Ebbing into the past

As we wrap up the year 2004 (in the hours to come), there is a mixed feeling (as always). Been though a sea of changes, lot of good things to cherish in my pensive moods and quite a few bad memories that I want to erase as soon as I can. This is the case with a million other soldiers on this earth.

Also, the welcome of 2005 is not going to be amidst blasts and balloons in many parts of South East Asia due to the recent outburst of Mother Nature, but a quiet one with prayers in silence for the dear departed and the lucky survivors. I could only share this feeling as much as they do and hope that the coming year brings more peace and harmony.

Like to mention this note as the year 2004 speaks (thanks to Vidya for forwarding this to me).

"I have news for all of you.

I'm leaving by this month and won't be able to meet u again.

Hope u enjoyed being with me .......

If I had done anything wrong that hurt u ,kindly forget it.

Hoping u will always remember me....

Miss u all a lot,



With lots of regards






yours only,








Year 2004 :-)

Wishing you a GLORIOUS New Year "2005"

Have fun!!"

Conversation with an Auto-driver

I had to go to Koramangala to pick up some stuff. So in the usual manner, I called for an auto and got into it telling him to take me to my destination. After a minute, the guy struck a conversation with me. What ensued during the commute time was awe inspiring to me. I have managed to recollect most of the conversation and am posting it here.

AD: Where are you working?
Me: In a computer based company out here.
AD: Hardware or software?
ME: (Surprised!) Software.
AD: Which company and where is it?
Me: There is this company called Sun and it is there in...
AD: (Interjects)Oh! Sun Microsystems, Divyasree Chambers?
Me: (Surprised again). Aaah. Yes.
AD: How long have you been working here?
Me: 3 years
AD: Where did you do your college?
Me: Hmm..In the north, in a place called Pilani. There is an engineering college called...
AD: (Interjects again) And says, Bits-Pilani aa?
Me: I showed no attempts to conceal my surprise and said, Yes, that is the college.
AD: You must've got through campus interview right?
Me: Yes I did. It is surprising and also interesting to know that you are aware of all these facts. How come you know all this?
AD: Well, I have two sons. The eldest son finished his engineering in Computer Science and is currently working in ITPL in a start up company.
AD: My younger son is in the 2nd year and is also doing his Computer Science.
AD: My first son scored high marks, but since we did not have the money to send him to good colleges, he ended up studying here in Bangalore university.
AD: He is very intelligent and today he has made all of us proud by getting a job.
AD: My second son is also studying well and we are doing everything to provide him good education.

There was a sense of pride in him when he made those statements. He was happy and proud of his eldest son's achievements and younger son's progress. I was quite taken aback and was joyously surprised to hear about this man and his family. My curiousity go the better of me and I asked him;

Me: So why are you still driving the auto? Don't you want to quit and enjoy the rest of your life?
AD: (Indignantly)Who says I am not enjoying now? I am very much enjoying my life now. But I don't want to put additional burden on my son right away.
AD: He has come a long way to this position now. He deserves to have a tension free life for some time to come.I will earn to take care of me and my wife. The money he earns is for himself and his future. But, he has already taken the responsibility of providing financial help to his brother.
AD: My father was a day wage labourer who started working from 12 and worked till he was 70. He had saved some money and helped me buy this auto. He felt it was his duty to do that. But after getting the auto, he still worked as a watchman to take care of his expenses till he died. I want to follow his ideals and do the same to my children.

I was zapped. I couldn't say more. I felt elated. It was awesome to see such high and strong principles in this person. He started his questions again..

AD: So are you from Chennai?
ME: No, from Coimbatore.
AD: Where is your family?
ME: All in Coimbatore

And before he could ask his next question, my destination had come. I got down from the auto and told him that it was such an excellent experience talking to him and if there is anything I can do for his sons, I would be very glad to do so. I left my card with him after paying him the fare and bidding him good-bye.

