now in the monkey's hands.. Korangu kaila Poo malai madiri..

Now it was a run downstairs ..To hunt for my specs and find if it is one piece at all..I find a friend and both of us walk behind the hostel ...Into the bushes under the area just below my room to find a big monkey gang..We decided to come back with someone more experianced.Called the "akka" who generally sits in the hostel lobby and this time we walked over well equiped with a stick..To find my glass and the case strewn away ..But undamaged and unscratched... Thank God..

But there are still some misteries unsolved..Like the
mystery of vanishing "Good Day" packets ..
Mystery of vanishing "port wine Choc" But the wrapper thrown around..
Mystery of vanishing "face wash tubes"....

Waste Products ???

2006-08-03T20:42:00.000+05:30

The BTechs are the Products of the IIT.The MTechs are the Byproducts and the researchers are the Waste Products of the IIT !!!

This was what I heard from a fellow student on the first day after enrollment into a research course at the IIT . Wow .. Superb Beginning . I thought..
Almost 2 weeks later we had a formal orientation by the hi-funda IIT ,star studded IIT acads and other arbit offices. Some guy walks onto the huge dias at the SAC where a whole lot of PG freshers were seated ..( All MTechs, MS , MSc , PhDs and even MBA makkal were there ). He says ... " Okay JEE is a real tough exam ... But even you guys have gotten here thru .. GATE , JAM , JMET .. Even thats almost equally competetive ... So U r no less types .... "
Well ... We ourselves were not comparing or anything with the Jrs... Are they fueling us or what ? ... I had also initially thought about this BTech issue .. But then I told myself ..U r a lil older now .. Have an objective attitude toward this .. behave matured !!!
There were some more people who gave some offensive opinion about PG and stuff ..

But for this stupid orientation .. I liked everthing else abt IIT ... The place ..The building .. The atmosphere .. The hostels.. The Canteen ..
All the profs were very nice to me...( till now )
I liked the labs .. the department .. the monkeys .. new friends ...

I sometimes tend to compare it with easwari ... There seems to be one difference the Freedom ... Somehow people here enjoy lot of freedom in everything .. from dress ...to wat course to take to cell phone usage to attendance ... to lot of things .. But again people feel more freedom needs to be given .. Maybe .. First I see the striking difference between stifiled Easwari environment and here ...

Easwari did not impart any Computer Science education to me ...infact only the final BTech proj was superb ... rest was almost self learnt stuff ...But I did have a nice time there ... Also I got a superb friends circle ...

I really hope I get the best of CS and other stuff here .
Wish me luck .

One person . One number !

2006-07-31T14:16:00.000+05:30

Just think of this situation.You finish College and bid farewell to all your friends.Each of them have grabbed a job in a different city.And now every one is scattered across the nation.
Even before they left your mobile phone contacts list is overflowing .. With names like Rada, Rada Mob , Rada Bro, Rada Dad , Rada neighbour and so on...And then your friend leaves for training and appends your list with 2 or 3 more numbers . And then she finishes training and then another number...... And so on ..

With clumsy ppl like me the whole phone book is a "pure mess"
{ ppl who have seen me program will understand this better .... My variable names in the code wud be a1,a2,a3 or something like getlost or ohmygod .... And program names wud be ok,ok1,okgoogle....final1,final2,finaln .... }

Now why cant the service provider give us a single number and then map it to another number... So that when we either change the service provider or the package(prepaid to postpaid ) only the second number changes and the new second number is mapped onto our ORIGINAL ABSOLUTE NUMBER .

For EX : My number is 123 which is same whereever I go .. what ever package ....
It is mapped on to 1111 when I am in chennai using Airtel .. when I move to Blore and Use hutch .. it becomes 2222 ( but still mapped on to 123 )

I am sure its not all that simple .. Maybe it requires some Big changes in the protocols itself ... or Maybe then 10 digit will not do ... And there is a need to keep track of all numbers allocated ...( centrally all over the world )

Such a thing already exists ... Obv in a smaller scale ... its called wireless LNP
( Local number Portability )... But very sad na... when I really think of something ..only to find that someone has already done it ... what is left to discover ??? But Obv had ppl wondered the same way a few decades back .. I wud not be sitting and chatting here !
And if some one thinks there is a flaw ... do let me know !!!

Mother Tongue

2006-07-15T21:39:00.000+05:30

Words are not the quintessence of communication.A broad smile , the little finger raised or a cold stare can covey more than words.But there are so many languages with umpteen number of dialects and scripts.

When I was a kid I wondered ..Why are we asked to learn three languages in school.And what in languages fancy people that they learn so many of them.Of course to understand a culture , history or some literature mastering their language is essential.And probably kids are better equiped to learn these quickly.

But in my case these have simply left me confused is my language ? I really wonder when I think of my half baked proficiency in each of them.Lets start with Tamil.My mother toungue.Till the age of 5 everything was taught to me in tamil.At home by my grandmom and mom.In the school tamil was my "second language" in both LKG and UKG and hindi was the "third language".

Then at the gae of 5 tamil was discarded.I was sent to a defense area KV.Here the primary spoken language in school was Hindi followed by Tamil course English was the primary medium of instruction . But many concepts in primary school was also explained in Hindi and Tamil.The biggest blooper was teaching Social science in Hindi.
Karka Vrith and Makar Vrith . Thats the tropic of cancer and capricon.
vayu Dab.Thats Air pressure
Atheth.Thats history.
And many more such strange hindi terms to learn SST when hindi was no where near mother tongue.

Then of course there was a little more spice . Sanskrit taught in english.From Class 5 to 9. I distinctly enjoyed Sanskrit more than Hindi . But the school did not allow me to take a board exam in it ..

