My Journey of Life

The King is Back!

2011-12-25T18:20:00.005+05:30

Any slightly movie literate person will know that I am talking about Don-2. Don or SRK is back, more stylish and better!SRK is one person who can make people fond of villains(or negative character - it is difficult to call him a baddie or villain) in the movie.
As written in HINDU review, Sharukh can play casual arrogance with ease and the entire movie is dripping of style!!!

What more can a SRK fan ask for!

Awaiting Don-3...

P.S: Completed 3 books(Jaladeepam, Mogana Silai, Cheran Selvi) of Sandilyan...Of all three, Jaladeepam is real good!

Twist in the neck

2011-11-26T21:13:00.004+05:30

I had nearly made up my mind to find a burial ground and do last rites to my blog, but looks like it is not that easy. So here I start jotting down something which I have been thinking about for quite sometime to ask readers for a response.

Why do villains or heroes twist their necks, especially in Indian movies?

- Acceptable in movies where they were transformed from a non-human form(read as robots, game characters, werewolves, etc) where they have twist their necks to check their brain and spinal cord nerve connections are in place

- Director thinks it creates a "threatening effect"

- Heroes or villains have a real sprain in the neck and didn't notice the movie shot started. And Editor of the movie thought it looked cute?

- They live in houses with shorter roofs that their necks get cramped

Anyone has any plausible explanations? Or do you think one of the above is more logical?

NurJahan's Daughter by Tanushree Podder

2010-07-11T21:30:00.012+05:30

Off late, I have been into a frenzy of reading so many books [Star world channel not getting telecasted by the cable guy and hence missing "Castle" series could have atributed to this frenzy].

But it has been a long time since I got this satisfaction on reading a book.This book on Laadli(Nurjahan's daughter by Sher Afghan and hence a step daughter of Emperor Jehangir) is very engaging. I have always been fascinated by history. I thought it will be just another book but I could hardly keep the book aside once I started reading.The only other series of books I used to read this way was Harry Potter series. But after reading this book, those books seem so distant to me. This book gave me a feeling as if I was just hidden behind a curtain and was able to see all that is happening right in front of my own eyes. The author has really done a very commendable job. It is hard to believe the author is from our era and this is not book which was written by someone who worked in the court of Jehangir :-)

I don't want to get into the story here as I dont want anyone who reads this post to think they have got a gist of the story and hence might not bother to read the book.

So less said about the story the better. I wonder why books like these never become bestsellers and get ignored by the mass.

Just wanted to do my part in publicising it. And this also gave a good insight of what happened in palaces. Whenever I visited palaces, I have always wondered about the everyday chores of the royalty - like will there be really servants who will be fanning them all through the time they sleep, how will their restrooms look like, when they travel city to city - how does the tent work out, will the tents be a comfortable alternative to their royal beds, etc. Questions like these have always lingered my mind and I have wanted someone who has witnessed or been in those era to narrate them to me :-). While Tamil authors like Kalki and Sandilyan have satiated my curiosity a bit , they being male went on to describing things from a man's point of view. But here, I see Tanushree's view - what a striped golden zari will make a difference to a muslin cloth or shabnam and all the colors and hues which matter,...

Sorry - if you are getting a wrong picture. This isn't about clothes and grandeur..It is about what was getting noticed. For example, when the emperor shifts from Agra to Lahore or Kashmir, along with the royal entourage, nobles, merchants and beggars also move with them as there is where their livelihood is going to be...

Okay, let me stop my rantings here.... Dont miss this book - that's what all I have to say now.

Feel like visiting all the forts and palaces by Mughals after reading this book. Especially, want to look around the house where Laadli spent her last days with her daughter Arzani and mother Nurjahan, Anarkali's tomb, Meena Bazaar, emperor's palace in Agra, seven thrones of Shah jahan including Peacock throne, etc.

Is there any book on Aurangazeb? Especially about the time, when he was given as hostage to Jehangir in return of pardon to then Prince Khurram and Arjumand's lives(Shahjahan and Mumtaz Mahal) for Shahjahan's rebellion?

Traffic woes in Hyderabad

2010-05-23T21:01:00.003+05:30

I have been busy with my new car - my first four wheeler. From the time, I was a kid, I had a fascination for "Red Maruti Car". It got realized now, except the "red" part as Maruti Alto doesn't have the proper red I like.
So, yes I have a driving license and had learnt driving 8 years back. So I had a refresher course from two different driving schools here. But as I have heard driving your own car is really different from driving in driving schools. With the driving school instructors having all the controls, when I drove my car, for sometime I felt as if the car is running amuck.

Well, to start with it took me atleast a week to get the confidence - why not - if everyone drives by rule, it will be a hell lot easier! I am reminded of a Tamil saying - just not writing it here as it not very decent. But a similar one is "Be a Roman when in Rome"

And after a week I have a few things to tell everyone - in Hyderabad no one bothers the indicators you use - either they are not literate about it or they just dont care. For instance, as soon as you put left indicator to inform that you are going to move to the left, a swarm of two-wheelers and autos will try to speeden up and cross me from left side and I really want to yell - when I put on a left indicator - it means - I am moving left and you either need to slow down or move to right.

Share Autos and RTC buses - I just can't stop raving about the gimmicks they perform. Autos take up one and half times their actual space as there are extras hanging out from both sides and the drivers consider themselves no less than racers that they just choose the direction and start moving - you cant expect any signal about stopping , starting or turning whatever from them. Yes poor fellas - they are multitasking and we expect them to signal? They gotta blast loud music for all people in road, and they need to hear a poor passenger who needs to yell at the top of the voice to stop(over the loud music) and as it doesn't work - nearly 4 to 5 other people sitting in the auto tap the driver's shoulder to inform him to stop. And now he feels he has already crossed where the passenger needs to get down and hence brakes so suddenly irrespective of the speed he is in and moves to the left of the road, unmindful of if he was in the middle or the right end of the road!!!!

RTC buses - bus stops for them are just to indicate where they need to stop. But they wont stop at the left end, there by disrupting the left most and the middle lanes basically because the bus stops in the middle lane and the passengers have to commute and block the left most lane as they need to alight and get into the bus.

I just wish I was appointed as traffic police for a week - who are more bothered about cars and two wheelers and dont care about these share autos and RTC buses who ARE the real culprits in causing disruptions in traffic!

First week @Windy City

2009-11-02T02:04:00.009+05:30

My first trip outside India was to the windy City Chicago - when I set foot, rather, when the plane landed the weather was good - unlike what was expected in September end.

Well this week passed on just trying to figure out the nearest grocery stores or supermarket and am still stumbling with my way to office. Well, one of the days last week, I wasn't sure of the way to my place and the cab driver told me "You ought to be familiar with where you stay, young lady".Because from a different direction, I cant recognize my own apartment.

Google maps is my second God here, without it - I just can't exist ...In India , I get lost anywhere, everyone around seems to know the direction. But here, I think people will tell me, why dont u check on computer?(well, computer is only google map here). I wonder how people survived before google and esp. google map came into existence. It would have felt like world without electricity.

And here everything is North , South, East or West, as the roads,blocks or the buildings are squares or rectangles. Coming to the food - that was the most difficult thing here - as I just cant eat burgers,pizzas, or, sandwiches (One of my colleagues even commented that I am not eligible to have gone to US then)and Chinese food here is pure chinese, not the Indian chinese. But found some pretty gud places.

And so far, people have already commented that my accent is more Austrian/German...Now, thats something!

Didn't start any sight seeing yet...

Harry Potter disappoints

2009-07-19T22:05:00.006+05:30

Watched two movies, visited General Bazaar @ Secunderabad, R.P. Road(Rashtrapathi Road) and Charminar.....

On Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - I have to say that I am pretty much disappointed. To be true, it felt like they conducted a survey among HP fans and asked them which scenes would they like to see in visuals and just compiled them all into a movie, keeping in mind to have a mix of comedy, romance, innocence and wittiness in them. Be aware that 3D is only for the first 15 minutes. And the announcement in the theatre was even more worse. It went on ".....Please keep your 3D glasses safe to keep them cleaning.....". Nevertheless, that really pepped up the mood a little.

And the second movie - The Hangover - nothing great about it too. The gross comedy managed to have us in splits but the usage of the four letter word in every other sentence was an overkill. I feel the Bollywood flop movie "De Taali" which was telecasted in DD last week also managed to evoke the same amount of laughter without even being gross.

Still disappointed with Harry Potter. Disappointments are common when you have high expectations.....

The Case of the Stolen Debit Card

2009-06-13T19:42:00.002+05:30

This is one post many of my friends wanted me to write. It was in Draft mode for quiet a long time(more than a year) because of a few reasons and now, here it comes...

This incident is dated 21st January 2008 - a day to be remembered in this journey of my life...

I stay in a hostel, which is a bit on the costlier side. I was in a two-member room - got to share my room with another roommate.

I was going to Yoga classes (Isha Yoga - 7 day Inner Engineering program) from 6 AM to 9 AM everyday and Sunday full day(6 AM to 6 PM). Monday morning, I noticed that my debit card is missing from my purse and hence, immediately checked my account using net banking and found that my debit card has been swiped across various counters in Hyderabad Central for a total amount of about Rs. 43000 and the balance in my account was only Rs. 15.

Tried phone banking and for some reason it did not work. Then I visited the bank's branch in Jubilee Hills and the branch manager there was really helpful and I blocked my debit card and he informed the necessary people to start investigation on the transactions and told me about the procedure I will have to follow.
I had to submit the Lost/Stolen Card form with franking(stamping of Rs. 100 in each sheet of the form. There were two sheets) along with the copy of FIR which I will have to get it from the police station in my area where I suspected losing the card.

While travelling back to office, I got the number of Hyderabad Central's office from Just Dial(040 -24444444), called them up and explained what happened(That a stolen debit card has been swiped 7 times across various bill counters in the mall). They told me to come in person.

I was going to the police station to raise a FIR. On the way, I collected the bank statement from the bank's Hi-tech City branch along with the exact card swiping timings.Then went to the police station and the police officials had just gone on some duty and I was told to get a User form from any of the e-seva centres which is a pre-requisite before they come.

In the meantime, I decided to visit Central and while I was on my way, I called up my roomie and asked her if someone entered our hostel room and I explained what had happened. She told me that none entered the room and told me to call her up if I needed any help and keep her informed what I am doing. At that time, I didn't suspect her at all as she is very rich that she spends around 10K per day without worrying.

She asked me what I am doing. I said I am going to central to see if I can find out anything. She asked what can I find there. I told her I will call her later.

Then went to central, tried meeting the office people - they were of little help. Then if I hadn't told u before, there were 7 swipings between 12.17 hrs to 15.58 hrs(Shopped for 43K within 3.5 hrs).
One for 9990.00 in Just LifeStyle(Just In Vogue), 17500.00 in IIIrd Eye(a digi cam shop) , 1 said Madura Garments and the rest all said Hyderabad Central. Though 3rd Eye and Just LifeStyle are also in Central, thank God it showed its own names against swiping.

Somehow, got in touch with Just In Vogue. Initially, t he person in charge was reluctant to give any information. Then I had to say that I am "Fathima" and I am telling u that a fraud has been committed using my card in ur shop but u r not ready to give information. He said, he will give info only to bank and all that. I tried to find if its a guy's watch or a girl's watch,etc. At last he budged and showed the signature and details. The signature was totally different and the phone no left there in the bill was fake.

Then went to the camera shop and guy in charge was very helpful. He told it was a girl and she was roaming there for more than 1 hr in that area.

Then went to the back office of central. The guy over there was also helpful(None of the top officials were helpful) and led me at last to the CC footage room. (Usually, the footages get erased and re-written every 24 hrs. So I was afraid that it may get erased). There, somehow after a lot of convincing, they agreed to show it(as they said proper permission has to be obtained).

In the meantime, my roomie was calling to ask what I was doing. I was really getting irritated.

Then in one footage of the camera(I could give the timings the person was in each shop based on the swipings) in front of the watch shop, I saw a girl's back pose exactly at the swiping time. So got confirmed that it was a girl. But the camera at that place was not working properly, so could see only a blurred image.
Then I tried to see the footage was at another place. At that time, my roomie called up again and confessed again that she did it, and at the same time, I saw her in the camera.

She told me to come to room immediately and that she is not that type of girl,blah, blah, blah and that she will return back all the money and all that.

So, I got my money back later and all that...
Thanks to everyone who helped me in identifying the culprit...

Re-cap

2009-02-11T00:21:00.008+05:30

Its nearly five months since I have been actively writing. Was I too busy to write, did I run out of ideas, or, did I just get bored of writing? None of these. Too many things seemed to be happening around me and in the world, that I was getting drifted along the whirl, rather than holding on to my position.

Just to have a re-cap, let me look at things, irrespective of whether they are important or silly, but worth recollecting, if I look back into this post few years later.

Completed my one more revolution around the sun last month.

Been watching a lot of movies(old and new) of late - Thanks to Moserbaer, cable TV and Hitec theatre - Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi(Good one - well it has SRK in it. One time watch though), Astitva(Must Watch and Neat. *****. When Astitva movie released years ago, I had fallen in love with the song "Mein thi, Main hoon, Main Rahoongi...". Tabu is just amazing),Khwaish, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam, Ugly Aur Pagli, Phoonkh(Not Scary as advertised. But a good one), Princess Dairies (Sweet), Ghajini (Tamil version was better. Surya looked more human), Yuuvraaj (Disaster! Sallu's crying on full screen....Yuck! Anil Kapoor and Katrina were good) , Jodhaa Akbar (Hrithik's performance is good. I liked the movie overall). Yet to watch Slumdog Millionaire, Billu, Arundathi, Raaz - The Mystery Continues ....

AR Rahman is a genius. I couldn't stop loving "Tu Meri Dost Hai..."(Yuuvraaj), "Tu Muskura..."(Yuuvraaj), "Masakkali..."(Delhi-6).

