Sleeping

TTR: Tickets...
Him: Err! Again disturbed & annoyed and his sleep stuck his ticket out with eyes half open.
TTR: (Checks... Parses his name list twice...)
Him: (Regains consciousness, are you done? Sir)
TTR: yevada ponum? (malayalam) (Eng: where do you want to go?)
Him: Stumped! Why is this language change?
TTR: Looks at the ticket and takes again.
Him: Coimbatore
TTR: This train is going to Palakkad now. It crossed Coimbatore long back.
Him: $^!#

openSUSE 11.0

Finally I moved to openSUSE 11.0. Thanks to Sankar for helping me around. On the first opinion it rocks! Faster boot time, latest Kernel and other packages. Also really really cool 'Compiz' to get some attention to the desktop. ;) Practicing to stay away from mouse using gnome-do, screen and workspace. They are really handy.

Want to plunge into the fun, let us know!

TNSTC - feedback

Straight to the point. This is about the feedback to the TNSTC its travel and passengers.

TNSTC - This was my first trip in this service. The initial look of the ticket was catchy in bright colors and too many details provided none of them were necessary or useful. Next boarding the bus was pain, where will this bus come and where should the passengers wait. No sign boards in the bus stand nor there was an announcement of the arrival time. This talks about the poor infrastructure in the Coimbatore bus terminals. Two bus terminals within 1km, crap where to wait. There was a old man in the bus stand re-directing and answering queries about the timings. But he does not have an uniform nor look easy to be approached. 9 PM scheduled departure bus came on time and waited until 9:45 few annoying passengers to get in. The timing that was printed in their ticket was 10PM. Mistake on them to print it that way and mistake on bus driver and conductor to wait until someone comes so late. There were passengers in my bus who were to get a train the next day morning at 8 AM. The bus should come 5 minutes before departure time and wait at the max 10 min and leave. The bus has limited leg space for creatures like me, 0 cms vertical movement and 10 cms horizontal movement.

Passengers - Two people I always fear during bug travel is pregnant mothers and newly born baby. In one instance I was traveling in a KPN Volvo. These buses have a terrific ability to accelerate and come back to zero within time. So its not advised to stand when the bus is on move, since there is not safety bar at the top or side to hold (just the slippery seats). There was this pregnant lady got in between in Salem, there was some delay in allotting seat. It was so scary to watch her fighting for her balance.

Another couple with their newly born kid were in the bus. They have placed a pillow between both their seats and made their baby sleep there. Jesus! how mad are they? Please next time such people don make bus travel. Plan early and take a train journey. If you don book tickets early, try to take day train and reach make a safe journey.

Next was this interesting dead lock problem (ah, finally some OS concepts after meeting my prof over the weekend in college). There was a girl travelling from cbe to bng. In between an elderly man got in for the single vacant seat near that girl. The conductor boarded him under the impression that some one would change for the ladies seat and settle for seat. Now the girl started shouting that she cannot allow a male to sit near her. (He was in her fathers age, I din understand what her problem was...) Then the old man was told that he will be given a seat in the bus and got in and now he cant get down for a seat and he's not ready to get down in between also. Other passengers are not ready to shift seats saying they have paid to travel in their alloted seat and they cannot shot (WTF). As the argument elongated passed midnight, some passengers started to show disinterest over the switched on tube light. :) Finally I said I will take the berth in the box (so called cabin) and had a nice sleep. It was like upgrading to sleeper from semi-sleeper. Also was fun talking to the driver and the new conductor to this route. Also took some quick driving lessons before my actual class starts.

imports *.*;

/*


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Ground zero - Bangalore

I left Bangalore last Tuesday night for my vacation. But July 25th was a black Friday were serial blasts rocked Garden city. All reports told that they were minor blasts and did not cause much damage to life and property. Still on the sad event there were few casualties. (mourning for them) Could we really prevent this? I don have an answer. But repeatedly there had been constant incidents happening like this, targeting civilians. Bangalore is more vulnerable because of its IT. As responsible nerds here are some points that I came up for us.