After 10th standard .. No more "2nd languages"

In between there were some petty attempts to teach me Tamil. Home tutored by grandma. All that I can manage to read my is news paper headlines.It needs lots of patience and practice and drive.The kisu kisu in the kumudams and aananda vikatans were absolutely no drive to make be continue my tamil self tuition.

My odyssey ends with just 4 incomplete knowledges.Many of my friends have rubbed shoulders with 5/6 including a foreign language ...
But the biggest void I feel is when I cant read or write Tamil ppl say is a brilliant language and its literature is very vast and rich.But I am crippled till date due to lack of interest and drive to read tamil.Especially when something is to be written about our lives or the Indian life or culture I believe all language but the regional one fails.
Another confusion is the language in which we talk to ourselves and to the god .In what language am I to address myself in ? Tamil . I am non proficient.English is too alien. Hindi is not my favorite is Deva Bhasha ..Much beyond my comprehension.

I believe that mother tongue should be the language of communication and the medium of instruction in primary education.But offlate both the first language and medium of language in school converges at english.

Why does Mr A.Singh need a lesson in TQM ?

2006-05-20T12:58:00.000+05:30

Hey .. Before you make more policies on reservation
Pl get your basics right !!!
Dont you always have your eye on the election
Else like now U will face people puting a fight.

Before Policy making , You better start to plan .
Before You plan first find the needs
Its the people of the country , U gotto satisfy every clan.
Else U will be in a big mess .. Indeed .

Remember Quality is the goal ..
Compramise on quality anywhere is a bad tantra
Remove yours eyes from future polls
Do some good for the country and the institutes... That is the Quality mantra...

Dont tell me you dint aniticipate protests ..
After you design You should have done the FMEA
Also You gotto find if your customers detest..
And give them the best ....

Increasing the seats was a stupid strategy
As if we have the infrastructure
Already all our institutes are in a tragedy
Amend your plans .. Among students dont cause a rupture

The quality you should not compramise
The people .. You should not deprive
To your policies You gotto add some spice
Throwaway your plans which are naive..

Both Open category and the supposed backward class should benefit
A strategy ... For 1st and 5th generation learners that should fit ...
The potential of rural youth should get tapped
Here is my bundle with all the solutions wrapped

All reservations can be availed only once
You choose if its job or education You want
Give opputunity to your other kith and kins
One man .. The Caste paper is valid only once

No reservations for the post grads
PG should not be a sitting duck
Dont use reservations for fad...
PG is on your own merit and luck

Lets not let the urban BCs sweep the seats
If you have an educated parent
With a decent lifestyle in the urban beat
Sorry No seats reserved for U..

And if reserved seats are left unfilled in first round
Those will be given to the open category

These are my simple solutions
So A.Singh think before passing resolutions
Cmon .. You can do it
Pl put your mind to it...

PS: More strategies with stats with follow after TQM exam on monday ...Pl wish me great luck.

Idealist at 20 and Realist at 40 ?

2006-05-19T14:56:00.000+05:30

At 20 you did want to save the country .
At 40 you did be happy if you could save a part of your salary.
A realist transforms into a diplomat .. Then becomes indifferent .. Then becomes an epitome of selfishness. The issues which thwarted and killed him at 20 are juicy topics of discussions at tea table , during moring walks and short air trips. The discussion is about strategies and intelligence with absolutely no emotions attached.

I am angered by this attentuation of insticts especially those related to the country and the policies of the government.And I wonder if I did become indifferent soon. And if I did be satisfied with a handsome pay check and a luxury car 20 years hence.

Ever since childhood I had a strong patriotic feeling . I was taught at 7 that India was a superb country . It had many rivers flowing .. Great mountains at the north and surrounded by 3 oceans in other directions.. .. India has a brilliant democracy .. And the country has 15 languages .. And diverse variery of cultures ..

I was a fool to believe it all ... And probably a fool to continue to believe the same ... You see still an idealist ..But slowly coming in terms with the reality.. That it is a crazy country .. With some crazy politicians ruling it .. Especially by people who dont give a damn to the country or the democracy or the people.... People mocking idealists like me ...

As if to betray me .. To hurt me and humliate me .. To make me understand .. To yell " Hey Grow Up"

The Lok Paritran Party in the city split .. Reasons being Caste and Monetary misunderstanding . The so called young politicians trying to woo the upper middle class Chennai Split.. And Then reactions are " hey Cmon they are also politicians ... Thts how it is ... Cos even that involves money " .. Thank U guys .. I am still an idealist .. But still trying hard to become a realist.
The Reservation issue .... I really dont know which side to take .. Dont know who is correct ..But I am supremely confident that the efforts of all the politicians is not with a inherent good intention . When it comes to issues like this idividualism loses .. Hail pluralism ... Concentrate on the vote banks .. Lets forget the genuine , smart deserving system ... Lets forget the rural deserving students requiring upliftments ....Lets order more seats in Colleges as if we are ordering a birthday cake ... Lets make some complex useless strategy which never gets implemented and no one gets benifited .....
We will play dirty politics .. Your job is to sit back and enjoy it like a prime time tamil soap ....Cmon soo much free entertainment...

I still have hopes .. Hopes to make a difference in a little possible way some where ..." We shall overcome same day ...." .. When the gap between the idealist and realist will be bridged...

Secret Ballot

2006-05-09T11:12:00.000+05:30

Long long ago.. Not so long ago ... I was an NDTV fan.I worshiped Rajdeep Sardesai.Never missed The Big Fight.
Also those were the days when I woke up before the sun came up.When I used to call Radha at 7 in the morning everyday to discuss politics,Cinebuzz,last page Hindu and Metro Plus .
Those were the days when I was busy with exams and practical .