Got a new cellphone (Nokia 1650)

Moved to new house and came the very emotional decision making situation of segregating a lot of things from nursery rhyme books, grammar books, Hindi Manohar Kahaniyaan, first rank batches got in school(with the rusted safety pins intact), compass, mini drafter, 2H 2B pencils used in Engg Drawing, mom's M.Sc. record note, Huckleberry Finn, Laurel and Hardy, old floppy discs, floppy holders, Gokulam magazine in which my story was published once - I don't know how they can be termed "important material"(thats what I have told my mom who didn't get a peek into these) - But I am just not able to make up my mind to get rid ofthem. So they all joined me in the new house, of course camouflaged in new boxes :-).

My yearly quota of cold, fever and throat pain already visited me. So no more of them, for the rest of the year!

One of my close friends from my school had called me and I couldn't recognise her voice. What a shame! Well, she is now the mother of 2 kids and yelling at them has given an authoritarian tinge.

Will add on if I had missed anything ...

Indefinite Break!!!

2008-09-23T22:09:00.002+05:30

Thanks for dropping by. Looks like I have just hit a bloggers' block.
Will take an indefinite break from blogging!!!

House of Flying Daggers

2008-08-06T23:10:00.008+05:30

I have never looked beyond Tamil, Hindi, English movies and occasionally, Telugu and Malayalam movies. UTV World Movies looks like a boon to me. After this channel started some 5 months back, I am realising how much I have been missing ...the world????? The movies come with subtitles(Thank God!).

Chinese movies have become my favourites. As a horror movie lover, there was a dearth of real good horror movies until I came across this channel. When it is horror movies, English movies try to get away with the distorted images which evoke disgust rather than horror, Indian language movies or serials with a lady in a white saree(and white chudidhar nowadays) with some face mask. But Chinese and Korean movies will give all these, a run for their money. Leaving aside horror, French, Spanish and Italian movies are good but test my patience at times.

"Viva Cuba" is a Spanish Cuban movie which keeps you engrossed in the journey of the two kids, because when you were young, you would make the same silly assumptions like they do. It captures even the most subtle nuances. "Monday" introduced me to Japanese humour - where in, I used to associate Japanese only with technology and hard work. And there are many more different genre of movies like Jules et Jim(French), Boccacio 70 (Italian), Eye in the sky (Hong Kong based Chinese), etc.

Coming back to what made me start writing this post - House of Flying Daggers, a Hongkong movie in Mandarin language. It is an action-oriented romance movie, or rather, romance-oriented action movie - it has Martial arts in the most beautified form. All martial arts movies I have seen, make me yell - "I am not here to take a mini-course of Martial Arts. Can we get on with the story please". But it has been captured so beautifully in this movie, that it looks more graceful than dance.

I can also compare this movie with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Devdas" at times, for the extravagant background, the only difference being Devdas looked rich and beautiful and House of flying daggers looked fresh and beautiful. While watching Devdas, one will get lost in the background (and Sharukh) more than in the actual story going on. Similarly, the locations are breathtaking that one can just take snapshot of each scene and use it as their desktop wallpaper.

And I am getting a strong urge to tell you the plot of the story. But let me sign out before I do that. The movie's first time telecast was last Thursday's 8.30 PM slot and was re-telecasted on Saturday afternoon. I hope there will be repeat telecast in some other slots vcry soon. Don't miss it!

Hail UTV World Movies!!!!!

Blog Readability Level

2008-07-28T22:14:00.000+05:30

India Unbound by Gurcharan Das

2008-06-08T14:37:00.003+05:30

I hardly read books on economics, politics, etc. So I thought, a few pages in to this, I will probably abandon the book.But the book didn't let me do that. After a couple of pages, I could not put down the book until I completed it. The book is like a orator who grabs the attention of a totally disinterested audience by his/her power of speech.

I remember reading about this liberalization, MRTP Act, etc. for my MBA. When I read them, it were mere acts, which had a set of laid down policies. I never understood the impact these acts and policies had on India Inc and the common man. I knew corruption exists in India but never knew the firm root cause ( I thought it was people's greed coupled with opportunity). I have seen private sector is efficient and public sector is not but never wondered why such a big umbrella should be present under public sector; I knew Japan's ecnomic/industrial growth rate is high but never did it strike to me that it was not less population and more hardwork alone that led to it - it was planning and the right policies. I have always considered India's population is detrimental to its growth but didn't realize we had "human capital" which could be our boon and not bane. I can go on and on regarding the clarifications I got about "India" itself from this book. My total outlook has changed.

I liked the way Gurcharan Das has brought about the point, where in India tried to embrace the goodness present in democracy, socialism and capitalism and ended up embracing the worse things in all.

Some of the key points in his book:
1. Giving services and things like power, rice free of cost will not end poverty. Bcoz it will just result in short-term relief and also empty government treasury.
2. Making people capable of earning by educating them and creating employment opportunities is the only way of eradicating poverty. By creating employment oppotunities, he doesn't mean creating a lot of government jobs and keep paying salaries. He means to encourage enterpreneurship by reducing the obstacles to the enterpreneurs and create jobs in a competitive environment, which will generate "quality" employment.
3. Unless a lot of bureaucratic controls cease to exist, the corruption is there to stay.
4. We cannot replicate any nation's economic policies, as every country is unique(We are unique). Its like there is no particular panacea for all diseases.
5. And a set of policies aren't suitable for a country always. We should keep changing them with requirements and place proper monitoring systems to check the results and modify them if they aren't helping in anyway.

In my humble and earnest opinion, the contents of this book should be prescribed to academic curriculum (I am not sure if it already has been included)!

A must read for every Indian if he/she has to know what our country has underwent after independence!

Jab I Met

2008-05-05T22:27:00.007+05:30

Wowee!!! I was in the new Airport at Shamshabad on Wednesday to catch a flight to Coimbatore and to my surprise, I met ISRO Chairman Mr.Madhavan Nair there! I had seen him in newspaper only a day ago. I could hardly believe what I saw and I asked him if he was Madhavan Nair and he acknowledged it.

Now, I realise, I should be carrying a autograph book with me.

I also heard Actor Rajnikanth travelled in the same flight(in which I travelled) to Coimbatore the next day.

More abt my review on the new Hyd International Airport in my next post. I liked the airport unlike the critics.

Tagged by ReetuAshwin

2008-04-08T22:15:00.003+05:30

Family
Dad, Mom & Sis. I take them for granted. I dont feel sorry abt what they tell me or what I tell them.

Friends
I talk to many but I am choosy abt my friends. And hence the count is for sure not more than twenty.

My Love
I love myself a lot. I am my best company, well-wisher and friend. (Mein aap hi apni premika; Mein Aap hi apni Saheli)

Things I Like
1. Red colour
2. Jasmine(Gundu malli) flowers
3. Applying mehndhi in my hands and legs
4. Bright dresses, glittering accessories.
4a. Lipstick 4b. Glass Bangles 4c. Anklets 4d. Kaajal
5. Visiting places of historical importance(and feeling a part of it)
6. Books
7. Bharathanatyam and other forms of dance too( I fell in love with the hip movement of Odissi).
8. Fried Fish
9. Ears which can listen to me tirelessly
10. My laptop
11. My scooty
12. Sharukh Movies
13. Dances of Madhuri Dixit , Padmini and Vyjayanthi Mala.
14. Very old Tamil movies abt Kings, Vittalacharya movies.

Books
Horror Thrillers(or is it Horrific thrillers), Mysteries and historical books top the list. Philosophy and self-improvement are a strict no-no. My Book List

Movies
Even a illogical one will do as long as it keeps my mind occupied and I am able to comprehend what is going on without having to strain. I love horror flicks with beautiful, cunning or no ghosts. Recent fav is Jab We Met. Kinda fallen in love with the movie.
Fav include Chak De India, Devdas, Viva Cuba, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,......

Myself
Superstitious, selfish, organized girl, who is absolutely comfortable when left alone. I can forgive easily but not forget. I prefer to switch on and off my brains whenever required.

Recent Plans
To buy "Prison Break" DVD.
To see "Jodhaa Akbar" in theatre(hope it is still running).
To visit Charminar again for shopping.
Mango season has started. Wanna try different varieties.
To visit Hussain Sagar Lake.

Activities
Fell in love with UTV World Movies channel and watching it regularly.
Studying US map to know the location of states exactly so that I can relate to it when I hear abt it in movies/serials.

Dreams
I want to be an archaeologist and travel across the world and visit places of historical importance.

Hmmm, on a second thought... rather dream, I visualise myself as Queen of a country - living in my own fort, having learnt all the 64 forms of art(from archery,horse riding, disguising, cooking, dancing,ship building, singing, poetry,painting, spying, hair dressing and all that) in Gurukul, have a faithful horse of my own, able to take strategic and military decisions for my country, devise economical policies and financial policies with the help of my ministers. I will be awaken every morning with the music from musical instruments, take bath in pond using ayurvedic powders, have breakfast like a king( :-)) , wear bright dresses and glittering ornaments, go to my durbar, discuss that day's happenings, have a good lunch, spend the afternoon dancing and watching dance and music, going out for a walk in the evening, going out in disguise in the night to keep a watch over my country. And occasionally fighting wars and battles(few battles in sea too). Live life Queen Size! :-) I think Kalki and Sandilyan are to be blamed for this dream of mine.

May be I want to become a Structural Engineer(Inspired by Wentworth Miller of "Prison Break") or a ship building engineer(Inspired by "Kadalpura" written by Sandilyan).

I want to open my own detective agency but again, what will I work on (I dont want to work on what these on the news detective companies work - finding fowl plays of suspecting spouses).

Own a theatre and watch ( and make people watch) movies I like.

I have lot more dreams. Miles and Miles to go before I wake up from my dreams.

I tag:
Divi , Arvi Sharma, Munch , Iris, Janani Sundararajan, RSam, Vinesh and Abhinav.

Hyd Explorations - 3 : Chowmahalla Palace, AP State Museum and Salarjung Museum

2008-02-21T22:44:00.004+05:30

When talking about the Nizam period, I have to mention about two royal ladies - Durr-e-Shehvar and Niloufar Khannum Sultana.

Durr-e-Shehvar:
The Princess of Berar
Wife of Prince Azam Jah Bahadur
Daughter in law of Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur
Daughter of Last Caliph of Turkey Abdul Majid Khan II
Mother of Mufarram Khan and Mufakkam Khan(Esra Jah is wife of Mufarram Khan)

Niloufar Khannum Sultana:
Cousin of Princess of Berar Durr-e-Shehvar
Wife of Moazzam Jah
And was considered as one of the most beautiful ladies of her time

Chowmahalla Palace
Click here to visit the Official website of Chowmahalla Palace
Entry fees is Rs.25 and it is at a walkable distance from Charminar.

Chowmahalla Palace gets its name from the four palaces it comprises off. It belonged to the Nizams. It has lots of photos of the royal family - esp. Princess Niloufar and Princess Durr-e-Shehvar.

Now it has a studio called Royal Studio, where in visitors can wear dresses as worn by the royal family and get their photos taken. It costs around some Rs. 100 to Rs. 200(Not sure).

I came across a lot of new words during my visit here.Sikiligar is the name used for Sword smith; In a house, Zenana is used to denote the part where women live in and Mardana for men; Mahallat is an evocative name used locally to refer to the ladies in the household of Nizam-ul-Mulk, head of Asaf Jah Dynasty and ruler of Deccan. In this museum, it is used to denote Royal ladies of Asaf Jah dynasty 1885 - 2005

AP State Museum
The entry fee is Rs.10.
This museum houses a Mummy of 16 or 17 year old girl. The Mummy has been brought from Egypt. There is a description of how the dead bodies are processed. The Mummy is fully covered with cloth and Kept in vacuum, but the cloth at the toe nails are worn out, which when seen gives a spooky feeling.
Here, there are many statues, sculptures, Spittoon(Sailabchi), Nagardaan, Pandaan,Guldaan(flower vase), Aftaba(water jug), Surahi(water jug)which were excavated or collectedfrom various places in India. Tulwar is a type of sword and it doesn't translate directly to sword, as I had believed.

Inscriptions on stones/walls, which were found in various places, have been brought and embedded in concrete structures in the museum. The inscriptions are mostly in Persian(Naskh, Nastaliq scripts) and Arabic(Thulth script)

In one of my previous blogs, I have told about Jade stone vessels which were used to identify if the food is toxic. Here, in this museum , there are a collection of Jade vessels and a briefing about it. Jade vessel was considered to identify toxic food either by changing color or breaking. There was another type of material, which resembled Jade - Celadon. It seems Salah ed din (Saladin), Sultan of Egypt, sent 40 pieces of different vessels made of a bluish green stone material to Nur-ed-din, Sultan of Damascus and the material got named after Saladdin - Celadon.

Salarjung museum
The entry is Rs. 10.
This museum houses the articles and items collected by Salarjung who was the prime minister of Nizam and an art lover. Three generations of his have taken care of this - Salarjung I, Salarjung II, Salarjung III.

There was much hype about the musical clock and Double sided statue. The clock was an example of real good craftsmanship, considering the time it was made and its capabilities. The double sided statue which has a man on one side and woman on other side is a marvel. But I fell in love with "The Veiled Rebecca" statue made of marble by Roman Sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni. This was one thing that had me stumped to the ground. The status is of Rebecca who was brought up by her brother and when she was of marrigable age, he brings Isaac to home one day and asks Rebecca if she likes him. Rebecca likes him and covers herself using a veil because of shyness.The sculpture is to depict that moment.

Click here to see a glimpse of the statue though the photo here is nothing when compared to what you get to see in original.
Click here to see another admirer of Veiled Rebecca

There are many sections in the museum. And of all sections, I liked the clock section(where in the year and country where the clock was made was specified) and the manuscript section(which had old manuscripts).

Marie Antoinette(once Queen of France)'s dressing table and writing table are also present in the museum. One day is not sufficient to go around this museum.