• next time you get into a mall or cinema theater there may be strong security check. Please bear with those officials even if they are time consuming and demand you to stand in a line. Be patient.
• Have an official identity card to identify yourself (driving license, PAN card) where ever you go out.
• starting to office on Monday! and your company is one of the IT parks, make sure you carry your office ID card. (hope my neighbor(s) are reading this.)
• Do some home work in having some helpline number to call in case of emergency and suspicion call to police. (you need not do the superman stuff, leave it to the experts).
• Today I called few of my friends to see if they are all safe. Then din know what on heaven was happening outside the glass doors. They responded after 3 hrs from the blast (oh, blast, in Bangalore? near madiwala? near my office? when? how?) So such ignorant we are of whats happening outside us. So its a good habit to subscribe to any of the FLASH news feeds from CNN or any other worthy sites as desktop alerts or email notification to your office mail-id. Don't wait till it reaches your ass.
  

- you got more like this...

Today afternoon I was like a RJ hosting a show. Everyone (friends, family and dad's colleague) started to call suddenly, calmly answered their calls stating I'm safe 500kms away.

Easter Egg - 90 days advance booking IRCTC

Today (July 24th) I was deep asleep after watching few episodes of prison break and around 9am (apparently close to midnight) I got a call from my friend.

Friend: Vijesh, Did you book the tickets?
Me: What.... What ticket?
Friend: Ticket for Diwali (in train) opened today.
(...gives me a mild shock and sit up)
Me: No, I guess its not today. I'm keeping track, few more days to go.
Friend: No, it opened today and sleeper is already in waiting list (WL) so we booked in AC. Hope its fine with you.
Me: Yeah ok.

Dragging myself to a system near by to check my Google calender reminder and IRCTC online reservation for Oct 24th. Well something was wrong. It was not really 90 days for tickets to open for booking. Since I lost my love towards Coimbatore Express after the night stay at the train station. I always ignored that train and tried with Kanyakumari express (6526). Still it says given date is out of range for booking. Then gave it a try in Coimbatore Express(1013). This query seems to work fine and says tickets are in WL, Ah! that's strange. With some trails I inferred that Coimbatore Express starts 2 days earlier from Lokmanya Thilak. So apparently the booking software allowed to book for all stations that the train traveled on that date itself. So Bangalore that comes on the third day opens two days before they actually do.

How many would know this? Still, have mailed Customer Care! Let me see how they respond. Ideally only those stations that are exactly 90 days before the train reaches should show up for booking. Guess the engineer was lazy to have this boundary condition in place. I would call it an pseudo Easter Egg.

Bike trip - Mekadatu

Yeah! Its been long since making some trips. There are both omen behind it. This time, a last minute plan from my navigator friend to go to Mekadatu. Now and then Mysore road has become a retreat for lot of bikers around Bangalore. Apparently we decided to take a longer route just for not missing the Kamat morning buffet. So we filled the fuel tanks and reached Kamat on time. (Christ, I wont forget those 12 dare devils). Until now it was a detour for us, after breakfast and some rest we got back into the right route that took us to kanakpura. On the way you can see lots and lots of goats.

Already I can feel the butterfly effects because of the less cushion in the unicorn. Adding fuel in the fire was the small streches for roads to Mekadatu from Kanakpura. After few rest breaks in-between we reached Mekadatu. Its a very good place for a one day trip to spend with family and friends. Also there are many other places from there in 30kms radius. Good destininations for team outings too (not adventures, but relaxing) On the first sight, I remembered my Alumni trips where we used to go to a small back waters and eat those awesome melagai-bajji. A small stream of cauvery flows across this place, the water below knee level. Most people cross the river and take the bus to the water falls. That also seems to be a good place from some photos from fellow bloggers. (we shortned our trip due to santy's pressure) But then we decided to retreat in the small flowing stream itself. Safe gaurded our bag and dresses and we took a plunge into the water. It was like bliss to sit in those flowing water.


Summary
Total Distance: 100 kms approx (both journey 200)
Time of the year: Any time, but esp good in this pre-rainy season.
Food: Carry some nice spicy tamarind and curd rice.
Items: Just a towel to dry and a ball to play with. Not much subject for your camera.
Extra: Free water wash to vehicle.
Causion: Don cross river with bike.

Recent addiction - Kangal Irandal

After a long time Sun Music comes with moderate noise through my cable operator. So listening to songs after a long time. This song took me off in the first view! (Kangal Irandal - Subramaniapuram) By the time I compose this I would have watched it 20+ times. :) It doesn't mean anything, only that I like the way the song is shot.

In short

• Walking alone in a road laughing and kicking the air.
  
• Forgetting that you need to pedal your friend along and take his cycle.
  
• Astrologer - to tell some good news.
  
• Sitting at roof top, a wooden swing and thinking of noting.
• a friend who hates girls, you do good against him to impress her.
  
• dressing up and running across streets for getting a single glimse.
  

