Who is Lata?

This happened few months back in my office.

A conversation between me and IT guy for installing MS Access.

Me: I want to install MS Acess in my system

IT Guy: Dont you have MS Office

Me: Yeah I have but I dont have Access

IT Guy: I am busy now.

Me: But I want it now. I have work

IT Guy: I am busy, Lata will install

Me: Ok ask her to install as soon as possible

IT Guy: No, only I can install.

If only this guy can install then why did he say Lata ll install. I am confused only to find out that its later and not lata (typical singaporean accent) :)

தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்

இனியே தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள். இத்திருநாளில் அனைவரின் அறியாமை ஒழியட்டும். அனியாவருக்கும் சந்தோசம் பெருகட்டும்

The great man..the great soul.... the MAHATMA

On this day, 140 years ago a great soul in the name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born. He was a man of principles, who fought the guns and daggers with non violence and succeeded in doing so. His principle of tolerance for all and non violence are still being followed everywhere. He led India to independence through his ahimsa and satyagraha. He stood by what he said. Unlike today’s politicians, he praised his opponents as well. One of the greatest traits of this man is he by no means a hypocrite, because of which he even had a bitter relationship with his sons. He spoke truth and fought for the people of India. He was born as Mohandas and left us as Mahatma. I am sure none of us can become Mahatma but atleast hope we all follow his principles.

Some examples of how he influenced the world:

“America has its roots in India through Mahatma Gandhi”- this was said by none other than the American President Mr.Barrack Obama.

For a question from a 9th grade girl Lilly on “If given a chance, with which person (dead or alive) would you like to have dinner”, he said it’s Mahatma Gandhi.

These are some of the examples of how much this man is revered all over the world. Some of the greatest followers of this man are Mandela and Martin Luther King. Mandela fought discrimination against blacks in South Africa so as Martin Luther King in America which led to the 1959 civil war.

What a way to bring my 100th post. This was sheer coincindence to write about this great soul and it being my 100th post. It gives a nice feeling..

Are we lucky enough?

Few days back one of my friend told me that he should have lived in 80’s rather than 90’s as there were not much technological improvements and there was Ilayaraja’s music. I was really astonished to hear from a person who is an embedded system professional. This is certainly true with me as well. I am not much of a technical guy and a great fan of Ilayaraja.

Technology has made life simple and easy. Today a person sitting in India can see another person sitting in USA from his/her desk. Such is the advancement of technologies. It has done wonders to human life especially in its development. Without these we would not have known that there is water in moon and so many other things which were unimaginable few years back. In fact without these technologies I would not be sitting here writing this blog. It made dumb people speak, deaf people hear. Computers, without any doubt is one of the greatest inventions in human history. With the advent of computers everything seems to be possible by humans. I read an article few days ago that in another 20 years, humans will become immortal with nanobots replacing human cells. It can also cause reverse ageing. Such is the effect of computers in today’s world.

However, Newton’s third law proves correct here too. For every action there is an equivalent and opposite reaction. The advancement of technologies made every one live in fear. Mumbai attacks, September 11 attacks, Madrid bombings, London Bombings to name a few. It is these Americans who first designed nuclear bombs and in fact one of the first to use it. But now they fear that it will land in to the hands of terrorists. Mikail Kalshnikov would have been an elated person when he invented AK-47, but very little he knew that it would kill millions of people. I feel, technology is directly proportional to human greed and jealousy. As the technology improved, the human greed also increased. It is this greed that led to the invasion of Iraq by George Bush.

I always laugh at these world leaders when they talk about green house gases, especially leaders of the developed countries. The world was greener few years back, but what about today. The pollution was very less few years back, but what about today. The world was peaceful few years back, but today it’s the opposite. Had they thought about the consequences of green house gases earlier, world would have been a greener. Had they thought about the consequences of nuclear weapons before developing, world would have been relatively safer.