Burglary and Camera

2008-01-29T22:56:00.000+05:30

I thought I will step down from the palatial stuff to some mundane matters temporarily. But what do I see? There has been a burglary in Andhra Pradesh State Museum 2 weeks back(18th Januray 2008). I should have visited this museum before the burglary. Read about the burglary here:
Burglary at AP State Museum
Burglary at AP State Museum (The Hindu Newspaper)

And for people who have asked me why I don't carry a camera to places I visit, here is the answer:
First,few museums and palaces don't allow cameras to be taken inside
Second, in case, even if they allow, they charge exorbitant rates for it.
Third, pictures steal the show from description. If book or novel writers start substituting their descriptive writings with just pictures, it will be either distractive or take away the flow. So pictures suit only text books, where in we try to study the facts and not the beauty of the object in picture.
And the last (but not the least) reason is I dont have a camera with me(atleast in Hyd).

I am sorry if you expected something else by seeing the title and got disappointed :-).

P.S: Will be writing soon what you expected!

Hyd Explorations - 2 : Qutb Shahi Tombs and Nizam's Museum

2008-01-25T21:43:00.002+05:30

I am currently reading "Sign of the cross" by Chris Kuzneski. It has reference to Tiberius who married Julia - about whom I have written in one of the earlier blog posts.The author's writing style has a similarity to Sandilyan's writing style. He has a secret unveiling and brought up in each chapter.

Coming to the explorations,I visited Qutb Shahi tombs near Golconda and Nizam's Museum at Purani Haveli.

Qutb Shahi Tombs
Route: Go to Nampally bus stop which is near railway station. From there, there is a direct bus(I don't remember if the bus number was 142 or 172) which drops one at the gates of Qutb Shahi Tombs.The route is Nampally - Masabtank - Humayun Nagar and on the way to Gachibowli, it takes a left turn to reach Qutb Shahi Tombs.

Entrance fee is Rs. 10 per person. Office phone number is 040-23513410

There is a museum named "Qutb Shahi tombs Site Museum".

There are many tombs and a mosque and a separate mosque built for Aurangazeb when he came to capure these parts of India. The description at the entrance of the site museum gives a concise view of the Kings (and a Queen too. Mistress of King - Bhagamathi is also buried near her King) buried in the tombs there. Except for the last Nizam, who was taken as a captive, the rest of Qutb Shahi rulers are buried here. The architecture is a blend of different cultures, with Persian and Turkish dominance. And most of the rulers constructed their own tombs before they died.

The notice outside each of the tombs intrigued me. It said : "Dwelling inside the hall (tomb) is stricly prohibited".

Nizam's Museum (A must see)
This is behind Princess Durru Shehvar Children's Hospital, Near Police Commissioner Office.
Route: It is near to Afzal Gunj bus station.

Entrance fee is Rs. 70. Museum office Phone number is 040 - 24521029

There is a very lengthy two storeyed room which has a two-storeyed wardrobe or cupboard(on both sides).The first storey contains clothes and the second storey contains perfumes,soaps(made of Jadibooti) and accessories like shoes, etc. Now, as the steps have become weak, the visitors are not allowed to climb to the second storey of the cupboard, but as the doors are made of glass, one can see the contents from the floor. It seems the Nizam won't wear the dress he wore once, again.

There is a lift operated manually by pulling ropes in working condition. It is for the King to come from ground floor to first floor to his wardrobe room. After he gets dressed, he goes down by the same lift.

There is a marble bed, a marble writing table, and a marble cupboard which the Nizam used to take it along with him when he went on hunting. They are very heavy and I wondered how tedious a task it would have been to carry it. It seems the Nizam used to stay in hunting sites for months together and hence it was worth carrying. But one should see how the iron nuts and bolts are screwed in to marble stones without cracking it to make the furnitures.

Collections of the last Nizam gifted to him in a single day(during Silver Jubilee Celebrations in 1937) are on display in this museum. The collections of his Prime minister is in Salar Jung Museum.
The collections here range from Paan dhaan, Attar Dhaan, carpets, letters of appreciation and best wishes(Dua) written on a variety of things, bidri works, letter caskets,hukkas(the utensil used for smoking) ,perfume sprayers(not like what we have - they are so beautiful). They are made of gold, silver, gold plated silver, iron, mother of pearl(Sippi. I didn't know so far that Sippi was known as Mother of Pearl). Even a vessel into which you spit chewed Paan(beter leaf) is made of gold! Jade stone vessels(For testing liquids and solid food) to find if poison is present in the food items. It seems the color of the vessel changes if the substance that is put in to it is toxic.
The throne which was used by the Nizam during the silver jubilee celebrations is also kept for display.

There are two types (classification based on blade shape) of swords on display - Abbasi(straight blade) and the other one having a curved shape. Actually there are many types of swords in the world. Visit this to know more about Swords.

There was one painting of the sixth Nizam with his crown. Not an ordinary one. They give you lens to look into it. If you see through the lens, a few spots which look like a mere design for normal eye are in reality the faces of the previous Nizams. That is, the Nizam's ancestors are painted so minutely(Like writing one's name on rice) on his crown. And the Nizam's two sons are painted in his eyes(the black retina or whatever you call it).

The curator of the museum or the officials there take care of things very well.The number of visitors is less and they patiently guide you and give a description on all displays. One negative thing is there is no proper restroom in the museum.

Princess Durru Shehvar Children's hospital that is in front of Purani Haveli was constructed in the memory of Princess Durru Shehvar who got married in to Nizam's family.

Hyd Explorations -1 : Golconda and Shiparamam

2007-12-24T23:01:00.001+05:30

I am in Hyderabad now - City of Pearls, City of tradition and most important of all - Biryani City. So far I havevisited Golconda and Shilparamam.

Shilparamam is near Hi-tec city in Madhapur. The entry fee is Rs. 20 per person. And they also gave me a complementary 2008 monthly calendar written fully in Telugu(May be I should look out for "Learn Telugu in 30 days" now) .Shilparamam is more like a "Coimbatore Exhibition" except for the fact that the flavour is different a bit and there are many more things to explore. There are pearl shops, fancy item shops(few are costlier than Chennai Pondy Bazaar Shops and some are cheaper), many wood works, handicrafts, chamki works - especially the chamki work dresses were mind blowing but I didn't like the quality of the cloth much and it was very dark to make a choice(Here in Hyd, I feel it gets dark very early) and a few special places/ stalls to attract visitors. Made a quick visit as the Indian Crafts exhibition is only till 31st December. Will have to visit again to explore more.

Let me now go to Golconda, I dont remember the entry fees. I think it was Rs. 10 or Rs.20. I have visited this earlier. But wanted to go around it more patiently.

Disclaimer: Whatever information regarding the fort is written here were heard from guides(when I visited 1 year back) and random readings.

Coming to Golconda, the fort was build by Qutb Shahi kings, whose tombs are next to Golconda(yet to visit). Few things abt Golconda - it now has the remains of the fort which got ruined when Aurangazeb raided.
I have visited many forts but nothing has impressed me like this fort - If I hadn't done engineering, I would have gone into archaeology or may be I lived in forts during my previous birth:-) . I like this fort better than others - may be because despite the ruins, many parts are still intact and you could still find architectural marvels.
Few things you can see there:
1. A weight tied to a handle.
It seems those days, to get monthly wages, the soldiers will have to carry this weight (there were actually two) - one in each hand from the palace gate to the top of the fort. It was a kind of physical fitness examination too. And they were given grains as monthly wages.
2. Taramati Baradari
This has a secret passage to Charminar(which is obviously closed now by a huge rock), via which the king can reach Charminar in 5 minutes.
3. A ruined university(not clearly demarcable)
It seems this was as famous as Nalanda University and foreign students came here and took up residential courses.
4. Ramdas Prison(Ramdas Bandi Khana)
Gopanna also known as Bhaktha Ramdas was a good minister. But few ministers who were jealous of his status in the King's court charged him of being traitor as he spent government money for the renovation of a temple without permission. So he was put into a underground prison for around 12 years during which he didn't have any external contact. There was a hole at the top of his prison through which sunlight entered and through which food and water were sent to him. So during this years, he has inscribed the images of Goddess Saraswathi and other Gods in the walls of his prison.
5. Granary to store grains
6. Rooms of Queens
7. Horse stables
8. Taramati Masjid
A mosque for Taramati to pray after she got converted to Muslim religion
9. One Kali temple and Nandi temple at the top of the fort
10. Water tanks.
There were step by step tanks - meaning tanks at each level using which the water was first transported/moved from first level to the next and so on till the top of the fort.
11. Gun powder artillery
12. Place to bathe the dead of the royal family before taking them for burial

And gardens and fountains and many more.

Version of the Taramati/Bhagmathi story as heard from the guide a year back:
Taramati and Bhagyamathi were two dancers and the king fell in love with both. When he proposed, Taramati was there but Bhagyamathi ran away out of shy(Bhagyamathi sharmaake baag gayi). So he married Taramathi ; renamed her Hyder Begum; and created a town in the name of Bhagmathi (Bhagya nagar).

Other version which I read, which seems more true:
Bhagmathi was the prime courtesan during King Abdullah Qutb Shah's grandfather's (mohammed Quli Qutb Shah) times. The same way Taramati and Premamati were famous courtesans during King Abdullah Qutb Shah's times and Taramati was the prime courtesan and was close to the King. It seems as a honour to them, their tombs are placed next to the Kings in Qutb Shahi tombs.

Places yet to visit:
Purani Haveli (and Nizam's museum)
Chowmahalla Palace
Qutb Shahi Tombs
King Kothi Palace
Asman Garh Palace
Falaknuma Palace - it seems they are converting it to luxury hotel

Any information regarding the above places is welcome.

P.S: Sorry! Will take photos next time

Further explorations of Bangalore

2007-12-01T18:35:00.000+05:30

On Karnaka formation day(1st November 2007), me and my roomie decided to visit Nrityagram(www.nrityagram.org) - My first trip out with somebody (usually I go alone)since I came to Bangalore.

Nrityagram is a residential dance school founded by dancer Protima Gauri. It is situated in Hesaraghatta village which can be reached by 1 hour journey from Majestic/Kempegowda bus stand, Bangalore. The onward journey is through a different route and the return journey is by another route as the roads are very narrow for two-lane transport.

From Hesaraghatta bus stand, Nrityagram is at a distance of 5 km which can be reached by auto(which costed Rs. 60). The auto driver even gives you his cell phone number to call him when we decide to return(as people come there only by their own cars or mode of transport. So there are no autos/cabs to take you back from Nrityagram to bus stand). Exactly opposite to Nrityagram is a Resort named Kuteeram of Taj Group.
But all through the way, we enjoyed the scenary very much, that we decided to walk back and covered the 5 kms by walk during return. On the way, we saw poultry farm, turkey farm, emu farm and a dam.
Coming back to Nrityagram, it follows the Gurukul method of education. Dance is taught free of cost. Food, Stay is all free. The only thing a student has to do is stay there for three years to learn it.
We were allowed to photograph everything other than dancers. There are separate buildings constructed for each type of dance - Bharathanatyam, Odissi, Mohini Aattam, Kathak, etc.But when we went there, only Odissi classes were going on and only at the most 2 students were there as nobody was ready to take off 3 years of their life to dedicate to learn dancing.
We could see sculptures everywhere; a temple dedicated to Protima; a yoga centre, a kitchen; separate buildings for visitors to stay; buildings for students and teachers.There was an amphitheatre where dance programmes were held during "Vasanth Habba"(Spring Festival). What impressed me most is the buildings and environment. All buildings including kitchen looks like "Kuteers" of sages that were in Gurukul times. And each building for different forms is build according to the style where the dance form originated from. For eg: the building which houses classroom for Mohini Aattam will be in the style of Kerala and so on. And its green everywhere around. The place is cared for well. A must visit!

Total cost per person:
Domlur to Majestic(in Volvo) - Rs. 25
Majestic to Hesaraghatta bus stand(by bus) - Rs.10
Hesaraghatta bus stand to Nrityagram(by auto) - Rs.60
Entrance fee for Nrityagram - Rs. 20

I also visited "HAL Aeronuatical museum" and Kemp fort one Saturday. HAL museum may be a good visit for people who have interest in aeronautics. For me, I was just looking at the photos of presidents and prime ministers of different countries who visited during the building of different aircrafts. The entry fee was Rs. 20. I could say that another Rs. 10 charged for going to Air traffic control room was a waste, because the only thing you could see from there in seeing planes landing or taking off from runway, as if you are situated in a building next to airport.

And regarding Kempfort, I saw the big statues of Lord Ganesha and Lord Shiva. One thing which irked me there was that , one can buy diyas, light it and leave it in the small artifical pond created there. But the people who were cleaning the premises using water from water hose were pouring the water on diyas(not intentionally though) which blew off the light of the lighted diyas. Hope someone takes care of it.

Chak De India!

2007-09-17T21:17:00.001+05:30

Why I liked it so much? You can make a person learn something in the following ways:
1. Advice.I will forget it next minute.
2. Tell a story; let the advice be the moral of the story; end the story with the moral. I will remember the story and forget the advice.
3. Dont force the moral of the story. Let the moral not stand out as a separate entity. Let it be intertwined with the story so much that , when I remember the story, I will remember the words of wisdom or vice versa. Well, Chak De did just that.

My Learnings from Chak De :
1. Aim at your goal(Not just hockey goal). All other things will fall in place.
2. Be clear as to what you want and work towards it. Dont get satisfied or depressed by the small crests and troughs that come your way. You haven't actually achieved what you want.
3. Give your full attention to what you are doing.
4. Its courage and confidence that is required to eradicate hurdles and not physical strength.
5. You never know when one of your strengths will be helpful so much in a way that you wouldn't have expected.
6. Knowing your strengths is important. But the more important thing is to know when and where to put it to use.
7. You dont get a second opportunity always.
8. No one other than yourself can stop you.
9. Its ok if you have made a mistake. But its not ok if you make it again.

I can elaborate on it and what led to these, but as I am not writing answer for a 20 mark question, I will put that aside. Any one who has watched Chak De will be able to relate to the above 9 points.

Movie week

2007-09-17T21:14:00.000+05:30

Watched Page 3 (Zoom TV) and Traffic Signal(Set Max).