It is quite an exhilarating experience to meet some people in our daily life who radiate so much of motivation. Achieving success is no walk in the park and all over the world there are people doing their best to overcome stymies reach the success milestones. This auto driver is one who has just reached one such milestone. My wishes and prayers for him and his family to see more and everlasting success.

A good deed for the day

A couple of days back when I was getting down from the bus at Cbe, there was this
blind man who got down too. He wanted to cross the road and so I just helped him to reach the other side of the road. He thanked me and said, "Have a good day"!
Today as I was heading towards office, there was this probably 1st standard kid who wanted to get to the other side of the road to get his auto, but the heavy traffic on Langford road was simply too much for the kid to handle. So I offered to help him cross and once in the auto, the kiddo said "Thanks Anna!".

Now, I am not writing this to blow my trumpet here, but just started thinking, "Can I consider this a good deed for the day"?. If yes, then would it hurt to do sth as trivial as helping some one cross the road be a good deed for a day? In our so called "busy" lives, we surely do not have time to spend even an hour doing some sort of social service though many of us yearn and desire to do so. In such cases, helping people in our day to day lives is surely a good deed and the pleasure we can derive out it can make us immensely satisfied. This is very much a doable act and I am sure many of us would've already thought about it and doing it. I am strongly motivated to do ONE good deed everyday in some form or the other. Are you?

Spelling Bees

I was reading an article in Times of India yesterday about how people have become pathetic with their spellings espy in the world of chat and SMS. The interesting part is that more than 60% of the people fumbled when asked to spell common words like "necessary", "immediate" " , and a few others (I don't remember them). Such people are termed to be "orthogonally challenged" -quite an interesting term.

Today, I got this forwarded mail which was quite a contradiction to the emphasis on spelling. Research has it that apart from the first and last letter of the word, the remaining letters can be placed in any random order and they would make perfect sense.

If you don't believe it, read the below lines for yourself and be surprised.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I wz rdanieg
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
The olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset cn be a taotl mses and u cn sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thaught
slpeling wahs ipmorantt.

If Lynne Truss reads this, she will surely have an heart-attack!

And finally, I did run this post through the spell check and it PASSED! ;)

Cornucopia of Acronyms

In the past 5 months of work as a software engineer, I would have encountered more than a hundred acronyms of various technologies. The interesting point is that these acronyms I've come across are only in the Java/J2ee world. I don't think that comes to me as a surprise given that I am at Sun Microsytems for the past 3 years. I was wondering how on earth would some ever be aware of all these acronyms at the first place leave alone the next big task of knowing what technology each of these acronyms stood for and what these technologies offer. It is mind boggling to even think of it. Just to give a sneak preview of what I've come across in the past months are, J2EE, J2SE, JAXP, JAXB, JAX-RPC, XML, SOAP, JMS, JMX, EJB, CMP, BMP, MDB, WSDL, UDDI, JXTA, JSR, JCP,JAR, EAR, WAR, etc. Of course, this list is not an exhaustive one (I have my own misgivings if anyone can come up with an exhaustive list). Microsoft needs a mention here as they are no way behind in their abundance for acronyms.

If you are not sure convinced about the number, take a look at this website and the information will leave you agape. http://www.developer.com/lang/article.php/3399521
I also found this interesting site on acronyms and you will find some interesting trivia there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym

All said and done, acronyms have become a common thing in our lives (most relevant in the IT world) and though they have really gone out of our hand, we have to gracefully except them and keep the learning curve going higher and higher. While you are reading this, there are folks growing the list of acronyms!

BFN & BW ;)

Cheers

I'll put this disclaimer right away mentioning that I am no way promoting this place or trying to sound biased towards anything. Now, if you are confused, then I am successful in confusing you.

Well, coming to the point, I have recently joined this club called the Cheers club. This is a regular book/VCD library but with a difference. The place is made to look so much like home with great couches around where you can take a book, slouch into the couch and keep reading. If you are feeling hungry or wanting to much sth, you can always order french fries, paneer tikka or whatever is there in their mini menu-they prepare this in their mini kitchen. They also have a home theatre where you could take your family or friends and watch your favorite movie.The best part I like about this whole place is that you get to rent CD's/DVD's that are 100% original (no pirated stuff or "thiruthu" VCD). Of course, all this comes with a price which you can check out at their place. They are located at Koramangala, Hosur Road and Jayanager. My recent movie flicks from this place were Harry Potter's-Chamber of Secrets and Intolerable Cruelty. So is it time to watch a movie and say "Cheers" ?