But Ah .. Slowly I lost all the interest. No Newspaers.No NDTV.Not even Sudoku.
No news was captivating enough to keep me engrossed for more than 2 minutes. Not the "Happening TN Politics"..Not the Gossips in the page 3... Not the "Mahajan Trajegy"... Not the "Narmada drama" ... Not the " Reservation Hangama"... Absolutely Nothing.

A week before the elections I sat "Mum" for 20 full minutes vowing to lack of interest and information when a group of friends chatted endlessly about the "amma vs kalaingnar" . I was not aware of the affirmations made by both the parties or the ads in the TV.

On the day before election I felt the guilt rushing within me.
21 year old , supposedly educated girl not even knowlegeble about the various manifestos. I got the newspaper ( touched it after many many days) and read the list of promises made by the two strong state parties. Browsed the net. read Lok Paritran's Candidate profile and their manifesto.{ Listened to their party song .. Nice one by O2 }

equipped with the basic knowledge of party and candidate names and a gist of their manifesto I was ready to cast my first "vote" in the Indian democracy in 2006 State elections voting procedures in the civics book came alive in front of me. The school. Security Secret ballot polling Officer party agents voter's list.ID card.The a small queue.

Myself and amma waited in the queue . A separate voting machine was provided for each street allotted to that polling both it was a multiple server , infinite capacity, multiple FIFO queue .Phew.Actually well organized. They allowed my grand father and few other old people to bypass the queue I was thrilled surprising the auto wala agreed to drop us at the school for just 10Rs... last time some auto wala took 10Rs was when I was 10 years old.

Since appa was out of station , we told the lady there checking the names that he was my father and would not come to vote ..With all the ID checking the impersonation has reduced .. still I believed it was my responsibility to tell them irrespective of whether they wanted to listen or not.Democracy.

Then on the way back home my amma told me stories .
It was decades back when my mom was a little girl and my granddad was the polling officer in a sensitive area in Blore.
Then one lady had come to vote... but actually it was a case of impersonation.
And my granddad had a doubt and cross examined her and asked her husband's name.
The agents got agitated and claimed that it was offensive and embarrassing to ask a lady her husband's name !!!!
My grandfather apologized to them and told them he was not aware of their sentiments. And hence asked her different questions.
Like her neighbor's name, Her home address, her family members etc.
And that person's answer was not satisfactory and was sent back !!!!
My grandfather is a brave man and always abides by the rules ...

Overall it was a brilliant first voting experience. Except for an extralarge ugly ink mark on my finger.

Love marriages Vs Arranged ones

2006-04-06T07:46:00.000+05:30

Lots of surprising events in the past few months and yesterday's argument has at last made me to pen down ( or should I say press the keys down) my own thoughts and calculations about love and arranged weddings. As I read in somebody’s post long time back both are a gamble. But which is a better gamble again varies from case to case. I am a staunch believer of the following.

Our parents are really very important. I like them very much and under no circumstance I want a rift in our relationship.
Even I am very important to myself. And I won’t compromise on lots of my beliefs and ideals.

Now there are certain facts which can’t be ignored and which are very difficult to reform.
Our society is very conservative. Our people do not accept the love marriage scheme very congenially.

The parent kid bond is very strong and sentimental here.
Our parents get involved and take care of us in the best possible way. Unlike certain counties the kids don’t move out of their parent's home after18.We live with them and believe in the relationship.
Parents themselves will want to hence choose a life partner for their kid or due to pressures from the "arranged wedding" inclined society they did prefer an issueless arranged wedding.

The most vital consideration being how well these weddings work. All types require lots of adjustments by both the parties. Failure in understanding this can break any relationship.
I believe we gotto be happy and should not make our folks unhappy.Just like a corollary to the Nash theorems the payoff is high when we think of our own and the group benefits.

A love marriage may not keep the elder's very happy
An arranged marriage after being in love with someone else will keep you real unhappy.
The maximum payoff would be the case wherein you lead a happy carefree life and not get involved in any relationship till your parent's find a life partner for you. In this case folks are very happy and you are also happy.

The only pinch in the above proposal is the fear “What if the other person is not suitable for me? “. But a simple probability calculation shows that the number of arranged weddings that are successful till date is very high. And you can take your time and choose .The process can be made objective. Again I am sure people choose their life partners in love marriages also in an objective manner. You just don’t go straight and marry the first person you have a crush on!!!
That’s my point of view. What say??

Domestic Animals...

2006-04-02T10:31:00.000+05:30

Pets don’t fascinate me. But my home fascinates all the street dogs and cats. They find shelter, food and water here. Somehow I can never show any love for any animal. (Except the human kind)

Our bitter experience with dogs started when my sister was some 2 years old. A street dog had found refuge in our house and the family who lived upstairs adopted it. Even though my own folks never liked or entertained pets, the dog did not cause any harm so we let it be there .For some reason the dog got christened "dirty" by my grandma. The name stuck. And we almost forget its real name.

One fine morning my lil sister was eating pori ( Puffed rice) in the potrico.The dog "dirty" was watching my sis eat the stuff. My sister offered the dog a part of her mid day snack . To be very precise " 1 puffed rice / 1 pori " .The dog tried to grab it and in the process it bit my sister's hands. Then all fuss over my sis and all wrath and rage on the dog.

Next ordeal with another street dog was when I was learning to ride a bicycle. It was the second day on my new bike. With great difficulty and concentration I was trying to balance . I almost got it and was riding the first few meters with out support when a street dog started chasing the cycle. I yelled and lost my balance. I was so very scared for those few moments.

These dogs are an integral part of our street . The main reason being the existence of a row of car sheds and mechanic shops. The people who work there love these dogs and feed them. In return the dogs keep vigil in the nights. Actually there are 3 gangs of dogs. Each gang occupies a particular section of the street. These intergang fights are very scary to watch.