Page 3 showcased the reality of the top class and Traffic Signal showcased the reality of lower class, both the uglier and sad part of reality. Huh! These kinda movies make me very depressing. I dont want to watch this genre!

Managed to get "Chak De India" morning show ticket in Rex theatre yesterday!
I have been an ardent SRK fan for long and I feel this is his best movie till date and the best character he played so far.
Not even a single dialogue can be afforded to be missed. They ought to be remembered in daily life.
Apart from Kabir Khan, my favourites are Komal Chautala, Balbir, Preeti Sabarwal, Bindia Naik,Shuklaji in the given order.
Though Bindia's character was a bit negative, I liked the way she took up her opportunity and didn't hold up on to useless ego, when she had to play her part in a crucial match.

YavanaRaani and Julia

2007-08-21T22:36:00.000+05:30

In the book YavanaRaani written by Sandilyan, an European queen (not sure if it is Greece or Rome) comes to India with Tiberius, and falls in love with Ilanchezhian(Karikaal cholan's Army Chief) .
And two months back,I saw the movie Imperium: Augustus in History Channel. In that Octavian(Augustus) narrates his life story. After correlating all that I read, I feel this Julia and the Yavana raani are same.

Does anyone know if they are the same or different?

P.S: The movie and the book says Tiberius and Julia didn't like each other. Julia was a princess and Tiberius, a loyal army chief to Julia's father.
At a later point of time(as in history), Augustus marries off Julia to Tiberius after making him divorce his current wife. And it also said, Julia had affairs with many other men and was sent to exile because of that.

Links:
More about the movie Imperium Augustus
About Yavanaraani by Sandilyan

Bangalore Palace

2007-07-07T23:13:00.000+05:30

Today, when I reached the palace and saw it from outside, I was in doubt if I have reached the right place as the place looked deserted except for 2 or 3 cars standing outside and there was no name board(Got so much used to directions and nameboards that I have started looking for a nameboard saying "Palace" for a palace too:-)). But then this feeling lasted only until I entered it.

I was in for a surprise when I visited Bangalore Palace today. Little did I know before, that this was where the famous “Chandramukhi” movie starring RajniKanth, Jothika was shot. I will come to this part later.

Palace administrative office phone no is 080-23360818.
The palace is open for visitors on all days except Sundays. The timings are 10 AM to 6 PM.

How did I reach there?
I called up palace administrative office and asked them how can I reach the Palace from Domlur. They were of good help.
Most of the places in Bangalore are like nodes of doubly linked list. Consider alphabets as nodes in the doubly linked list. You can reach the letter “S” from A, traversing through B,C,D,…..P,Q,R or by traversing through Y,X,…U,T from Z.
So there are 3 ways you can reach the Palace from Domlur.
1. Go to Shivaji Nagar bus stand. From there, take a bus that goes towards Yeshwanthpur. Get down at Vasanth Nagar.
2. Go to M.G. Road -> Cunningham Road. Find Chandrikha hotel and from there the palace is of 5 minutes walk. It is near Mount Carmel College.
3. Go to Majestic. From there take a bus towards Vasanth Nagar from platform no. 24.

Among these routes, the first two are shorter. But as I am comfortable and have many buses to reach Majestic by bus no 333. I took bus no.111 from platform no.24 and got down at Mount Carmel College and the palace is 2 mins walk from there.
From Vasanth Nagar, bus no. 137A takes you back to Domlur, but I got down at IndiraNagar.

Total cost of the trip: Rs. 144
Domlur to Majestic - Rs. 10
Majestic to Vasanth Ngr - Rs. 7
Entry fee to Palace - Rs. 100
Vasanth Ngr to IndiraNgr - Rs. 7

A big calendar with photos of Fern Hill Palace in Ooty and a table calendar are given as a complementary gift when you get the entry ticket. The Fern hill palace has now been converted in to a five star hotel.

Once you pay the entry ticket, there are guides appointed in the palace to take you around and give you a brief description about things.

Wodeyars
Wodeyars are considered the real kings of Mysore and Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan created a kingdom of their own and ruled from Srirangapatna.

Wodeyars have three palaces – this Bangalore Palace, the Mysore Palace, and Fern Hill Palace Ooty. This Bangalore Palace was built using Windsor Castle as a model and Mysore Palace was built with Buckingham Palace as model.
The throne in Mysore Palace is said to have ascended from Pandavas, which was then used by King Vikramaditya too and now is with Wodeyars. Even now, during Dasara festival, the current descendant of Wodeyar dynasty sits in it wearing royal clothes. But it is so rich and made of metals that it gets heated up and the King doesn’t sit in it for more than half an hour.

There is a very big dressing mirror in a room whose frames are coated with gold.

Elephant’s legs and head
There is a head of the elephant near the entrance of the palace(inside the palace). It is a real elephant’s head which is preserved using chemicals. The elephant was very wild and killed many people and hence it is said the Wodeyar King ordered his men to kill it. The of lower part the elephant’s legs are cut off to a height of 2 foot and cushions were made and they are fixed at the top of the elephant legs to make stools(which resemble dressing table stool). There is a stool made of bullock’s legs also. All these were treated with chemicals so that they don’t decay.

Weighing machine
I found a weighing machine in the palace. The setup is as: there is a two seater sofa kind of thing made of wood. The person to be weighed should sit on one seat and the other seat contains a weighing instruments which is connected to the first seat. But it is sad to find that this is not working now.

Refrigerator
There is a cupboard made of a different material, coated with wood on the outside. There are many compartments inside it and ice cubes are placed in the top most compartment on one side. This was used like a refrigerator to preserve food materials.

There is a seater(like sofa) made of a material like tiles, which was brought from Spain. Queen’s room is decked with wallpaper from Japan.

There are other things like dressing tables, chairs, lamps, empty perfume bottles, statues and sculptures that are available in any other palace. There are many paintings painted by Raja Ravi Varma and many other painters all over the palace. The most striking thing, here is there are numerous black and white photos of few past generations of Wodeyar Kings. I haven’t found so many photos in any other palace, I have visited so far.

And this is the first palace, where I got to see bathrooms and toilets. There were Western toilets and the Queen’s bathroom was bigger than the King’s. There was a partition between the place where the Western Toilet commode was present and the bathroom.

Chandramukhi movie
Many rooms of the palace was rented out for the shooting of Chandramukhi movie. The rental per day is something around Rs. 1.5 lakhs. The Chandramukhi room is actually the King’s room and from one of the windows, is where Jothika looks in to the dance master’s (Vineeth’s house). The dance master house is actually a small quarters or a guest house for officers coming from outside the state to stay.

I saw the stairs they show in the movie, which leads to Chandramukhi room. In reality, this set of stairs and the room where Malavikha faints and falls are at a distance from Chandramukhi room. And the door(which has all those sacred threads and is opened by a long key) that is shown that leads to Chandramukhi room is a set, and was placed in fron of the original door. Apart from the door, the rooms are real.

On a last note, renovation is going on to preserve the palace in good condition. The maintenance is good and this palace is a must-see if you are in Bangalore or visiting Bangalore!

Trip to Tipu Sultan Summer Palace

2007-06-30T22:25:00.000+05:30

This palace is said to resemble Daria Daulat Palace of Srirangapatna. The palace construction was started by Hyder Ali (Father of Tipu Sultan).This palace is a two-storeyed building, though it resembles single-storeyed. The first floor has around 2 rooms on each side(left and right). There is a darbar like setting on three sides of the first floor. It is as if the king will be able to address people from three sides of the building. But only one side (front side) of the building has more space in front of it now as in the other two sides, new buildings have come up. There is a fort nearby which is called Bangalore fort (Bangalore Kila).

From what I read, my assumption is the fort was enclosing the palace but now because of the new buildings and encroachments that have come up, the fort and palace stand as two separate unrelated entities.

The ground floor houses a small museum with few paintings, few descriptions and yes, two rockets!!!

Before going on, hope you all know that Tipu is the son of Hyder Ali and Fakrunissa (alias Fathima). He lived in the 18th century and was known as Tiger of Mysore.

Story behind the name “Mysore Tiger”
One day, when Tipu was young and when he went for hunting in forest, a tiger sprang on him all of a sudden and he fought alone and killed the tiger. And so the name.

The famous toy
A model of a toy which Tipu liked is kept in the museum. He liked the original toy(which is now in some Europe museum) so much that he used to carry it with him most of the time. The toy depicts a tiger sprung up on a British soldier. It was done so scientifically, that there is a small setting in the body of the tiger, and which when closed(from opened state) will create the sound of tiger’s roar. Tipu got this done hearing that Lord/General(Don’t know which) Munroe was killed by a tiger. Few days back, Tipu was defeated by Munroe in a small battle.

Throne of Tipu Sultan
There is a painting and description of a throne. The throne is made of gold and stone. There is a Staff upon which a Canopy is present. The Canopy was decked with pearls. (Imagine a chariot and its umbrella. A canopy is something like an umbrella). At the top of the Canopy, there is a carving of Huma bird. In those days, it was considered that, whoever the Huma bird alights on, he will become a king (Or “will wear the crown” according to original words given in the inscription).
Tipu sweared that he will ascend that throne only after he chases away British from the country. So he never got to ascend it. After his period, it was impossible to move the throne easily as it was very heavy and they could not sell it out as one piece as it was very costly. So parts of it were cut and sold separately. The Huma bird was sent as a gift to Queen Victoria by some British General.

Tipu’s officers
Tipu made all his officers to take oath that they won’t embezzle money before they assumed offices. He also made them declare all their assets before they enter public service.

Tipu and his dreams
Tipu used to record his dreams in a diary and always tried to find a co-relation between what is happening in his life and what he is seeing in his dreams. He used to record his dreams only when he was alone. Once when British captured his fort, they looked and took part of this collection with them.

Rockets
Coming to rockets, two of the rockets are present in the museum and the rest in other museums (including museums outside India). Tipu had a skilled army of 5000 who can handle rockets. The rockets were able to hit a target at around 2.5 kilometres. Our President Dr. Kalam had visited a museum (don’t remember whether it is in Europe or US) with a fellow scientist as rocket technologists which housed Tipu’s rockets. The rocket’s capacity had been tested there and confirmed that it is true that it could hit a target within 2.5 kms. He had expressed his wonder that with the iron casings that were used in those days, the capacity of the rocket is a scientific achievement.

The Summer Palace is closed on Sundays and is open from 9 AM to 6 PM on the rest of the days. It is at a walkable distance from City market (K.R. market) in Bangalore. The entry fee is only Rs. 5. Adjacent to Tipu’s palace there is Venkataramana temple.

Bangalore fort (near Victoria Hospital) is not open for visitors.

The buildings, gardens and toilets are maintained well and especially the outside garden is maintained better than the building. Whoever is in charge of the maintenance of palace is worthy of appreciation.

P.S: What I have written here is from what I read and saw. So the versions one hears from tour guides should be more interesting.

For more readings, click on to the links:
1. More about Tipu Sultan
2. Tipu Summer Palace (Courtesy: The Hindu)
3. “Tipuvin Kangal” article by Paavannan in Kumudam Magazine dated 13th June 2007

Indian who stunned MNCs

2007-05-20T14:50:00.000+05:30

How Keki Gharda stunned the MNC giants

Courtesy: Rediff.com

Amazing Story of the making of Naukri

2007-01-27T07:21:00.000+05:30

I crib sometimes about waking up so early and getting to bed very late because of the travel time to my work place. After reading this, I think I wont do that anymore!

Making of Naukri
Courtesy: Rediff.com

Winners are made, not born!

Nice Quote

2007-01-21T14:01:00.000+05:30

When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Sweetest of birthday wishes!

2007-01-14T13:22:00.000+05:30

I have seen many blogposts, where in, the author says that it is her/his birthday and the wishes start pouring in. Even I call up friends on my birthday and say, "Hey its my birthday today! Why dint u greet me?"

But Munch(Well, her name is Manju) took me by surprise.
Today, I visited her blog(She had also sent a mail and e-greeting on my birthday - some one week back) and what did I see there? A blogpost posted on the day of my birthday with a few words about me.

Thanks again Munch! You have made my day...sorry year!

On the move...

2006-11-25T15:57:00.000+05:30

Just thought of putting together travel info...

1. Railways

Online Railway Reservation
Indian Railways
PNR status enquiry
Southern Railways
Map search of Southern Railways
Train Enquiry

2. Bus travel

KSRTC Visit the Service Availability of Enquiry Section
KPN Travels
Raj National Express
For Conti travels, National Travels,etc
For Sharma travels, Jabbar Travels,etc

3. Local city bus routes of BMTC (BMTC- Bangalore Metropoliton Transport Corporation)
Search 1
Search 2

Sigh!

Simi, Rekha and Nach Baliye-2

2006-11-18T17:45:00.000+05:30

I have seen N number of interviews of famous personalities. Somehow or the other, they bore me a lot. But couple of days ago, I happened to see "Rendezvous with Simi Garewell" where Simi interviewed Rekha. I really liked the way it went on - be it the research the team has done bfore the interview, Simi's style of bringing up the questions, the way Rekha spoke without much ado. It was Fabulous.

One more programme, I have nearly fallen in love with, is Nach Baliye2 in Star One. I was lucky that I saw the re-telecast of all the previous episodes on one day(All the episodes were re-telecasted 2 weeks ago - it took the whole day). Hats off to the comments by judges, patient choreographers and the amateur participants(One cannot call them amateur dancers anymore), who r getting toned up with every episode. Its worth a opportunity. I really envy the participants. But the dance of Malaika last week was a great disappointment. She, being one of the judges and Saroj Khan being the choreographer - I expected a lot from her.

The Case of the Lost Cell phone

2006-09-07T21:01:00.000+05:30

On Tuesday (5th September 2006), I lost my cell phone on my way to office. I got into an auto, a few steps away from my hostel.
I usually keep my cell phone in the pouch of my one-way bag. As soon as I got into the auto, and the auto travelled few metres, I realised my cell phone was missing. I went back to the place, where I got into the auto and traced my way back till the hostel. Within that time, somebody had picked up my phone and switched it off.