A Religious Retreat

The long weekend combining Diwali was quite a memorable one. My parents and my brother visited Bangalore the next day after Diwali. We went on a two day trip to nearby places like Talai Cauvery (Coorg district), Mysore, Melukote and Srirangapattinam. All these places are religious places famous in unique ways. Talai Cauvery-the origin of river Cauvery is considered a religious spot and claimed to be the "Southern Ganges". We hired the Indian oldie Ambassador and started on Saturday morning 6.30 am. We had breakfast at Maddur Tiffany's (which is very famous for its Vadas) at 8.30 am. From then on, it was a non-stop ride to Talai Cauvery which was around 200 kms. The roads were quite bad in lot of places but the skillful driver Jose meandered his way through the hills and valleys and finally reached the spot. A perfect blend of religious santity and nature's display of flora and fauna is a sight that is quite easy to recall but hard to describe. After offering prayers, we headed back to Coorg with an additional 5 liters of the so called pure water of Cauvery. Let us not get into the subject of the purity of the water-of course I still don't question its santity. Our initial plan was to stay in Coorg, but the place kinda looked weird and so we changed our mind and headed straight to Mysore. We halted in Mysore for the night quite tired after the day's drive.

The Diwan's residency (where we stayed) was just a refugee camp for the night. We wiggled out of the place by 7 am on Sunday morning and headed straight to Srirangapattinam to see Lord Ranganatha in his famous "Ananthasayanam". I need to mention that the temples here in the South carry some mystical tranquility that all the turmoil in your mind vanishes the moment you step into them (maybe some day I will mention this as a separate topic!). After offering our prayers, we headed towards Melukote. On the way, we say Tipu Sultan's dilapidated fort, and the place near the temple where his body was supposed to be found. History and legend has it that, Tipu was somehow trying to escape by entering the temple so that he can be spared his life. But he was killed just a few hundred yards from the temple walls.

Melukote was a 2 hour ride from Srirangapattinam. The roads were making the drive quite painful but that was a Hobson's choice and we just had to drive through. In Melukote, we visited the Chaluvanarayanaswamy temple which is in the foot hills. After this, we started our ascend to the Narasimhar's temple on top of the rocky hill. After offering our prayers here, we came down and saw the temple tank (usually called Pushkarani).

Having completed our agenda, we started our Bangalore journey from there around 12.30 pm. On the way, we stopped at the Kamat hotel for lunch and finally hit home at 4.30 pm. The journey was quite enjoyable and after a long time the four of us were doing such a trip. Thanks to the weather, the two days were very pleasant that kept us fresh and going.

My parents and brother stayed in Bangalore for the next two days where we went around Bangalore and did decent shopping, my brother got us all new clothes for Diwali. Their four day stay in Bangalore and my break from work was rejuvenating and the trip just made it even more refreshing.

My file extension type

My friend Xavier had this funny and silly (according to me) post in his blog and I just got curious and tried it for myself and below is the result. Now that looks pleasing to me! :)


Which File Extension are You?

It was raining cats and dogs

I was in Chennai over the weekend and after some 7-8 years, I witnessed a soaked Chennai-the rain Gods must be pleased with their work in this city that is deprived of one of the most essential things for survival-WATER. The chill sea breezeand the incessant rainfall made the city look quite welcoming. Though the roads were quite messy, you could see the folks enjoying the painful pleasure wading through the water and skating through the roads.

Every couple of hours, there was quite a downpour that reminded me of this adage,
"It rained cats and dogs". Oh, btw for the curious minds, I figured out some interesting etymology for this phrase which you can find at "raining cats and dogs".