Forget the dogs . Coming to the cats..
There was only one cat .A black cat with glittering eyes . The types which is a bad shagun.
It loves my balcony.Its been there for almost a year or two now. And it was never a bad shagun.
It is an old boy now. It has shed all its glittering shiny hair. It just sleeps endlessly these days.
But a few years back it was young and viberant.Then it mewed a lot . Fought a lot. These days blacky simply watches the other cats make a racquet.

The other cats. Thanks to our backyard and the garden in the front. And the other odd hideouts.
Cats now come in batches to rest and play to our house these days.So many of them and that too in various colours and sizes.So we decided to name them
Blacky is the old black cat.
Ashy is the lil ash coloured restless cat.
Pullikeshi is the it huge Tiger like cat . ( thats why PULLIkeshi)
Norris . Just for the HP touch.
Chandramuki.No reasons . The name simply stuck.

We have 2 huge mango trees in our backyard.So will squirrels be far behind ??
One day a lil squirrel with its tail cut was found by Nithya ( the gal who lived upstairs) in her balcony.She called it Anil Kumar. Anil and Nithya became great friends. She made a makeshift home for it in her storeroom . The lil thing could not eat . So cotton was dipped in milk and somehow fed the little creature.

that’s an abrupt end for the post. But if any new animal finds refuge I will surely append the bog.

The TV Tower

2006-03-03T08:44:00.000+05:30

It was a ritual everyday for the little girl and her grandfather . To climb the stairs every evening .In the balcony the grandfather would lift the girl to see what they had come to watch.
The TV tower.The grandfather would wait patiently holding the child till she had finished staring at the tall, majestic, huge TV tower.What beauty and amusement did the girl find in it? And why did the grandpa choose to show her "The TV tower" still remains a huge mystery.

Many years passed .The TV tower still remained .The girl is tall and can manage to catch a glimpse of the TV tower on her own now.But Ah .She had to climb up now to the second floor.
Thanks to the vertically growing city. TV tower is no longer visible from the first floor balcony. Why do we even need a TV tower now ?

And the grandfather is sick now.Dopamine is playing the game .He could not accompany the girl for their daily ritual anymore .But the TV tower and the grandfather are still a charm and bliss for the girl.

Outing

2006-02-23T18:04:00.000+05:30

Its all in the mind.The mind is the king.It makes the best of the time look boring.Makes the worst of the time happiest.
This time I was determined come wat , I am going to enjoy the class trip.
And I did enjoy. I had great fun. Would call it one of the best outing I ever had.A conscious attempt to be happy.Fully fully Successful.

It was a half a day trip to Mamallapuram after a two hour session called " Industrial visit".
We were supposed to start from college at 9.00 in the morning in two charted bus.One for each section Final year CSE .As usual there was some mess and confusion with the bus and some permission we started by around 9.45 am.I was assigned the job of getting the latest hindi songs . My classmates wanted to dance for the song called "patashala"in the bus.Ha.I was then told that there were two versions of the same song and I had got the slower version.Bulb.

We reached the "tiny" company at around 10.30 I guess . Guess wat . It was about 10 minutes from my place. And our class guys wanted "Kuthu" songs to dance for.So I rushed home along with three friends in an auto.Purchased empty CDs.Then started the hunt for kuttu songs in my comp.from a collection of 10 GB.But our friend Iniyan wanted this particular "meen" song from Chitirum pesudadi .. I dint have it.So we searched and hunted for quite some time and downloaded a few songs.And copied it to the CD.And I dint buy a CD cover. You know to save 2 Rupees.And I dropped the CD into my bag . Bare. without a cover. Just like that. Into a bag full of pens and pencils.Probably the stupidest thing I did in a year.In a hurry.Damn.I got these really dirty stares from my friends.But we did have another CD with some relatively old Kuthu songs.Apart from this no other big mess.

We reached Mahabs at around 1.30.Had a great lunch in Mamalla hotel.Next was the shore temple.Not much of an entertainment there.But the temple looked nice.Was decently maintained.Nice place to take photos.I dint bother to read the history of the temple though!!!

Next was of course "The beach" . Even though we wanted to play some ball game in the shore , the water was very tempting.So tat plan was dropped.And we were in the waters for almost two hours.Completely wet.From head to toe.Some guys were playing with a ball deep inside the waters.But Ah . I did not have the guts to go join them.So I did only go in .Water touching my waist.Some how I guess no one ever gets bored of the beach or the waters.

Our next stop was the tiger caves beach.Some thing very similar to the previous one.The tiger Caves looked nice.We managed to take lots of photos there.We spotted lots of crabs and crab marks in the beach. Such a tiny thing. Scares me sooooo much.

Back home in the bus was super fun.Almost everyone danced.I did try.The lesson learnt is the dancing is not a joke.Forget the grace. I could not manage to get the simple steps.Ha.
To wind up . We hit the Pillar Hot chips.I ordered Chilli Parota.Some fool had put a handfull of spice.I almost cried.To make up I did have fruit salad with ice cream.

The whole trip was fun .Except the CD mess.Oh how could I .

Be a Rebel

2006-01-21T18:18:00.000+05:30

Over and over I have been playing the same song.. I am not able to decipher one word of the song.Probably I have not concentrated enough ( and I did not play it in a walkman ).I have hunted the net for lyrics .. ( I got some wrong ones).Two phrases struck me..
Be a Rebel
Lose Control
So easily said.. So very easily said.
Now who is a rebel ? Who is a revolutionist ? Is every rebel a forethinker ? Here is my defnition of a rebel. He is an objectivist looking for a long term real solution to the problem.wanting to lead life his own way and wanting to make a difference.He would be able to look farther into the future.
A bright kid in the class.With a different idea.New visualization twists to the actuals. I envy such people and I am really jealous of them.They seem to be every where.What are others supposed to do ? Sit back and watch them get brainstorming ideas every second ? Isnt it slightly unfair ? The nature and everything.
Some are born rebels. Some others try to get converted . You try hard . Very hard to think of some thing new. Some thing non conventional. Its a conscious attempt not spontaneous how many times are we successful ?
Are all rebels genius ? Being genius is so very different from being hard working. Any one can work hard.And the later does not imply the former.What percentage of what matters ? Or does anything matter at all ?