Fact about IMEI number
When one's cellphone gets stolen or lost, the most one can do is lock and de-activate his/her sim card by calling the service provider(BSNL, Airtel, Aircel, Hutch,etc.). In Chennai, R.K.Nagar(near Mandaveli) is the main office to go to do it.
Here again, mine was a Coimbatore BSNL number. So after going to RK Nagar telephone exchange, I was told to call up Coimbatore service centre (No: 94431 24365) and de-activate it.
Nothing can be done if you know the IMEI number other than that it will be useful to register police complaint. I called up the Nokia care (Ph: 30303838). They said it is just for their reports that they will record it. The myth that you can deactivate your phone using the IMEI number is NOT TRUE. IMEI number is just a unique number to identify your handset(for cases of verification like you are giving it in a service centre and getting it back).

How to register complaint without going to police station in person
This article says how to register a complaint for lost cell phone without going to police station.

About International Mobile Equipment Identity(IMEI) number by Nokia

With Idiot box

2006-07-21T18:41:00.000+05:30

After a long time, I am getting glued to the hostel's idiot box. My all time favourites are "Rangoli" in DD, "Tu Tu Main Main" which was earlier telecasted in Star Plus and now in Star Utsav.

Just going back, I wonder how my taste has changed through times. I used to watch Detective serials("Reporter" starring Shekhar Suman, "Suraag" starring Soodesh Berry, "Tehkikaat",etc. in DD) and serials related to ghosts and spirits(Eg: "Aap Beethi" in DD). Nowadays, I am getting more inclined towards comedy. My current favourites are "Mr. Bean" in Pogo and "Office Office" in Sab TV. Well, I am laughing my heart out sitting in the ground floor of the hostel watching these and girls passing by have decided to better stay away from me. They are not daring to come near me and the TV to change the channel :-).What a pleasure!!!

Not to forget what happened 2 days back:

A girl: Whatz today's dinner?
I hear as: What is that u r watching?
Me: Mr. Bean
The girl: Oh! Rice today?
Me: Oh, no. I said Mr. Bean.
The girl:...........
Me(to myself): Y doesn't she have a look at the TV herself ???!!

Has this happened to you?

2006-07-10T21:55:00.000+05:30

1. You are dining in a star hotel(where you use multiple plates). And the waiter takes off your plate, before you are done with the contents of the plate, without even asking you.

2. You get into a bus asking the driver if it goes via a particular place, only to be told by the conductor(after you get into the bus and it has started) that the bus wont go that way.

3. You come across book titled "How to walk in High heels" in management books section of a bookshop.

4. You find kids behave better than you.

5. You greet the birthday baby on the wrong day.

P.S: "How to walk in High heels" - The price of the book was about Rs.750+. Well, I initially thought this was yet another book that will go into the kitty of participants of beauty pageants.But found out that the book was all about Self Help, Inspiration, Improvement,etc. Consoling myself, I made up my mind not to form an opinion in first sight. Anyway, found another book,"All about Wearing High Heels: For Girls/Women " which comes under the category of Beauty and Fashion.

GIRL...

2006-06-27T22:53:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: The following is a forward.

Here is a girl, who is as much educated as you are;
who is earning almost as much as you do;
one, who has dreams and aspirations just as you have
because she is as human as you are;
one, who has never entered the kitchen in her life
just like you or your sister haven't,
as she was busy in studies and competing in a system
that gives no special concession to
girls for their culinary achievements;
one, who has lived and loved her parents & brothers & sisters,
almost as much as you do for 20-25 years of her life;
one, who has bravely agreed to leave behind all that, her home,
people who love her, to adopt your home, your family, your ways and
even your family name;
one, who is somehow expected to be a master-chef from day #1,
while you sleep oblivious to her predicament in her new circumstances,
environment and that kitchen;
one, who is expected to make the tea, first thing in the morning
and cook food at the end of the day,
even if she is as tired as you are, maybe more,
and yet never ever expected to complain;
to be a servant, a cook, a mother, a wife,
even if she doesn't want to;
and is learning just like you are
as to what you want from her;
and is clumsy and sloppy at times
and knows that you won't like it if she is too demanding,
or if she learns faster than you;
one, who has her own set of friends,
and that includes boys and even men at her workplace too,
those, who she knows from school days
and yet is willing to put all that on the back-burners
to avoid your irrational jealousy,
unnecessary competition and your inherent insecurities;
yes, she can drink and dance
just as well as you can, but won't,
simply because you won't like it,
even though you say otherwise;
one, who can be late from work once in a while
when deadlines, just like yours, are to be met;
one, who is doing her level best
and wants to make this most important relationship
in her entire life a grand success,
if you just help her some and trust her;
one, who just wants one thing from you,
as you are the only one she knows
in your entire house - your unstinted support,
your sensitivities and most importantly - your understanding,
or love, if you may call it.
gals...b proud if yur one like this..
guys..dont let go a gal like this one..

Disclaimer: Whatever is published above in this post, is a forward.

Got the above write-up through a forward mail. I second the words above. Liked it a lot

Three more...Moongil Kottai, RaajaThilagam and Kadigai

2006-05-31T20:28:00.000+05:30

Moongil Kottai by Sandilyan
This story is about how chera thalapathy's son Ilamaaran rescues Chera king who is kept under imprisonment in a Moongil kottai(bamboo fort) by Pandiyan Nedunchezhian. Ilamaaran and Pandiyan Nedunchezhian's sister Imayavalli fall in love with each other at the same time.

Raaja Thilagam by Sandilyan
This story is about Pallava king Paramesuvaran, his son Raaja Simman(also named as Narasimha pallavan who was one of the famous pallava king),a chinese Yang- chin,Maivaizhi selvi(a spy's daughter and love interest of Raaja simman), Rangapathaaga Devi(daughter of Ganga king Poovikraman and also another love interest of Raja simman), Aacharya Dandi, Vikramadityan(Chalukya King), his son Vinayaadithan and his grandson Vijayadithan, and Sri Raamapunyavallabar(Chalukya's war and peace minister, as he is called). Raaja simman is also a great sculptor and builds two famous temples - Aranga naadhar temple in Kanchi and Arangan temple in Kadal mallai(Mahabalipuram). Yang-chin is from China's Royal family who comes to Raja simman with a request to build a Buddha temple and becomes Raja Simman's good companion.

Vikramadithan comes to South to take revenge as his capital city Vaathapi was destroyed by Narasimma pallavan for the sake of his lover Sivakami who was taken away by Chalukya king(Read Sivagamiyin Sabadham by Kalki). But as he respects art, he doesn't destroy the city Kanchi but just wants to win the pallavas in war and take up their country.

In this story, there is reference to Acupuncture, which is introduced by the Chinese prince Yang- chin to pallavas to cure the battlewounds.

Kadigai by Baalakumaran
I didn't like this book much but this tells about how Pandiya's Aabathudhavi padai(which is mentioned in lot of historical books) were formed. This talks about Ravidhaasan,Baalagopan, Pandya King Veerapandiyan, Chola prince Aaditya Cholan(who killed Veerapandiyan. Aaditya Cholan was the son of Sundara Cholan and elder brother of Raja Raja Cholan alias Arunmozhi).

Its me

2006-04-27T07:33:00.000+05:30

You Are a Blue Flower

A blue flower tends to represent peace, openness, and balance.
At times, you are very delicate like a cornflower.
And at other times, you are wise like an iris.
And more than you wish, you're a little cold, like a blue hydrangea.

What Color Flower Are You?

Back from vacation

2006-04-02T22:50:00.000+05:30

Took a small vacation from blogworld.
During my vacation, read two more books of Sandilyan - Vilairaani and Yavanaraani.

Vilairaani is about Veeragupta(Padai thalaivan of Chandragupta Maurya), Chandragupta Maurya, Chanakya, Saara(Chandragupta's love interest), Prabavathi Devi (Veeragupta's love interest). A group of robbers is all that Chandragupta has for an army. But how Chanakya's brain establishes the empire is a must-read. The responsibility given to Vilairaani(Prabhavathi Devi) and how much faith they have in her talent in her sword is great.

YavanaRaani - this is about Ilanchezhian(Karikaal cholan's padai thalaivan), Karikaal cholan, Alli(Karikaal cholan's love interest and a good spy), Poovazhagi(Ilanchezhian's love interest), Yavanaraani(the European princess), Tiberias(the European Padai thalapathy). This is about the way Europeans intruded India and how Cholas managed it,how Karikaal cholan got his name. This is a wonderful book to read abt our people's arrangements to handle floods, their warfare, their chariot race, and so on.

History is not just history...

2006-01-30T22:41:00.000+05:30

January becomes a special month, not only for the reason that it is the first month of the year, but also or more for the reason that I was born in that month.Do u know, the world-renowned Scientist Stephen Hawking was born on my birth date i.e., 8th (Just the year was 1942). So I successfully completed one more year in this world. It was my 22nd birthday. Was at home for five days and made my mom cook all that I liked.

Now before I come to the books I read in one month, let me tell u about the difference I felt between the writing styles of Kalki, Sandilyan and Vikraman.
Kalki, when he tells about a particular plot or secret, he doesn't reveal it soon. Its not easy to predict when the secret will be revealed. So I have to speed up expecting it will come in some forthcoming chapter.I feel so restless until I get the answer, which I have no idea where it will come up.
But Sandilyan, if he brings up a question, he gives the answer, at the most, in the next chapter itself. Vikraman also writes similar to Sandilyan. But I feel Sandilyan uses a more descriptive language - he uses that in describing everything but there is an opinion among the readers that he is very descriptive when he comes to the "Thalaivi"(heroine) in the novel. But I think he is as descriptive on other characters or places also.
As all these books are based on the true history and have used up the inscriptions as their basis, no book is a stand alone. We have same characters coming in other books too. So its like getting to know different views, angles or sub stories of the main history that has taken place.

Now the books.I will have to prepare an excel sheet to store all these. But here's the gist...

Kalika
A tamil book translated from Malayalam. It was about something similar to black magic. Dint like it much.
Kadal Pura by Sandilyan
This is about Ilayapallavan (Rajendra Chola's padaithalaivan), Kaanchana Devi(Princess of gadaaram, Sri Vijayam. Sri Vijayam is today's Malaysia), Gunavarman(King of Gadaaaram), Manjazhagi(Akshaya munai's princess - actually daughter of Jeyavarman, brother of Gunavarman). This book is about the battles fought in sea. A nice, descriptive book - u will feel like joining the navy now, if its still the same. While I was reading this book, Malathi auntie who was one of my hostel roommates was from Malaysia(She was basically from India, whose ancestors, few generations back moved to Malaysia). Added to that, she has read Kadalpura and is a fan of Chandilyan. I got to know about the different races of people residing there and about the gold there(as it was also known as Swarna Bhoomi).
Kanni MAdam by Sandilyan
Main characters are Aparajithan(Veerapandian's senapathy), Kaarkuzhali (a small kingdom's princess), SingaLathu PaingiLi(Thats how she is called. forgot her name. Poonguzhali???). Its about how Aparaajithan plots and how he crushes the influence of Izha naadu(Now, Srilanka) in Tamilnadu with help from Cholas.
Mannan MagaL by Sandilyan
The main characters are Karikaalan, Niranjana Devi,Raja Raja Narendran(born by the a marriage between Vengy Naattu raja and Chola princess), Chalukya king Jayasimman, Araiyan Rajarajan (Padai thalaivan under Rajendra Cholan) . Its all about plots and I came to understand what COMMUNICATION and DIPLOMATIC TALK means.
Gangapuri Kavalan by Vikraman
Main characters are Rajendra Cholan(Son of Raja Raja Cholan), Veeramaadevi(young wife of Rajendra Cholan), Raja Raja Cholan, Poongodi(daughter of Raja Raja Cholan and my favourite Inbavalli). This describes about NAtya Kalai(dance), the jealousy and rivalry among the wifes of a King, and how the Gangai konda Cholapuram was designed.

In all these, I find that even Princes and Princesses cannot marry according to their wishes. Especially in Kanni MAdam, Kaarkuzhali's marriage becomes the deciding factor for a lot of makes and breaks among the kingdoms.

Kalki and Vikraman

2005-12-26T07:09:00.000+05:30

Books
Last two weeks have been wonderful. What made it wonderful were Sivakamiyin sabadham, Parthiban Kanavu and Nandhipurathu Nayagi.

Ponniyin Selvan ,Sivakamiyin sabadham and Parthiban Kanavu are books by Kalki.

In Sivakamiyin Sabadham, he has dealt with Pallavas and in Parthiban Kanavu, it is a combination of Cholas and Pallavas, where in Parthiba Cholan's son Vikraman and Narasimha pallavan's daughter Kundavai lose their hearts to each other and get married in the end.
Raja Raja Cholan was born nearly 3 centuries after that.Ponniyin Selvan is about his period.
Nandhipurathu Nayagi by Vikraman is a continuation of Ponniyin Selvan, which answers many questions that were left unanswered in Ponniyin Selvan.

I have nearly fallen in love with these genre of books.Wud like to go back to those days and live among those people.

To read yet:
1.Gangapuri Kaavalan by Vikraman on Rajendra Cholan.
2. Kadalpura by Chandilyan.

Characters I love
Of all the characters I have read so far in these books, Inbavalli has captured my heart like no others.I can't exactly define why. For people who haven't read the book, she is a character(this is very humble description) in the story Nandhipurathu Nayagi written by Vikraman. The next character I love is Sivakami(but lost some liking after she refused to return with Narasimha Pallavan, when he came to bring her back to his country).

Why?
One striking thing in all these books is the kings(Mahendra Pallavan) or anybody else(Ilayapraatti Kundavai), etc don't let Sivakami or Inbavalli to get close with the Prince. I hate that attitude of theirs. Sivakami and Inbavalli are Bharathanatya dancers. Considering the status, Mahendra pallavan and Kundavai don't let them get close with their princes, though the two dancers are not court dancers or courtesans. They give a almost unacceptable reason that they are doing it to keep the art alive. Will write about this sometime later.

Few links
Kalki's works in Tamil font
Sivagamiyin Sabadham in English

Coming soon...
Will be writing a separate post on Inbavalli soon.