All in all, I loved the weekend stay at Chennai, loved the weather, the rain and loved staying indoors playing my favorite computer games. Raindrops stuck the chord well to suit the weekend.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin' seems to fit
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'

So I just did me some talkin' to the sun
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done
Sleepin' on the job
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'

But there's one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me won't defeat me
It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

Courtesy: http://www.lyricsdownload.com/b-j-thomas-raindrops-keep-fallin-on-my-head-lyrics.html

I'm in Sophia da...

I wanted to enquire about Anna's betrothal (Anand's sobriquet that can keep you guessing his gender!) that happened last Sunday. So I casually picked up the phone
and dialed his mobile number. The ring tone was quite different than usual but I did not think that it was unusual. He picked up the phone and said, "Hello". I replied back saying, "Hello Anna, this is Srini here. You at office? meeting?"
And his reply really took me off guard. He said, "Dey, I'm in Sophia da. Just landed now". That was quite amazing because I just spoke to that guy a week back and there was no news about his travelling. All of a sudden, the guy was airborne and in a different
part of the world. It was quite thrilling to note that a local call ended up being an international one! Enjoy your stay Anna and drink a lot of buttermilk! :)

Flamers and Slammers

It was 1997 when we got our 12th results and most of us fanned out to pursue our
grad education at different places. The next 4-5 years most of us were buried in our studies, were in touch with very few friends while the others seemed to have been lost in oblivion. Back to the future, the year is 2004 and by now most of us are buried in fixing bugs, writing code and attending meetings and conference calls. To hell with our work, a couple of us decided to revive our old contacts. We googled in and around Bangalore and were surprised to find around 15 folks all working in different places but not aware of the other's presence. Like someone said, “So near and yet so far”.

We decided to meet up and on this lovely Saturday evening (3 weeks back!) we meet at a restro bar called ShiokFood. Mamoo's to Mams to
Machans were the gestures thrown in tantrums when we meet each other after 7 years (yes, it was SEVEN looooooog years). And then the real party started. We were not only catching up with time, but also with the bartender coaxing into making real exotic and wild cocktails, fueling our party spirits with the flamers and slammers. Starting with Illusion Eyes, we went to have Shiok Slammers and finally
ended up with Electric Jumps (which had lot of hot chill pepper sauce in it!). Boy, it was one wild party that we had and all of us were glad to have done this. This is just the beginning and more are yet to come! The Idol show thus began...

36 vs 200

The Palaghat highway is quite a distance from my place in Coimbatore, but given that Cbe is 1/4th of Chennai, they would hardly call it a distance. I was in no mood to do the spider man act of hopping more than a couple of buses to reach the destination, but it was a Hobson's choice I had with my parents, not budging to any of my gimmicks to take a pleasure ride.Thankfully, the afternoon was quite cool and windy when we started and that was a welcome sign. It was Catch (the) 22 and
get down at the first pit stop which did not take more than 15 minutes. While we were figuring out our next mode of commute the bright red vehicle zoomed right past us and stopped to a screeching halt. Hopped in to secure ourselves a seat and off we zoomed again touching the Palaghat highway. This one has a customized stopping facility and we were glad to get off right where we wanted.

We had to visit my friend's(Mani's) new house and also wish his father a happy 60th b'day. Having spent some quality time at their house and completing the formalities of munching the sweets and drinking coffee, we started our return journey. The strategy applied was the same. We got hold of the Suryan FM enabled 40 seater and got down at our connecting hub. Another 40 seater honked in and before we could realise, we were at home. My parents were very pleased for not having to part with lot of moolah and I had to accept that it was sure a super-saver. It cost us only Rs 36 for to and fro in the public transport as against Rs 200 to and fro in the famous Indian call-taxi.


PS: My title had an arithmetic error and thankz to Xavier for noticing it. Sometimes things don't add up properly in life do they? I've made the correction anyways!