Mattu Pongal : Brothers :Official Declaration:

2006-01-15T07:37:00.000+05:30

Today is Mattu Pongal.I have always found mattu pongal to be more interesting than pongal itself.The reasons being

The variety spread ( Pulli Sadam, Karudam, Chakkara pongal etc ) which is prepared .
Kannu Podi.

Kannu Podi is a spl ritual on mattu pongal day. Its a simple fun ritual.A part of the previous night's food( Pongal day spread) is saved for the next morning. All the girls ( and ladies ) wake up early in the morning. Fresh Turmeric leaves ( The leaves from Manjal Kothu ) is purchased from market.The backyard is cleaned and is decorated with kolam. The manjal elai is laid on the kolam . The previous day's food ( Sadam, Kozhambu, Pongal along with banana ) is neatly laid on the leaf. ( Not to forget that U are allowed to keep only odd count pieces > 3 ).Now what is special ? Kannu Podi I have been told is kept for 3 reasons

To please the Surya Bhagavan
To feed the crows.
The most important .. To pray for your brother and his well being.( An equivalent to Raksha bandan for the Tamzhil makkal)

Technically Kannu Podi should not mean anything to me.Because I dont have any boy sibling.Nor do I have any cousin brothers !!! I do have some second cousins . But they are little kids .And I cant term them as belonging to my generation.And I hardly meet them.

I had already mentioned this in one of my previous posts ( here ).And amma's cousin (Sriram) read it . Sriram and Sridhar are 2 ppl who are almost my brothers. In the family tree they would be placed at a level higher in the previous generation ( i.e My mom's generation) . ( i.e If I do a level order tree traversal they would not be in the same level as mine ;-) ). But Sriram's comment for the post in the Cbox kindled lots of emotions in me.So I thought on this Kannu Pongal day why not declare both of them as my brothers officially( and publicly).

So here I go :

Heyy Sriram & Sridhar . Today I officially declare both of u as my brothers.And Dont forget that U have all the brotherly responsibilities and u cant skip anything. ( I guess Ranju and maybe Poorna will also agree )

Here is a photo of the kannu podi.

A slight digression: Colour Kolams in the margazhi masam is also a ritual/tradition/practised activity.....Here is today's kolam. Kolams are a beautiful way to learn and enjoy graph colouring. Today's Kolam's Chromatic number is only 3. But we had lots of colours in small quantities .So we could not achieve optimality.Still here is the Kolam

End of 2005

2005-12-24T07:18:00.000+05:30

2005 will come to an end in another 7 days.. So I tot why not recap 2005. So here goes my archive . ( December has not come to an end . But if something spicy happens in the last 7 days, I will surely append the list.)

Jan 2005 started strangely. The after effects of jaundice in December 2004 was continuing. Plus I got a strange cough infection called eosinophila.So I was technically sick the whole of Jan. My main objective last Jan was to help my sister with her board exams for the next 3 months it I did quite a lot of class 12 physics and chemistry had organized a class tour to Bangalore and ooty . And I skipped it. Thanks to my health and my appa.Instead we managed to catch up with Saarang and Odyssey quiz great fun. The biggest black mark last Jan was the way I flopped in the intra college programming contest.
Feb 2005 : I dont remember much. Ya. We planned a one day pilgrimage trip . One of those nice trips I have been to. The main agenda was to go to Koothanoor Saraswati kovil near Vishnupuram.I got to go to my Chitti's home in Vishnupuram . But alas .Had to return that evening itself.I did this small presentation about Bluetooth technology in college. (which was just average again ).Another college trip. But this time to Neyveli . One of those boring and horrible trips.
Mar 2005: This was a busy month. Class 12 board exams . It was as if I was going through it all over again. I really dont know how my sister put up with me and my hounding. Otherwise another uneventful month. One bright spot was that me and anu organized treasure hunt during the farewell. It was fun organizing.
Apr to Mid May:Study holidays and Semester exams nothing much to write. Last time I had prepared well for all exams . (i.e much better than current sem) And I had written all papers except Computer networks well. (The anti climax was that I got the highest in networks ; 90. Funny).My sister made a decent 83 % in her board exams.
Mid May to end of June:Another tension after the exams.Placements.Wasted most of May.Watched movies.Read some books.We had a KV gang reunion . It was our first reunion after 2000.Good fun.Went to Bangalore to my cousin's place for a week.Had fun. But also did some preparation was the first company on line. I was pretty confident about the quants and reasoning apart.But I was real scared about the verbal section. I mugged up some 500 words with great difficulty. I cleared the TCS exam and interview. It was quite a satisfaction. ( After the way I had flopped in my 12th and the entrance exams).Another KV gang meet up. More fun.