The case of a ticket to be cancelled

2005-12-11T22:45:00.000+05:30

This is how it started...
I got a train ticket for 28th October 2005 - for journey from Chennai to Coimbatore via IRCTC. Amount was transferred from my bank account and I received the ticket from IRCTC in courier. Few days bfore the journey date, I took it for cancellation. I was told that the ticket(with the given PNR no and ticket no) has been reported "Lost" in Chennai Annanagar Railway Reservation Centre by somebody. In Coimbatore, I was told to go to Annanagar Railway Reservation Centre. But does it make sense? If somebody in Assam Reservation centre has reported the ticket "lost", should I then go to Assam? What is the need for all this Centralisation?
What I don't understand here is that - I am holding the ticket. It is in my possession since the time I got it. The ticket amt was transferred from my account. I have booked for me in my name. How the hell can they accept a reported lost case?
So I then mailed IRCTC.There was no reply for more than two weeks. Wondering why they display their mail id. I don't think if somebody even cares to check it. If they are acting on it, I should at least get a response from them saying that they are looking into it.No. That wasn't the case.
Then I checked Chennai Central Railway phone no in net and called them up. They told me to write a letter to CCM(Chief Commercial Manager), Re-funds section, Southern Railway Headquarters, Chennai. I wrote a detailed letter with a Xerox copy of the ticket I am holding and couriered it to them on 14th November 2005 and waited. No response.
I went to CCM office in person. They told me to go to Annanagar Reservation Centre, meet the Chief Reservations Supervisor and get a report from him.Only if they change the status of "Reported Lost" from there, the CCM office will proceed further.
I travelled in bus from Chennai Central to Annanagar(upto Thirumanagalam bus stop). Most of them dint know that such a reservation centre even existed. I was led to Annanagar Railway station, from there to ICF Reservation Centre and from there to Annanagar Railway Reservation Centre in Chintamani bus stop. It can be reached with a Tasmac wine shop and bar on the way.
Then in the Annanagar Reservation centre, the Chief Reservation Supervisor(CRS) tells me that there is no such "Reported Lost" case there, as far as he checked in his files(in the file where he records all the complaints, Reported Lost cases,etc). And thanks to Centralisation, the CRS told me after 3 days of journey date, they won't be able to access the PNR nos from their centre, and that I should go to main reservation centre.
I explained to him that I can't keep roaming here and there and told him that I atleast want a report that there was no such "Reported Lost" case in their centre. He told me to write a letter requesting that report, and signed it with his seal. Took atleast 1 hr there.
Now I have to take it to CCM office again.
The ticket cost is Rs. 235. But I would have atleast spent Rs. 100 on this -including travel charge, courier charge, etc.
The state of Indian Railways - well no comments.

Chennai to Coimbatore - Around the water in 2 days

2005-11-07T06:54:00.001+05:30

Yeah, in "Ek tho theen..." song's introduction style, I hear many of u asking me, " Pehle Pehle yeh kahiye Kahaan thi aap.....". Wud like very much to say,"Mein? Mein tho kar rahi thi kisiki intezaar..... ".
But the reality is that, bcoz of the love of Varuna Bhagwan(the God of rain) towards Chennai and the year 2005's idea of having Diwali and Ramzan in the same week, drove me home. Spent 10 days at home.
It would be an understatement if I don't mention my tragic(naa naa, now I will call it heroic or adventurous) journey to home this time.
On a stretch, Chennai to Coimbatore takes 8 hrs by train and max. 10 hrs by bus. Here is my travelogue.....

Oct 26, 2005
I reach hostel by 10 PM from office. Hostel mess closed. No dinner. Yahoooooooooooo! I don't have to eat rice.
Oct 27, 2005 5.00 AM
No power. So woke up. Looks very dark and climate is very cold. It has been rainingcontinuously. So sleep again.
6.00 AM
Power comes back. Wear a sweater. Switch on fan (for some of yday's clothes drying inside room) and go to sleep.
7.00 AM
Faintly I cud hear someone saying that there is no power in the other wing(the side where the water pump runs) of hostel. This wakes me up as if somebody has thrown ice cold water over my warm face. So I take bath soon(bcoz the water will stop soon, which is not something unexpected). I wear a thick dress as its too cold. My next roommate shouts that the breakfast is "Pongal". So I decide not to take breakfast in hostel today. Will have it in Office cafeteria.
8.45 AM
I get a call from my office colleague (who was in office) that the company has declared holiday to Chennai offices as there is hip-level water in front of office and no power.People in office cudn't leave bcoz of this.
9.00 AM
I get a lot of SMS from office colleagues abt the holiday and I do my part by fwding to some more.
9.15 AM
I call up my mom and say that I am starting then as there is no power, and in few hrs, there will b no water too. And as office is also a holiday, and I feel a bit feverish, I am trying to come home soon by some day train.
9.30 AM
I call up travel agent and I hear there r 300 vacancies in West Coast Xpress to Coimbatore which starts at 11 AM. I bid goodbye to my hostelmates saying that I am going home by train, when many r waiting in the hostel with that day's train tickets as they r afraid to travel even in auto to rly station/bus stand in the fear of getting stranded in the middle of their journey bcoz of rain.
9.45 AM
Without combing my hair, just put a "clip Kondai" as my hair isn't dry after bath, I come out with my luggage packed in 5 mins.I have 400 Rs. only in my hand. No time to go to ATMs.
Catch an auto.(Costed 50 Rs.).
10.30 AM
After the auto swam in water for 45 mins, here I am in Central Rly station starring at the counters, where the man in the only open counter says that all trains r cancelled.
10.45 AM
All the travels near Central Rly station say that buses to Coimbatore will start from there only in night. They tell me to try my luck in Koyambedu.
11.45 AM
Reached Koyambedu, with the auto swimming second time in water. (Auto travel cost Rs. 120). I am half-drencehed. By the time, I get down from auto and take few steps into Koyambedu bus stand, I am fully drenched as if somebody has lifted me and dropped into a pool of water.
12.00 AM to 9 PM
As there r no direct buses to Coimbatore starting then, I board a bus to Salem(Ticket cost Rs. 110), dripping with water.Water is running inside the bus too. Everybody and everything inside the bus is wet. There is awful odour inside the bus and I feel like puking. I keep my heavy bag on my lap as I don't want things to get wet by keeping the bag down on the floor. When the bus goes via Vadapalani, I cud c an ambassador car fully immersed in water. I am happy that I am inside a bus, as I now have only toe-level water, when I am inside it.
As I wore a thick dress, it isn't getting dry either. I long for sunshine. I really feel like puking. I ctrl my urge and try to sleep. But my legs r aching as the bag is heavy, and my heavy drenched dress is adding to the plea.
The bus stops in Dindivanam. Though I haven't ate anything since the previous night, the stinking smell puts me off. So I buy a MarieGold biscuit pkt(Cost Rs. 14 - cheater. Its usually Rs. 12 in departmental stores) alone and force some 3 to 4 biscuits into my stomach. Stink, dampness, puking sensation, cold, hunger.................... I wanted to jump out of the bus.
Bus atlast reaches Salem by 9 PM.

I stay in my uncle's place and start from Salem the nxt day at 11 AM(Ticket cost Rs. 55). The bus reaches Coimbatore by 4 PM(Normally it is 3 hrs journey). Now, I am wondering y it took so long, despite the fine weather. I catch a town bus to my home. What a warm journey it was! I reached home successfully on October 28th 2005 at 5 PM, with around Rs. 45 in hand.

I am planning a journey to Antarctica and African forests. Anyone interested???????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mein phir aa gayi

2005-10-17T06:52:00.000+05:30

Hey all,
Have been out of blogging world for some time. Lot of things to catch up. Mails to reply, blog posts to write & to read & comment on, SRK's Lux ad, DVD on his life, ......

BTW, I liked the new Toyota Corolla ad that is being telecasted, where a girl predicts abt a guy's life by looking at his hand.
I now have my own Salangai or Gungru. Yahoooooooooo!

And I have decided I will adorn the same look for both October and November this time. So here I am. (Its raining heavily in Chennai).

October:
*The name is from the Latin Word "octo" for "eight". October was the eighth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period (summer in the southern hemisphere) was divided between January and February.
*October begins on the same day of the week as January in common years, but no other month begins on the same day of the week as October in leap years.
* A traditional Dutch name for October is Wijnmaand (wine month) because the first wines of the year have ripened.
* In Finnish, October is called lokakuu, meaning "month of dirt".
* In Scottish Gaelic, October is called an Damhar, meaning "rutting time" (of stags).
* In Irish, October is called Deireadh Fómhair, meaning "end of harvest-time".
* In Turkish, October is called Ekim, meaning "sowing" because of the sowing of wheat.

November:
* The name is from the Latin novem for "nine". November was the ninth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period (summer in the southern hemisphere) was divided between January and February
* November begins on the same day of the week as March every year and also February except in leap years.
* In Finnish, November is called marraskuu, meaning "month of the dead".

Courtesy for the above info : wikipedia

The tagging...

2005-09-06T06:28:00.000+05:30

Seven things you plan to do before you die
Read as many books as I could
Mark my name in the world of dance
Learn French, German and Japanese
Learn swimming and horse riding
Make people say,"Ladki ho to aisi"
Complete another 2 graduations
Well, think abt the seventh thing I plan to do bfore I die

Seven things you can do
Talk
Read
Write
Walk
Work
Eat
Sleep

Seven things you can't do
Tolerate untidiness
Borrow other's dress or accessories
Lend my dress or accessories
Act deaf and dumb
Drink softdrinks
Tolerate ppl who smoke and drink
Be peaceful when there is no water coming in the tap

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex
Responsibility
Strong will
Intelligence
Tidiness(Clean shaven,....)
Enthusiasm
Common sense
Humour

Seven things you say most
Yes
Its ok
Hai
Actually
No
Hello
No way

Seven celebrity crushes
Sharukh Khan
Sharukh Khan
Sharukh Khan
Sachin
Sharukh Khan
Sharukh Khan
Sharukh Khan

Seven (eight plz) people you want to tag
P.S: Use the links in "Blogs of Friends and Blogs I visit" section
Priya
Viji
Vinesh
Monu
Abhinav
Prabu Karthik
Parthi
Arvi Sharma
Mamatha

So cool naa? I mean September;-)

2005-08-31T06:54:00.000+05:30

The name comes from the Latin septem, for "seven" - September was the seventh month of the Roman calendar until 153 BCE.
September begins on the same day of the week as December every year.
September's flower is the morning glory.
September's birthstone is the sapphire.
Courtesy: Wikipedia

What did I do?

2005-08-30T06:18:00.000+05:30

I read a novel.
I went to office.
I washed my clothes.
I cleaned up my room.
I spoke to friends.
I updated my blog.
I commented on others' blogs.

I did nothing of the above for the past four days. I was at home;-).
Lots of work to catch up. I hope I will b a sleeping blogger for the next two weeks. So, this is to say "plz don't b disheartened if u miss my comments" ;-))

What day is today?

2005-08-22T06:19:00.000+05:30

Visited 123greetings.com. It seems that this is hug month(????!!!) and u shud c what all days can b celebrated. Many days tell abt food. Looks like a "Today's special" board.

Here is the list of some funny days...
22 Be An Angel Day
23 Hug Your Sweetheart Day
23 Ride The Wind Day
25 Kiss And Make Up Day
26 Toilet Paper Day
27 Just Because Day
27 Banana Lovers Day
29 Lemon Juice Day
31 Eat Outside Day

September 2005

5 Be Late For Something Day
5 Cheese Pizza Day
6 Coffee Ice Cream Day
7 Do It Day
9 Teddy Bear Day
9 Hot Dog Day
12 Chocolate Milkshake Day
13 Positive Thinking Day
13 Programmer's Day
14 Cream-filled Donut Day
17 God Bless America Day
22 Ice Cream Cone Day
23 Chocolate Day
24 Kiss Day
29 Pumpkin Day

From a forward...

2005-08-17T06:30:00.000+05:30

Liked this picture!

Its all in business

2005-08-16T06:05:00.000+05:30

Chennai is a lazy city. Here, the shops open only at 10 or 11 AM and close by 8 or 9 PM itself, unlike Coimbatore, where some shops even open at 6 AM. Generally at Coimbatore, the shops open atleast by 9 AM and close by 10 or 11 PM.
Coming to the other side of business in Chennai,these r some things, which every Chennai-ate wud have come across.

1. Chudis named after movie names and actresses.
For eg. there will b a chudi in the name of a movie(which means the female lead artist is supposed to have worn a similar kind of chudi in that movie). But there has been sometimes, where in the heroine wudn't have worn a chudi at all, and wud have resorted to modern dresses(read as lesser clothing).

2. With a cone of boiled groundnut in one hand, I entered Ranganathan Street last week. I wanted to buy a one-way bag(some single color, other than black). But this guy in the shop tried to convince me that red and black looks gud, and commented, "If u put on this bag, u will look like Jyothika in Manmadhan"(well, for ppl who dont have the GK of Tamil movie world, Manmadhan is a movie, in which Jyothika has acted). Hey, no thanx, I am not in the lookout for Surya!
(And curious ppl, I dint buy that bag).

3. One day, I was passing by the platform shops in Pondy Bazaar. There were 2 girls who were bargaining with the shopkeeper as he said some very high price for a nightie. So the shopkeeper said, "This is Simran nightie"(?????!!!!!)
But what I liked more was the one of the girls' reply. She quipped,"Then how will I fit into it?"

Welcome again!

2005-08-11T06:21:00.000+05:30

Announcing the launch of my other blog. It speaks abt Bharathanatyam, one of the greatest way of expressions of one's feelings. Click on the image to start your journey too.

Journey in Smoke vehicle(Pugai vandi).....