I agree that each item has its own advantages and disadvantages. Technological advancement is great but I feel the consequences have been worst. The disadvantage has certainly overweighed the advantages here. The current situation is like holding the tiger’s tail. We cannot leave it and it will certainly backfire on us. I hope the future will be safe and through this I appeal to all the world leaders to look into serious issue of global warming and terrorism than thinking about how to infiltrate other country’s borders and make it unstable.

Pokisham

Yesterday I got to watch the movie Pokisham by Cheran. When I was in the theater I was really not impressed by the movie, but when I came out of it I realized that I failed to understand its beauty. It deals with the emotions of love, its pain and its happiness. The story starts with Cheran’s son reading the letters written by his father to Padmapriya during his younger days, how they got to know each other, how their love blossomed and how it ended. The story goes like this. Lenin (Cheran) works as marine engineer in Calcutta comes to his native place to look after his father, Damodaran (played by Vijaykumar) who is admitted to hospital. Nathira’s (Padmapriya) mother is also admitted to the same hospital when they meet each other. Lenin helps Nathira by paying money to the hospital when her mother was to be operated. As, the time passed both become good friends. Lenin in the meantime leaves for Calcutta. Damodaran writes a letter to Lenin asking him to write a letter to Nathira as she was not there when he left the hospital. Lenin writes a letter to Nathira and this continued and both started loving each other. As the days passed, frequency of letter increased. Lenin goes to Nagoor (Nathira’s house) to meet her. Damodaran comes to know about this and both goes to Nagoor to seek the Nathira for Lenin. Being a muslim, both feared that her father will reject their love. But for everyone’s surprise, he accepts them and asked for time for marriage. What happenes later, whether they got married or not forms the rest of the story.

The songs are good and pleasing to ears. I am really impressed with the art direction and the cinematography. The director brings out the old memories of many people through letter writing which is almost extinct today with the advancement of technologies. The movie is boring for all those who watch it as a cinema but when one realizes the beauty of hand written letters, the movie is beautiful. I wouldn’t say it as a great movie but a good movie. When compared to Cheran’s previous works, Pokisham is not a really a pokisham for all but all those lost letters of millions, this is indeed a Pokisham.

I always feel that a handwritten greeting card has got more value and than a costly gift which does not evoke any emotions. I realized myself when I got a greeting card from my sister. The feeling was completely different than how I felt when I received a gift. I don’t say that gifts doesn’t evoke any emotions but less when compared to a handwritten.Technology can make the world small, but it sheds the real feeling and emotions.


My rating is 3/5.

The Graduate

I was officially conferred the degree of Master of Science in Logistics and Supply Chain Management on 30th July, 2009. The graduation ceremony was held at Nanyang Auditorium @ 10:00 AM. It was a great feeling getting the degree from the president of the Nanyang Technological University.

Thanks for all who supported me without whom I wouldnt have come till here :)

Cooking..Its nice to learn.

Cooking is an art and according to me every person must learn how to cook. It indeed helps a lot when people move from one place to another in search of better opportunities. It helps me a lot especially for two reasons. First, being a vegetarian its pretty hard to find a vegetarian food here and second, even if I find a good restaurant its pretty costly for me and of course, its not advisable to eat outside daily. Before joining my first job, all that I knew about cooking was to make rice and hot water. It all started when I was posted outside my home town and absence of quality mess near my place forced me and my friend to start cooking. It was my friend who taught me to cook and I still remember the first time I cooked, I made Lady’s finger. It didn’t taste as bad as one would have expected. Initially, I was very slow in learning new dishes and I used to make a routine food with a vegetable and sambhar. As the days passed, I learnt a good number of recipes like palak paneer, veg pulao, kesari, more kuzhmbu, aviyal and few more. However, one thing I would like to try my hands with is a typical Rajasthani recipe.

It is always a fun when you cook along with people who are interested in it and I had such people in Mysore. We used to try our hands on various recipes especially during the weekends. However, for few months, I got fed up with cooking and eventually lost interest. Off late, I started experimenting again and started enjoying it as I used to before. I hope to try out new recipes in the future. If any of you know any do let me know so that I can try myself.