20th June 2005 marked the beginning of a new semester . The 7th semester. This was the most boring semester academically.( I am hoping that 8th sem would be better )

July: July was a special month.Had loads of fun.We ventured out almost every weekend.The best part was getting broad band. Now cant imagine life without it. College was also quite interesting.Lots of fights and misunderstandings pre symposium(our dept. Tech fest).End of July was gloomy and desolate. ( Owing to cycle tests and symposium sandai.)
August: This month was a mixed bag.Lots of Ups and downs of dispute. (which I dont want to elaborate here) .Things became better soon for me as the symposium approached on 29th Aug. I got to work for the debugging committee. Had a very nice time.I got to work with and make friends with a completely new set of ppl. I had known Sriram and Srinath before itself.Swaminathan,Divya,Saranya,Vivekanandan and Nachiketas were new to the gang.Did not attend any class. Was on OD for ever.Great fun !!!
Sep:Was a very very boring month. I am not able to recollect much. Had lots of classes. My windows had lots of problem.Scored horribily in all the cycle tests.
Oct:Again nothing much to say.Had another round of internal exams.And then study holidays blogging more seriously.
Nov and Dec : Technically the exams should have started on 17th Nov and should have ended on 8th Dec. But the exams got postponed over and over and over again. (Thank u Bazz,Fanooz and Mala).It is still going on.As per the latest revised schedule the last exam in on 2nd Jan 2006 !!! But I did have my share of fun. Was perennially on the net . Did some blogging.Made new friends in Orkut.

Apart from this 2005 was a year of natural calamities and miseries. Gave a feeling as if the world is going to come to an end soon.

Best of 2005 :Made lots of new friends;

Worst of 2005:Fought a lot with almost all those new friends.

Obituary:This year saw the death of many near and dear ones. Pattapa my mom's Grandpa, My great grand ma ( Kollu patti as we called her ) . The saddest was the demise of Arthi.M's dad. (This should not have happened) . And towards the end Kunju Chitti passed and Rada's Grand ma also passed away.

Pl tell me if I have by mistake omitted some important happenings.

I just hope that 2006 is atleast as good as 2005.

Wish you a very Happy new year.

Mathematics

2005-12-14T15:03:00.000+05:30

I am not an expert in maths and I don't have adept knowledge in any branch of mathematics . But I simply enjoy doing maths ( Especially discrete maths and theoretical computer science) . And it has been my favorite subject through out . Despite all the fancy for the subject, I never managed to score a centum in maths till date and I very rarely crossed 90% .

I strongly believe that its the primary school maths teacher who moulds or destroys a child's mathematical instincts and I have been very lucky . Math is probably the only subject which requires reasoning and logic in the primary school. ( Science is also there...). But when certain concepts are taught at a really young age the kid loses out on the reasoning and ends up mugging it as a fact me give examples

My two and a half year old cousin was taught to draw figures.. You can ask her to draw a circle or a square or a rectangle ...And she draws it for you. These are abstract figures and they don mean any thing to a little child. Probably some of them may be able to understand and reason out. But not all are genius and each of us have a different learning and understanding power.Technically we should not be ashamed of it.God made us that way .
subtraction and borrowing. When I was in primary school , I never understood why borrowing was done. I had learnt it as a rule. Subtract one from the next digit and add 10 to the current digit.
Similar funds in division.

Our system requires that we learn all the tricks fast. Learning negative numbers in 5th standard .Ha.Instead stress should be given on basic maths. Basic logic . And correlation to real world problems and situations. I am sure word problems in primary schools interested you more than boring subtract 5558 from 9986.

Maths text books. I never read a "Maths text book " during my entire schooling. Teachers taught how to do sums in class and we did the exercises at home. I havent browsed through the pages before the exercises even once. Sums . Sums. Sums. As if sums = maths. What a big misconception . Now I know. Maths books are supposed to be a pleasure to read. The "Why" factor is lost amidst "How" and a google sums.

And the biggest blunder is calling the so called "slow learners " for special classes and sending them to special tution. If a kid cannot understand maths in school why will he be interested in it in tution classes after school hours. Instead specific standard can be set for each school.And the 'gifted and above average kids ' can be called for extra coaching where "logarithms" can be taught in 4th standard if needed.

What ever I have written here will more more sense to you if you look at it from first generation learners and uneducated parent's point of view.Challenge is no doubt a strong motivating factor.But the basic purpose of learning mathematics should not be lost in the name of challenge.

There is lots more to be written... Expect a part 2 soon.

List

2005-12-12T18:46:00.000+05:30

This post is inspired by Shivraman's blog ...
Here I have made a list of things that would have made college and Engineering better( Productive, interesting ,Fun,some stuff to look forward to everyday).I had a good time no doubt in college.But I want lots of changes.Here are my suggestions.

Classes. Some 85 % of time in spent in the classes or in the labs (atleast in my college). They will have to be interesting. Come on. You cant get bored 85% of the time.One is choice of subjects. We ought to be given more liberty to choose from a list.. ( atleast the so called "electives" if not anything else).
Classes again. Classes should not be lectures followed by lectures .There should be more interaction.Shounting . Fighting etc like how it was in school.
Strictly use of more than any one colour pen should be banned.
Assignments should be neatly written (pref probs ) in A4 sizes sheets. Strictly no Donald duck pictures.
Games. Play ground. I don think it needs any more elaboration.
Activities. You have some 2000 ppl .

Will keep appending the list ... Got bored

Pl comment

Will tell u a funny thing... The spell check catches the word "blog"

Tagged !!!

2005-12-04T16:42:00.000+05:30

Its thrilling to get tagged ( for the first time )

By Whom ?? Harpreet
What ?? Write 20 things about yourself.

20 is a huge number. Especially if you have to list 20 things. Anyways here I go...