2005-08-08T06:54:00.001+05:30

This post is actually a comment to the blog Flying without Wings

First, lemme say it, in most of the trains, the "coolers"(the open train doors) r occupied by guys. As they r "first come, first serve" basis, and as girls don't prefer to b there(as its not safer), we dunno how it feels like to b there. And moreover, its the place frequented by smokers too(despite the "No smoking" warnings), so that they can blow smoke, which can b inhaled by the ppl sitting near the window of the coach, depending upon which direction the train is moving. I sometimes, have an urge to push the smoking fellow off the train(Hey! I haven't done that so far!).

And travelling alone, I get a lot of enquiries from home, asking who is sitting nxt to me or who is in the cabin, I am."Family" is the only answer that can satisfy my parents. But unfortunately, thatz the situation I am not mostly in, and not mostly like to. Even these days, when they c a girl travelling alone, u shud c the look in most of their faces, as if I am a runaway or something.

Abt my journeys -I have come across a film troop (comprising of make-up men, side artists, light boys), a noisy family(the only thing that 7 yr old spoilt brat dint do was hanging upside down from the fan and his younger sister crying continuously as if not being able to stand her brother's pranks), a grp of North Indian ppl returning after a wedding(eating was their only pastime and primetime activity).

But most of the other times, it will b a bunch of college ppl returning/going to college after holidays or software engrs returning/going home. But these old people r really gud. They hardly mind, perhaps they know that its not uncommon for a girl to travel alone(as their children wud also have did), and they r the ones I wud very much like to have as my cabinmates, as far as they don't want to strike a conversation with me.

One more thing, I hate those ppl who think that they r the guards of ppl in train and keep watching every activity of the ppl in the cabin. These ppl also have a unique tendency of talking abt all the robberies that wud have/will happen in trains and laugh out aloud on them. Not only that, they keep anticipating it, and sometimes I feel their urge can only b satiated if something like that actually happens.

She and He

2005-08-05T06:00:00.000+05:30

She doesn't know him before.
But her heart was beating faster each minute,
Faster than the seconds hand of the clock.
"No, I shouldn't be the first to tell."
-she said to herself,
Looking at him for the umpteenth time.

At last, she mustered up courage and blurted out,
"Will you please stop smoking?".
The other passengers in the bus didn't seem to care.

Look of August 2005

2005-08-01T06:58:00.000+05:30

Ohoy! On the ramp, welcoming August 2005!

August was named in honor of Augustus Caesar. The month reputedly has 31 days because Augustus wanted as many days as Julius Caesar's July. Augustus placed the month where it is because that's when Cleopatra died. Before Augustus renamed August, it was called Sextilis in Latin, since it was the sixth month in the Roman calendar which started in March.

August begins on the same day of the week as February in a leap year.

Courtesy for the above info on August: wikipedia

Not from scratch...

2005-07-28T06:04:00.000+05:30

This was not written by me from Scratch. Used Copy, Paste & Slight modifications.

" But,Mama....", said the little girl
after listening to yet another fairy tale
"How can the prince suddenly turn into a beast?"
Her mother smiled, for who would know better than her about what she had been through!!!!

Original source(the following) was by Gayu.
Source
"But,Mama....", said the little girl
after listening to yet another fairy tale
"How can the beast suddenly turn into a prince?"
Her mother smiled, for who would know better than her
that it is all in her eyes!!!!

From the keyboard of a muggle.....

2005-07-26T06:46:00.000+05:30

Was waiting eagerly for HP since the past few months. Yes, Harry Potter was released at last. What with all the hype as to who is the half-blood prince,and who is the important character, going to find his/her place only in picture frames hereafter in Hogwarts, who is Harry going to fall in love with, as Ron and Hermione were already showing signs of falling for each other.
Book was good but as read in some review, there is nothing astounding about this book, as they keep performing the same spells and curses, Hermione in her own perfectionist-know all-yet-sweet character, Harry getting into trouble with Snape as usual, and the will-win-even-if-world-turns-upside-down Gryffindor Quidditch team. Is there any non-muggle dictionary telling me a few meanings like snoggling,..............?

Also read "Girl Alone" by Rupa Gulab. So gud one(But yes, needed dictionary some times). Girls might like it a lot. Liked the book esp. for the apt comments of Arti(the lead role) of the book. This also showed me there r a lot of quite famous books in English literature which I shouldn't have missed.

Heard "Ah Aah"(Say it aloud using the way these words come in Lajja movie song to give some spl effects) songs. ARR is back again in his full form(But SJ Surya's touch in the songs cud have been avoided;-((((() . "Mayilirage.... " by Madhusree is gud. Is she the same Madhusree who sang "Saanwariya ..." of Swades? Or r they 2 different persons?

Stage - 3

2005-07-14T06:56:00.000+05:30

There she was again,
Peeping from the bus window,
With that efffervescent smile in her face,
Satisfaction spread all over the face.

He was very regular,
Never ever did he miss a day,
Thanking his stars for making him the favourite of a beautiful girl.

One particular day,
She peeped out of the bus window,
but her face shrinked.

He checked what was wrong with him,
unless he found that the movie hero's poster in the wall behind has been changed.

Simple

2005-07-14T06:18:00.000+05:30

There r ppl who make complex things simple.
Again there r ppl who make simple things complex.

Look of July 2005.

2005-07-14T06:03:00.000+05:30

This is my new yahoo avatar! Planned to change my avatar every month. After all, change is life!

How can I name myself now?

2005-07-01T06:45:00.000+05:30

Took a shot at poetry.(Too many inspirations to name here).

As Gayu("http://monuspeaks.blogspot.com/" Blog Title:Autobiography Written on June 27,2005)said, tried breaking into sentences of 4 words:

Same thing in two places,
Thought Impossible!
But after meeting you,
No more it is!
Unworded thoughts in my heart,
As words in your lips.

Then tried translating(my own idea of making it better)

Iru idangalil orey porul
Nadakkaadhu enrennniyirunden
Unnai paarkum varai!
Yen idhayathin yennanngalai
Un vaai vaarthaigalaai paarkum varai!

Hey! Really looks better naa! (The italics adds to the effect).
Now people respond to my title question.

Evolution of Poetry Stage -2

2005-07-01T06:33:00.000+05:30

This was written sometime back.

Vazhi mel vizhi vaithu kaathirunden.....
Vallavan varavillai enai azhaika.....
F5 mel viral vaithu Kaathirunden.....
Vandhathe oru mail ennakkaaga....................

Is this the following:

Eyes on the path....
No one to take me....
Finger on F5....
Came a mail to me....

Sounds really awful!

So conclusion:
Poetry style of Tamil and English are different. So decided no messing up anymore in the name of translation.

My day with 3 lines of code

2005-06-27T06:59:00.000+05:30

In 5th or 6th sem of college, I had Windows Programming as one of my subjects - two papers(theory and practical).
I saw a function(don't remember the syntax now) which creates a beep sound and there were 3 lines of sample code in the book,by which the beep continues in a loop until interruption.Now what I did was I added those three lines of code to the program and tested them. The code executed properly and I heard the beep sound. Then I commented those lines and ran it. The beep sound should stop naa! But in vain. I tried and tried, I compiled, built and executed but hmmmm, no way it was continuously beeping or ringing rather. I was too tired and a bit sweating. I decided to take a break. So I closed the program. And what do u think happened? Even after I closed the program, the beep or ring continued. Oh! my God ! I should have meddled with some system property, because in this VC++, we used to use a lot of APIs which involved a lot of system properties also at times. It was still ringing....was annoying me a lot. I closed my eyes and opened.My computer had vanished(Not bcoz of my newly invented program??????!!!!!!). I was in my cozy bed and my mom had been ringing the door bell for nearly 15 minutes, which in turn had morphed into my program beep sound :-)).
The following is what happened before all this.
That day we had a sort of model practical session - there weren't so many days bfore the exam.
We had our model practical session in the afternoon. I got a simple program related to check boxes and their actions depending on the click. So as I finished in one hr, Sir told that I can go home if I want. It was some 2.00PM. 15 mins in Scooty & another 2 mins, I was lying in my bed at home.

Ponniyin Selvan

2005-05-19T06:31:00.000+05:30

Have been reading Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki this weekend. Went to sleep at 2 or 3 AM because of it. The way the author has described the beauty of ladies- Ilaiya Piraatti Kundavai, Pazhuvoor Ilaiyaraani Nandhini and the lady of beauty and strength Poonguzhali, deserves a "wow!"
For eg, let me tell abt one instance where the author compares the beauty of Nandhini and Kundavai : He says Nandhini has a face as round as a moon, while Kundavai has a beautiful oval shape as if shaped by a sculptor.
I sometimes have the habit of skipping the over-descriptive lines in a book. But here, it became impossible. How many different ways has he followed to describe each situation that I wonder what I wud have done if I ever wrote such a book :-)). I wud have copied the lines, pasted it many times, did subtle changes each time - one set of description for a city/place, one set for the description of beauty of a lady, one set for the courage and strength of a charismatic King/"Veeran" would have been sufficient for me to write the whole book.
But I wonder how the author is able to write a different yet interesting description abt each place.
Somehow I feel, its a kind of pride to say that I am in the elite society who has read this gem of a book.
A must read!!!

Ghul jaa Cheese

2005-03-17T06:04:00.000+05:30

During my initial days in hostel, I was a goody-goody girl, who will get up at 5.30(irrespective of the time I sleep) in the morning and have a shower, get ready by 7.30 and go to office by 7.45(Enjoyed the morning walk). Everyone should have a look at Chennai city between 6.30 to 7.00. And unlike Coimbatore where most of the shops open as early as 5 or 6AM. Here, any shop opens only after some 8.30 AM. Lazy ppl:-(

Life has changed now. I get up at 7.30(Keeping on postponing the alarm for every 5 minutes right from 6.30). And will sleepily sit over there in bed until my roommate Swapna leaves at 8.15 for her work. Then slowly get ready, have breakfast, and start for work with Priya at some 10.15. By the time, we reach our office at 10.30 AM, Sun showers its full affection on us.

Again, after work, we reach hostel at some 8.30 PM, just to start a group discussion of everyone's day in office. Bhavani, Kalyani, Swapna, Ramya, Bhargavi and Priya torture me & Nirali by talking in Telugu.Now I have ended up learning a bit of Telugu. Only that I don't use appropriate forms of verbs and using "Agrinai" for persons and "Uyarthinai" for things. Naakku telugu baagu thelusu.

Me & my floormates(first floor) sit in the TV Room(TV room is present in the first floor) watching Hindi movies on Friday and Saturday nites - the funniest movie we watched was Hindi "Khushi"(after watching this, we felt Tamil "Khushi" was far more better), as only mega serials run in the TV, other days. 58, 36, 33 and 31 r the nos we remember even in sleep as they r the channel nos of Zoom, Zee Music, DD National and Sahara TV respectively. These 2 nites(Friday & Saturday) can b typically called the days of First floor ppl. The favourite food of ours is nothing other than the great "bread and jam"(from Nilgiris or Food World), whcih we will b eating at any hr of the nite. Everyday, somebody will come fwd & take up the task of spreading the jam(sometimes, we bring in Cheese or Butter too) on bread for others to eat.There will b an unanimous vote for Food World bread from our floor which is really soft.

Here, I shud mention abt my adventure:-(. I like butter & Jam with bread. One Saturday afternoon, I got the urge to try out cheese - nobody told me I shud get "Cheese Spread". I bought some brand's cheese(Milkman I think), which was actually mean to be cut into small slices and had to b sandwiched with bread. Instead, I thought it will melt like butter. So I applied on the bread & was sitting there(with my mouth watering) for the cheese to melt(Ghul ja my dear Cheese), in vain.

Why to look at the annoying things?

2005-03-10T06:08:00.000+05:30

This is a forward I got.

A man and his girlfriend were married. It was a large celebration. All of their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony and to partake of the festivities and celebrations. A wonderful time was had by all.
The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom was very dashing in his black tuxedo. Everyone could tell that the love they had for each other was true.
A few months later, the wife comes to the husband with a proposal: "I read in a magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage." she offered.
"Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together."
The husband agreed. So each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other.They thought about this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they came up with.
The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided that they would go over their lists.
"I'll start," offered the wife. She took out her list. It had many items on it. Enough to fill 3 pages, in fact. As she started reading the list of the little annoyances, she noticed that tears were starting to appear in her husbands eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Nothing" the husband replied, "keep reading your list."
The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly placed her list on the table and folded her hands over top of it.
"Now, you read your list and then we'll talk about the things on both of our lists." She said happily.
Quietly the husband stated, "I don't have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don't want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn't want to try and change anything about you."
The wife, touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept.
IN LIFE, there are enough times when we are disappointed, depressed and annoyed. We don't really have to go looking for them.
We have a wonderful world that is full of beauty, light and promise.
Why waste time in this world looking for the bad, disappointing or annoying when we can look around us, and see the wonderful things before us?

"B" "L" "A" "C" "K"

2005-03-07T06:16:00.000+05:30

Black was as good as white, or wait, is it Black is as good as Black?After a lot of rave reviews and the hype, which added to my frustration of not getting Black tickets(I mean white tickets for the movie "Black"), I ended up in Sathyam yesterday. The movie went on for 2 hrs & I have to tell a few things which I liked a lot in the movie.
1. The way Mitchell dances - as she has been blind, she wouldn't have known how a gud dance will actually look. But I thought the movie also made a point that dance is something which u don't learn by seeing others, but one that comes out from heart and expresses itself by the movements of the body.
2. The plain face of Mitchell which appears like a blank white paper but actually tells out a lot when her sister requests her not to spoil her engagement party.
3. The small girl who acted as Mitchell in young age
4. And last but not the least Mitchell's mom.
BLACK WAS WHITE.