Watch it for yourself.

Offer Sale Discount

If you had been in Bangalore, You are easily distracted by those vinyl boarding and neon lamps of all those offers in various stores and outlets. But are these real discounts or value addition to the consumer? I really doubt.

They only act as a pushing factor for us to take the plastic cards out of our wallet. Outside banner says 50% off, once you get inside they say its only on certain commodities and other goods are with less offer. Many places like Westside failed to impress with variety and most awaited winter wear. Nike said shoes only above 6K have these offers. So basically was a disappointing evening of shopping, except for the colorful crowd. Still came up with some points that all can note during this month of shopping fiesta.

1) Go for quality, most places it would be clearance sale. So quality reduces.
2) Places where cloths are dumped in large, you might easily get deceived by a defective piece.
3) When you are paying using your credit/debit cards, make sure you get the card back after swiping and cross check the amount in printed in customers copy you get. Also check the transactions online.
4) When you get many things each would result in small bags, so be careful that you rigidly hold all bags together. Better option would be put the smaller bags inside the larger bags and carry one.
5) When you goto a restaurant or any other shop make sure you carry all the bag again.
6) Don park your bike in a hurry in NO-Parking area.
7) Don accompany a girl, its like chaining yourself to a lamppost. :) Amen.

P.S: This is my first scheduled post. :)

Great Weekend and Great Food

Now I finally found the reason for the skew in my Body mass index. July 12th and July 13th are two great days in Bangalore. So much good food and so much fun with pulling legs. Adding spice to it was my rommie and his college nostalgia. Guess would remember this for a long time. A BIG THANKS to all those Annalakshmi's. This is like home away from home!

Note: Ironically you can see the creators hands in both the clicks!

Favourite Song

I was cleaning this blog and noted that there were some post that were still in draft for more than two years now. As time goes, I will post them. Here is one! Awesome lyrics, I always think tamil poets live their life the fullest.

இரவா பகலா குளிரா வெய்யிலா
என்னை ஒன்றும் செய்யாதடி
கடலா புயலா இடியா மழையா
என்னை ஒன்றும் செய்யாதடி

ஆனால் உந்தன் மௌனம் மட்டும் ஏதோ செய்யுதடி
என்னை ஏதோ செய்யுதடி காதல் இதுதானா
சிந்தும் மணிபோலே சிதறும் என் நெஞ்சம்
கொஞ்சம் நீ வந்து கொஅர்த்தால் இன்பம்

நிலவின் முதுகும் பெண்ணின் மனமும்
என்றும் ரகசியம்தானா
கனவிலேனும் சொல்லடி பெண்ணே காதல் நிஜம்தானா

இரவா பகலா குளிரா வெய்யிலா
என்னை ஒன்றும் செய்யாதடி
கடலா புயலா இடியா மழையா
என்னை ஒன்றும் செய்யாதடி

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Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na - This is not a review

I really don know if it makes any utter justice by writing a review for a Hindi movie. For statistics sake, this was the first movie that I watched in a theater paying from my wallet. The previous one was Paheli, which was a team outing during my internship in PVR Gold class. Still its left to your great guts to read it.

It was a rainy evening in Bangalore and as usual I was stuck in inner ring road traffic. It was dull and commuters switched off their engines knowing that it would take a long to get the green going in our intelligent traffic system and make sure the hole in their pocket is small by saving some fuel. Breaking the silence was the radio station that was singing in my cab. There was this song right at the time for pep up the spirits. It was the peppy number Kabhi Kabhi Aditi Zindagi. It was so good that I decided to see Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (जाने तू ... या जाने ना).

I talk about the film, its a Amir khan production. A simple, beautiful love story! I feel like its a movie from Prakash raj productions - a low budget hit. The way the entire movie is narrated by a group of friends is a good. Imran Khan ('Rats') looks neat and Genelia did not over react like some of her earlier films. The Good Night kiss and Good Bye kiss were a innovative try! Who knows may be a quick hit within the community. Naseeruddin Shah guest role was hilarious and the funny conversations that he tries making with his wife.

Thought I did not understand many of the jokes in the film, I managed to get few of them translated. Also its a good number of all the dumpsters to watch and learn some regional language. Also not last but least A.R.Rahman music score was the total highlight for me. Yet another reason for loving this film. But yeah waiting for my copy of DVD with subtitles.

I would give it a 7/10.

From My Studio

Sweet Memories! This is a memento, that I designed for the farewell of our Super senior batch!