I am a weird thinker. I draw queer correlations and inferences . And I end up remembering a lot of junk.. ( Like on what date we had discrete mathematics exam in the second semester)
I am quite emotional but many a times I am also cold and unreasonable. I am a senti in my own way ( very superstitious .. Again in my own way) and I am god fearing and believe in Bagavad Gita and want to live life that way.
I hope to be a teacher one day.. and I simply enjoy studying mathematics and computer science. ( Pl pray this should happen)
The 12th standard board exams are the biggest disaster my life (till date). I never thought I did mess up with it "big time " in this manner.
The modest "KV" where I studied till 10th standard is (till date) the happiest time . I got an opportunity to try my hands on every thing . Here is where I learnt that " Teachers are those who teach you to dream , knowledge being secondary only " ( Quote borrowed from Karan Thapar )
I am easily influenced. If you were drawing an influence graph and if I am one of the vertices then my "indegree" would be at least 20. My father is the first person I consult for every thing. He again has the last say in every thing.
I love debating and will surely put up a fight when the point of view differs.
I enjoy coding ... Though offlate I dont seem to be programming much.
Yeah and I am obsessed with the window seats.
Eating... A big passion.. With curd rice being my fav .
Su do ku . Simply the most beautiful number puzzle .
I have lived in chennai all my life with visits to B'lore during hols. So its either Chennai/ Bangalore...
Friends ... Now I have a quite a lot of them. ( I love it when friends visit home because it was not a regular affair before college. Only one girl used to visit me till 10th !!!! )
Books... I am not a voracious reader . I manage to read the best sellers ( most of the times ) .
I have a loud voice and I am nicknamed " loud speaker" . Challenge: Make me speak softly.
Bad Spellings .... Its a curse on me.
Will have the money to travel around the world one day ???
I cant simply tolerate when books are cluttered around the room. Anything else is ok. But not books or papers.
I hate DOGS... Cant stand them at all
I don like exams being postponed any more. Had enough ! (once upon a time I thought it was a "fun thing " to happen )

Phew !! I am tired ... I tag Anu, Radha and Sandeep !!!

Exams !!!!!

2005-11-28T18:40:00.000+05:30

Thought its high time I write something casual and informal. ( Atleast I am attempting ). The past few days have been very eventful begin with we had a really boring paper- "environmental science exam " last Thursday was a Herculean task studying simply because it was sooooo boring. It was pouring ( The incessant rains in Chennai !!! ) on the eve of the examination usual I slept at 9.00 and got up at 3.00 . Already I had some 1 chap left to complete . And inbox was filled with smses saying the govt had declared holiday for all schools and coll. Now how can I study ??? Impossible rite ???

With great difficulty I continued to mug " Domestic sewage treatment " . The morning news and the newspapers did not say anything about postponement of examinations. But then sky had cleared up and the sun was shinig.. Technically I wounld not have wanted a postponement of the examination. But it was a boooring paper... I was really sleepy .... and no paper has ever got postponed ... So I tot .. Let it get postponed.. And I can go to sleep at 6.00 in the morning. Bliss.

But life functions according to Murphy's laws...We did have an exam.. Tension over.

Next exam was "network protocols and security" . Now you cant exactly fool around. We had 3 days hols to prepare. I comfortably wasted 1 full day ( pucca wasted) . Now life functions as per Parkinson's law... Even if u have a zillion days to prep . The last 36 hours is wat that matters.Even the second I kind of fooled around. And again inbox was flooded about "rumors" of postponement... And I strictly din want any such thing... But alas . Sun Tv flashes the news : Postponed ......

This means we have another 9 days before the next exam. Virtually a short holiday..

"Negation" to define positives

2005-11-25T16:16:00.000+05:30

Presence is the negation of absence.
Generally presence is a small set and absence is a jumbo set when compared to the former.
For instance

Let us consider defining "Being happy". Happiness is considerably difficult to define autonomously.
Happiness can have varied definitions : Bliss, State of delight, Being in great spirits; But these are are vague and needs further expansions and explanations we will end up with a recursive definition for it.
Instead 'Unhappiness' is easy to define and quantify ..
For instance for me
Unhappiness = { Being unwell , Failing , After a fight , ... }

Now happiness can easily be defined a negation / absence of unhappiness.
This again is a vague description because happiness and unhappiness are not just 2 elements of a binary system are certain fuzzy states in between. For example there are certain times when we are neither happy nor unhappy. However the previous definition does not account for this.

There are many instances in the vedas and other scriptures where the presence is defined as the negation of absence good is said to be the negation of bad.
Here I quote 2 such instances:
Advaita ... ( flicked from http://www.wie.org/j14/shankar.asp?page=2 )

why is it called "nondualism?" God is one, isn't it? Why is the word "advaita" being used? Advaita means not two. Why did the sages not say "one?" Why did they say "not two?"...to come back to the point, the word "advaita" is used to indicate not two! And the reason why is because the mind functions in a very linear way, from point A to points B, C, D, E, F and so on in a straight line—are you with me so far? Therefore, the moment you say "one," it means that there are two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and so on and so forth. The moment you say "one," it means the possibility exists of two. One has got meaning only with relation to the other numbers; otherwise it has none. And the moment you say "one," two has already penetrated into it. That is why they don't say "ekant." They say "NOT TWO!" And NOT TWO means what? That the many has disappeared. But this is only indicated by a process of negation.

Swades...

Swades movie ... Pal Pal song... has a phrase " Man se ravan jo nikale . Ram uske man mein hai ".Ram is the good. Ravan is the evil. Ram 's existance is defined as the absence of ravan. Meaning we inherently become good when we root out the bad within us.

Rain

2005-11-06T20:07:00.000+05:30

I am hoping that the rain would stop by the time I post this !!!

New theory !!!!

2005-10-09T15:46:00.000+05:30

"Work expands to fill the time available."
---Parkinson
This new theory is dedicated to Parkinson.... (Some body suggest a good name !!!)
Our daily general activities can be broadly divided into three classes.

1.Our Mainstream activity ( College/School & related work . Irrespective of our likings or dislike we will have to finish the work)

2.Hobbies

3.Other regular activities such as watching TV ( , Sleeping ... my favorite ) . Interesting but not exactly special.