Zindagi jeene ke liye, yeh saari dhuniya mere liye

2005-02-07T10:36:00.000+05:30

In my blog "As usual.....unusual", I wrote only abt billboards, but everyone wrote comments on TV commercial ads too. In that case, my fav are:
1. The "Cadbury's Dairymilk" ad, which featured in television long time ago, in which a girl will b eating a Dairy milk sitting in the gallery while her boyfriend will b playing cricket. And after the guy hits a sixer, the girl will go dancing into the cricket field.
2. The "Pepsi" ad in which Sharukh disguises as Sachin to get Pepsi & calls Dravid as "Saurav", and is atlast handed over the bat by Azhar to play in the field.
3. "Tez" mustard oil ad, in which the girl approves of marrying the guy after knowing that the guy cooked the bittergourd(which the girl normally doesn't like) taste better.
4. The "Asian Paints" ad, coming in TV recently, where the girl decides on marrying the guy living in the house, which is painted brightly with Asian paints, only atlast to find that the guy is some 10 yr old & she decides to wait.
5. The "Close-up" toothpaste ad - esp. the sweet girl in the ad, who comes to brush her teeth in her morning.
6. The "Pepsi" ad featuring Sachin, Fardeen Khan & Kareena Kapoor, where Sachin drinks the Pepsi when the current goes off in the lift, & turns the blame on Kareena & Fardeen without knowing that they were only life-size cut-outs.
7. The caption of a toothpaste ad(I don't remember now - shud b Close-up or Colgate) - "Zindagi jeene ke liye, Yeh saari dhuniya mere liye"
And many more... Will update when I remember.

Science or Religion?

2005-02-04T06:41:00.000+05:30

Hope everyone is familiar with Ashtami, Navami, Raghu Kaalam, auspicious timings, etc. Most of them consider these religious. So atheists hardly believe in those things. But I feel, there is more attached to these timings than the religious tag.
Actually, the religious beliefs on these auspicious & inauspicious timings were based on the planetary positions and motions. In olden days, it was difficult to spread these scientific explanations to everybody. So a religious face was given as people tend to follow things properly when it was given under religious title.But nowadays, even non-atheists r ignoring these inauspicious timings. They think that what they did in an inauspicious timing also turns out to b good, so its all nonsense.Its just like saying I walked with my eyes closed, but didn't get hurt. But the person can't walk always with his/her eyes closed. Its like this - if u go with u'r eyes closed, u may trip over or fall on something but it is not necessary that u SHOULD fall.
Expecting to hear from believers and non-believers...

Books and me

2005-01-19T06:01:00.009+05:30

I used to read only Perry Mason novels till my third year of college. I started reading other author books only after that. Better late than never :-)). I started a separate blog for books but found this blog more easy to handle and gets loaded up soon that atlast I decided, I will better write it here.
Before I start writing book reviews, these are some of the books I have read so far.
TAMIL
Author:Kalki
1. Ponniyin Selvan
2. Sivakamiyin sabadham
3. Parthiban Kanavu
Author:Vikraman
1. Nandhipurathu Nayagi
2. Gangapuri Kaavalan
Author:Sandilyan
1. Kadalpura
2. Vilairaani
3. Yavanaraani
4. Raaja Thilagam
5. Moongil Kottai
Author:Balakumaran
1. Kadigai

ENGLISH
Author : J.K. Rowling
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
5. Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Author: Spencer Johnson
1. Who moved my Cheese?
Author: Paul Coelho
1. The Alchemist (Translated by Alan R. Clarke. Harpercollins publishers, India)
2. By the riverside Piedra, I sat and wept.
Author:Harper Lee
1. To kill a mocking bird
Author: Sidney Shelton
1. Morning,Noon,Night
2. The other side of midnight
3. The best laid plans
4. Are you afraid of the dark?
5. Tell me your dreams
Author: Jeffrey Archer
1. The prodigal daughter
2. Shall we tell the president
3. As the Crow Flies
4. Honour Among Thieves
5. False Impression
Author: Ken Follett
1. Eye of the needle
2. Code to Zero
Author: Ayn Rand
1. The Fountain Head
Author: Jackie Collins
1. Lucky
Author: Michael Crichton
1. Airframe
Author:Bill Gates
1. The Road Ahead
Author:Scott M. Peck
1. The Road Less Travelled
Author:Gary Athen
1. American Ways
Author:Sir Arthur Conan Dyle
1. Sherlock Homes
Author:Norman Vincent Peale
1. The Power of Positive Thinking
Author:Victoria Alexander
1. Love with the proper husband
Author:Dan Brown
1. Da Vinci Code
2. Angels and Demons
3. Digital Fortress
4. Deception Point
Author:Chetan Bhagat
1. Five point someone
2. One night @ the Call Center
3. The three mistakes of my life
Author:Jacky Trevane
1. Fatwa
Author:Brian Tracy
1. Eat that frog
Author:Jeff Keller
1. Attitude is Everything
Author: Stephen R. Covey
The 7 habits of highly Effective People
Author : Eric Segal
1. Love Story
Author : J.A. Lance
1. Improbable Cause
Author : Rupa Gulab
1. Girl Alone
Author : Taslima Nasrin
1. Lajja
Author : Catherine Spencer
1. Nanny Wanted - A Nanny in the Family
Author:Chris Kuzneski
1. Sign of the Cross
Author:Sam Bourne
1. The Last Testament
Author:Gurcharan Das
1. India Unbound
Author:Adolf Hitler
1. Mein Kempf
Author:Ernest Hemingway
1. The Old Man and the Sea
Author:Sir Walter Scott
1. Rob Roy
Author:Arthur Hailey
1. Airport
Author:Gregory David Roberts
1. Shantaram
And 30 to 40 Erle Stanley Gardener's Perry Mason novels.

As usual.....unusual

2004-12-28T06:16:00.000+05:30

I have a great fascination for the advertisement hoardings. Thats one of the reasons y I like metro cities or for that reason big cities. One or two yrs ago in Coimbatore, all the banners and ad hoardings were removed from all over the city. The whole city looked to me like a bride without ornaments or a world devoid of colors or whatever. There was something missing in the city.
Coming to Chennai was in itself a gud feeling - I will b cing all these ads.I don't know what pulls me towards them. Each ad has its own speciality -some r gud in the well thought words, some in the beauty of the picture, some in the beauty of the person in ads, some in the puzzling feeling it gives, some in the thousand words a single expression in the picture conveys.....
Few of my favourites are:
1. The words "As usual.....Unusual" of "Man Mandir" shop
2. Colorful "POTHYS" ads, with the saree color blending with the background, esp. the green and white ones.
3. "Don't drink & drive" ad featuring SRK.
This list is also endless.... Will keep updating.
Hope u too have some fav. ads. Plz write them so that I will not fail to notice the nxt time.

Joys of Life

2004-12-22T13:54:00.000+05:30

Well, I was thinking what made me feel happy. Numerous things & occasions.....
when something gud(or what I think is gud ) happens to me,
when something gud happens to the persons I like,
whenever I do something which others can't,
when I finish tasks well ahead of others,
when I get thru in some competition,
when I get to use something first(I still remember how a few months ago, me & my sis quarrelled as to who will sit first in the newly bought chair),
when Mom accepts that I have done some work properly,
when Dad says I have cooked better than mom:-),
when my sis has to depend on me for something,
when I got something which I have desired for long,
when I get a place to sit in a crowded bus,
when I get a movie ticket for my fav. star's movie,
when TV telecasts my fav. song,
when I am driving my Scooty,
when I am working in my system,
when I get praised for something,
when I get a bar of chocolate,
when my program compiles & executes in the first time itself,
when somebody I know mails me,
when somebody comments in my blog,
when I get a red color dress,
when I get a phone call,
when Indian cricket team wins in a match,
and when somebody listens to me, of course..........

Pal pal hai bhaari

2004-12-21T08:48:00.000+05:30

The evenings of last week passed away reading Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Richard Bach's Illusions. Dan Brown made me look into Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings keenly. I dint know that paintings cud explain this much. He says whatever he has said in the book is a fact & not fiction. Even after all the proofs he gave, I was searching from wrapper to wrapper, so that I will find a page where he wud have written,"Whatever I have written in this book is fiction". But in vain.
And on Saturday, happened to see "Swades", the very next day of its release. Quite lucky that we got the tickets. Wonderful movie with fine nuances & subtle feelings, and without any villains, fights and forced duets. Not only that , I liked many things in the movie, esp. the caravan & SRK's style of driving it. "Yun Hi Chala Chal rahi..." & "Yeh tara Voh tara...." are being considered the hit songs of the movie. But after watching the movie, I don't know why I like the songs "Dekho Na, Zara dekho na ...." & "Pal pal hai bhaari..." songs very much compared to other songs. I was listening to these songs many times until Divya & Gayathri got really tired of it & even their like for those songs turned to dislike.Ok, let me continue my "The power of positive thinking".

Reason?????????

2004-12-06T18:42:00.000+05:30

There r times in life when one feels depressed for no reason. When one sits back & tries to find out the cause, actually there might b no immediate or single cause, but a series of events wud have contributed to it. Nothing more do I have to write abt this, but I dint come across such an exact situation or description in any book. So friends, any suggestion for any book on this topic or ur own thoughts r welcome.

For non-veggies

2004-12-04T10:44:00.000+05:30

Time to experiment naa.... But all experiments don't give the expected results in the first go, for eg, u'r new cooking trials. Well, I am a gud cook - thats how I tell every1. But I have something else to tell u too - Once I tried doing "Coconut Burfi"(reading a cookery book of course. Turning to my mom for help is my last option when everything turns awry). What exactly turned out was some sticky, sweet cocunut syrup. So what? Haven't I prepared "Coconut kheer or payasam"? well, that was what I told my Dad, mom & sis that I was trying to prepare(except that my sis was giggling as she had already seen the bookmark I kept in the "coconut burfi" page in the cookery book).
So experience helps one improve better.
Coming back to the point, I was abt to tell a recipe for non-veggies.
Required things: Eggs, Sugar, Milk, and a loaf of bread.
Beat 2 or 3 eggs(as per requirement), with 1 cup of milk and adequate sugar. Dip each slice of bread well in to the mixture and fry it in tava normally. Thatz it. Sweet, tasty, healthy, yummy, delicious(add some more adjectives u'rself) food for the day.

Early bird catches the bus

2004-11-30T19:14:00.000+05:30

Imagining one day morning, I will wake up to the voice of cuckoos and sparrows. But the cell phone alarm rings with the stubbornness that it will get me out off bed at any cost. It puts in a lot of effort until its battery charge exhausts completely. Feeling sorry for my cellphone, I atlast get up out of bed, just to be greeted by the noise of electric motor pumping water in the hostel. My roommate & nearby roommates(only those who I woke up by my alarm) greet "Good morning" to each other, wondering why it became morning soon (Because we slept only at some 1 AM naa?).
A look at the watch laughs at me that, "No matter what, I am not going to stop". So racing with time, I get ready & sit in the TV room and have breakfast - some friends changing channels hurriedly to c their horoscope for that day, some trying to hear some devotional song at the start of the day, some trying to have a glimpse of their favourite artist, some trying to find out how the world has changed overnight. And just as I am about to leave, some favourite song of mine will be telecasted and between the song & the Chennai bus - I half-heartedly hurry to sign in the hostel register, after waving goodbye to everybody and go to the bus-stop, only to see the bus just passing-by. I curse myself for having wanted to c the song and catch the next bus. I decide next day no matter what, I shouldn't watch the TV in the morning. But u c, I will b able to catch the next bus, but the song - will it be telecasted again in few minutes. So I hope u understand what I will be doing tomorrow..........

The Alchemist

2004-11-29T19:52:00.000+05:30

I have the habit of reading mostly ghost stories, vampire stories, stories of crime and detection, and by authors like Jeffrey Archer. One exception was the Harry Potter series - I was first very reluctant to read this thinking they would be very childish. But after reading a few pages of the first book, I became crazy of them , esp. of Hermione Granger(the character which I think acts like me in most of the cases :-))), that I finished all five books in four days.
One day during my final semester in college, Saranya showed me this book, "The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho. She told me that itz a bit philosophical - but I starred at her, why was she giving me this book though she knows that I don't read this kind. But nothing better to do that day, I started it. Well, I nearly travelled with Santiago(the main character, Coelho has used to convey his thoughts), and started to realize how many dreams that I have had before and how many I have discarded without giving a second thought about it. Lost are lost. Now I am seeing the inner meaning of each and every small thought and dream, and why it occurs to me at a particular point of time. I feel each about-to-happen incident is told to every human before it happens and itz only that he/she is not able to realize it.
Thanx to Saranya, or, else I wud have been very much ignorant of my dreams and thoughts yet.

This weekend

2004-11-29T10:10:00.000+05:30

This Saturday started well, with me waking up at 2 PM in the afternoon. Then returned from dance class and was full of excitement because I had tickets for "Veer Zaara" show, the next day. After a lot of fun in the hostel, discussing from Kumudam to Women's era, from TNagar to Texas, and from Nail care to Hair care(well, that happens when there are many beauticians in ur hostel), we settled down in the TV room for "Dil Hai Tumhara" - because Hindi and English are the only common languages in hostel as girls are from Noida, Delhi, Kolkata, Andhra, Kerala, Bangalore, Cuddapah, Malaysia and a few from Tamilnadu too.One by one, all friends retired to bed, because the one-to-one love in the movie, became love triangle, and then rectangle and atlast entangled. So I was left alone there thinking abt a solution and the director too had the same solution as mine.
By the time I slept, it was 2.30 AM.The next day me, Srimathi and Haseena landed in Sathyam theatre leaving back Elizabeth & feeling sorry for her as she cudn't join us because of her exams. There the supposed to be 11 AM show started at 11.20 AM.The movie ended up making my handkerchief fully wet & my eyes entirely dry. Not that all movies make me cry (Exception: Sharukh movies), but this made my mind very heavy. Wonderful movie but had a subtle feeling that any young actress could have taken up the role of Preity Zinta or her makeup could have been reduced a bit. After seeing movies of violence, whenever a Indopak subject is considered in a movie, this movie reminded that Pak was after all a child of India.

Welcome

2004-11-29T08:51:00.000+05:30

Welcome to my blog site. Have a good day.
I have always thought of writing blogs. The urge started after I got a mail from my favourite rediffmail.com that I can write blogs. But then when I saw the spontaneity in most of the blogs written by others, I shed the thought of writing a blog, because I have the habit of editing whatever I write, thereby making out a precise form of the original version. But however it is, why not just do it? So here comes my first blog.