[Theme: Everyone have their signatures in scanned. Back ground water marked with "we will never say Good Bye." Even the requests of whose sign should come near whom was also satisfied. :-)]

Next one is my favorite from Goa! Taken in my first Photo shoot. Btw, I can see "her"? Can you?

Batch Day July 8th

July 8th 2002 was an important day bookmarked in my personal calender, Since it embarked the beginning of a fantastic journey in my life. I really feel it was worth to take the road not taken. I think I had spend this 3rd 8 in my life with a purpose and feel its fulfilled. I think such sweet things have a quick ending, since now I feel how this 6 years passed by, it was too quick. Still remember the day when I waited in front of the principal room (oops for a good reason) for getting officially flagged my journey by giving everyone a chocolate.

So many friends, so many lectures, so many assignments, so many exams, so many lab sessions, so many trips, so many of crushes, so many tea+pakkoda, so many proxies, so many lunch boxes, so many lunch outs, so many teasings and get teased, so many seminar, so many night outs, so many hardship, so many problems with funny solution, so many farewell, so many clicks and so many of everything. I better publish a book on it.

Happy Batchday dear all.

Love,
Vijesh

Wimbledon 2008 Gentleman's singles finals

Unarguably, this is the best ever tennis match I have witnessed in my lifetime.

If you known, seen or heard about Tennis and missed this Wimbledon 2008 Men's Finals between Roger Federer and Rafal Nadal. I bet you have missed the most entertaining, nerve racking, sensational sporting extravaganza of a life time. A page will be dedicated in books of history to mark this match and date.

A Tennis match Final for 4 Hours 48 minutes at center court.! Ah just sensational. Rain adding more drama to it. Finally me winning my money on Nadal was something special. My best wishes to both. :)

Bitter, but taste it - Early age marriages

In this post I'm going to talk about Marriage, Parents, Society, Astrology, Sex, Child birth and so many off topics! I know this might sound crazy.

I remember the Auto's in my native used to write an one liner behind them for the benefit of the society. Like "There will be a free ride for Pregnant women". Like wise another popular one i can remember is "Marriage age for women is 21". Let me guess what will a girl be doing in that age? Mostly doing her under graduation or those poor ones in the rural whose education feeds were unsubscribed after school would have been working for the wellness of their family or helping her mother at home. If a girl gets married at this age what will she take back to the rest of her life from her past. Is it lessons of life? Will her education gained till that date gonna help her? Maybe yes and may be no. If No, then why get married? Is it because its written behind auto and buses, they follow them meticulously? Or is it because that's the right age where women's get qualified as mentally matured mortals to take up the next step in life? Or is it their parents wanted to get their girl married? Or is it the society?

Their parents! Humm every parent does things really good and only for the welfare of their kids at any stages of life! But some of them wanted to get the most toughest part of their girls wedding asap. This is like attempting tougher questions in the beginning of the exam and waste most of the time and spoiling the known easy questions at the end due to lack of time :). Many girls now a days are not given a choice for career or family. They are told, this is the timeline within which you get married and negotiate on your career with the guy who comes. Fortunately there are more conversation ratio in terms of career after wedding. Good sign. What could be the real problem to their parents? I never have got an answer other than "If not now then when is the good time? Else its difficult to find a match?" I guess they din try a `select count(*)` in the matrimony databases! Since there are so many options.

I take the opposite direction when it comes to Astrology. This friend of mine is told, by an astrologer that you should find a man for her before her 24th Birthday, else your wedding will be postponed for long. Ah What crap!!! They believe in this guys words meticulously and start searching for a groom. Now the search has become intense that every rejection is scrutinised for a reason. Finally they ended up fixing for the girls wedding right on time. Why this hurry? Question remains unanswered.

Society! How can my girl do a love marriage? Isn't that ridiculous? How will I face my family back? Humm true, it could be an embarrassment for them just in case that happens. Just listen to this illogical practice followed. I know a town, where men are asked to get married slightly late. Say around 29, 30. Still the age difference between the couple will be more. Then they should give birth to a child in less than two years after marriage. Even some times lesser. She needs to carry a child just because he is getting old. Then why find such a match. I remember hearing this statement from my dear own gf's - The age difference and the misunderstandings between the couples are indirectly proportional. Less gap or equal age results in more difference of opinion. More gap, less misunderstanding. Or I wonder really that the girl is too young to talk against him and he is too old and thinks her as a little girls and walks off. :)

Yeah! You know the conclusion and got to shout anything do it now.