Now my theory states that
If your mainstream activity is dull and you dont have much to do ( Like for instance if you hardly have classes in coll and very less assignments and stuff..)
the other auxillary activities ( 2 and 3 ) also get affected.Some how too much free time (sense of not doing the mainstream activity itself) will make the others also look dull and mundane.(and sometimes you may end up craving for classes also)

NOTE :
1.This theory holds good only when you have too much free time. For example not having classes for one or two days will not make life boring.

2.When you have lots of free time you will obviously want to streamline the time available to pursue other activities.But still your mind will be disturbed . And you will not be able to spend the amount of useful time you wanted to on other activities.

3.More the free time more accurate the theory gets.

Computer science and girls ???

2005-09-26T19:17:00.000+05:30

Computer games. It would be my last but one option for entertainment in this world.No variety of Comp game has ethused me.Nothing from the ever dragging strategy games to the action packed thriller stuff.Plus I dont have a brother to endlessly keep talking about them .Hence I remain totally ignorant and disinterested in them."These are supposed to improve your reflex . Play ...." Owing to such thoughts I have installed a variety of games...But all games failed to electrify me.Some times I wonder if I would pass out as a decent computer grad without playing these games... The thought still terrifies me.

( read this too - LINK )

Computers.Being a branch of Engineering . A branch of electronics plus mathemathics . It is surely not a male dominated science.But without second thoughts it is a boy's playground.Girls have not much business there.From the varieties of books written( the authors make it a point to use only "shes") to the wide range of computer games..(not to forget the mags ...) there is a male stamp.Not to forget the jokes cracked and the illustrations made..

And how many girls love their computers. Such links amuse me :( LINK). I really dont know about the number of girl geeks in the top universities.But here in my college less than a percentage of girls give a damn to their computers.Forget finding geeks.....

I sometimes wonder if girls are not competent enough to be good programmers. I bet they can master the software engineering process. But how many hard core girl programmers can we count ??I think in a staightforward manner and can do a decent amount of logical and rational coding . But when it comes to innovation and algorithm writing ..... Oki I am not a geek.

Girls who fiddle.Can girls even fiddle ?? I cannot. Not because I am scared or anything but I simply dont bother. I have sat through many endless sessions where guys discuss some installation or some graphics card or some games or some troubleshooting process
(courtesy debugging commitee ).I always had to remain uncomfortably silent for a long time.

Have I landed up in the wrong course. I am sure I have not . I love all that I study.I enjoy mathematics and love my computer.Still I cant paly games or fiddle ........

Disclaimer:This is not some piece of article written for female rights ( or the like ) . These are confused thoughts of a girl who is studying Comp Sci...

And read this if you are still not bored:
LINK

Window seat obsession !

2005-07-19T19:08:00.000+05:30

One of my appa's bravest decision was to send my sister and me to a school 13Kms away from home when we were 4 years old. Why ?? Because my amma worked in the same school.That was way back. Ever since then , till we finished 10th standard we travelled all the way from Kodambakkam to Meenambakkam in the electric train everyday.From that time window seats are a consuming passion . Any journey . Any vehicle .Without a window seat, it always felt incomplete.Anything else - from the ripe sapota sold in the train to a nail biting novel waiting to be finished was secondary to staring blankly outside the window as the train zips past...What is so special ??? Is it a panoramic view -- some excellent landscape... or city scape.. Of course not..There is nothing more to stare at except -- dirty walls with gaurdy advertisements , chaotic stations and unending railway tracks....

Window seats + long journey = dream time for me . It is where I sit and endlessly dream , get carried away by my thoughts , think about the going (present,past and future ... in the same order) .Window seats are an anti fatigue /stress therapy. A spiritual corner . Most of my best ideas, all those cracking solutions occured to me in some window seat ....
Even when the train is jam packed with absolutely no breathing space..I look around eagle eyed for a corner window seat...and If I know that somebody is going to move out of one I make prior arrangements and calculations and jump onto that window seat :-)
Do you think the my saga has ended.... No way. Every morning and evening in the college bus nothing , noone can distract me from my cozy corner..

This whole post would be incomplete if I dont mention this incident. Way back in 9th standard I was coming back from school in the electric train. I was sitting in the last compartment (next to the gaurd's cabin) in the last window seat.As usual dreaming... in my own world.The train was moving over the adyar bridge( Dadang Dadang ... as I would prefer to call it .. 'coz of the sound when any train is moving over a bridge). At that very moment I felt something hard on my shoulder. I thought it was a crow or worse an eagle and almost yelled...Then came the gaurd's voice asking me not to panic.. Actually he was hanging from this cabin door tapping on my shoulder... Then he asked if I had water . In the next station he got down .. came to my window ... drank water .... and then waved his green flag.....

Sri Ganesh karen..

2005-07-16T07:23:00.000+05:30

Its long since i wanted to start blogging.There was not enough self drive (see how important it is ) and motivation from my Aatman (that is my own lazy self) to actually start one.After lots of procrastination and with the arrival of the broad band at home..I decided it is high time I satisfy my due desire to start blogging..

Sri Ganesh Karen..It is one of those hindi phrases which i learnt in school in the hindi classes
-- which I still remember and use .It means to start something ( new) with the name of pillayar.
Only other phrase which i remember is Now do gyarah hona meaning To run away or baag jana...
A blog is
( n.) Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.
(v.) To author a Web log.
Other forms: Blogger (a person who blogs).

Me and personal jouranals put together is a total failure..Every new year I manage to grab one of the best diaries that he gets from my appa . After one week it invariably turned into a rough note book.After many repeated failures .... lets see if this e-avtar is any motivation at all.