The indelible mark of the Indian clan

Scene 1:
I was Sitting in the auto waiting for the 180 seconds signal to turn green. After a while a black sedan pulls beside me. I lean out to take a look and no doubt it was a Sonata ,glimmering in all grandeur. I was starting to admire the beauty of the black stallion (is it worth calling the car so?) when I was taken aback by what happened in the next few seconds. The power window on the navigator's side rolled down to reveal a person well dressed in a perfect business suit.
Splat! Thoo! Thup! was the sound and what an artist was he to have made those markings on the electrical post standing tall and white (now with a red spot in the corner). Immensely satisfied with his act, the person leans back in his seat and the power window goes up again.

Scene 2:

A couple of days later, I was on M.G Road in an auto. The driver would have given the creeps to Schumi exhibiting his perfectly precarious driving skills. As he was maneuvering the 3-wheeler in the busy traffic, he did a twin act of disposing the ammunition from his mouth. It was with enough dexterity that he shot the ammo from his mouth that I could not stop from admiring it. If he was in any spitting competition, he would have won it hands down. The beauty about his spit time act was
that he was careful enough to save his vehicle from any marks.

I can go with more such scenes,but if you want more feast for the eyes, you can see such modern arts in the subways, railway and bus stations, big white walls and just about any other place where one considers is an (in)appropriate place to cleanse his mouth. The "Paan" is a true mark of the common Indian man. Who stops him from spitting it where he likes?, Who warns him, who educates him? Nobody! Maybe it is not part of the civic sense at the first place.

If you are a modern art buff, you don't need M.F.Hussain to have you agape with his
paintings. A bunch of our full time pan chewers (more aptly the spitters) will do a wonderful job for you. From the best city to the worst village in India, these marks are pervasive. I even heard that the New York lanes have exuberant displays of such art.

Do we ever realize that we are not only spoiling the beauty of the city landmarks, but also causing a serious threat to the already threatened health and hygiene conditions in our cities and towns? Only a conscious effort from our side and an ethical and moral responsibility towards our immediate surroundings will force people to refrain from such demeaning acts. I am trying to make noise about it through this media. Who else wants to bark louder?

Spiderman 2 - not an impressive web spin

I went to watch Spiderman 2 with lot of excitement (just like that of a kid ready to watch the cartoon) but was quite disappointed to see that it did not stand upto my expectations.The first part was soo good that I was really hoping this would spice it up more (which of course it did inspite of me not liking it! :) ). Spiderman revealing himself to a whole bunch of folks in the train and then expecting them to keep mum about his little (now open)secret was quite hard to digest. MJane had to be told is acceptable because the love storywhich budded in the first, blossomed in the second had to display its grandeur in the next.Harry had to know because he had to avenge his father's death and also we can see a new villan now (maybe junior goblin?). And btw, if so many of the common folks knew spider man,why didn't he reveal himself (explicitly) to his aunt?
Overall, graphics was good, the song Raindrops was good and I just wished that Spider man did not reveal himself to a wider community !

Out of hibernation

It has been more than a couple of months since I blogged here. I did not want my initial enthu to blog to fizz out like a cola, but sometimes priorities are different and certain activities take the back seat all the time. Today I decided to do a "priority inversion" and end my hibernation. This could end up being a pretty long blog if I have to write about everything over these months, so I will just summarize the main events (ok you read it,I don't remember half of what I did over these months!).

June zoomed past me while I was buried in reading a whole bunch of articles, documentsand technology stuff for my new project (can't put more info as it is an Intellectual Property!). Weekends came by and went and so did my visits to Coimbatore and Chennai.

In the first week of July, the four of us (parents,brother and myself) went to Thirupathi-a long due to visit Venky (our family diety!). We saw a couple of nearby temples around this city and spent a nice weekend out there. The remaining days of the month saw me through with not much of activities (except of course for the work!).

That was a quick jump to the present day and from now on I'll try and make my presence here more often that not.

Tete-a-Tete with Dr. James "Java" Gosling

This was such a dream come true in my life when I had this excellent oppurtunity to sit with the "Father of Java" and have lunch with him. It was none other than Dr. James Gosling who blessed the Sun India Engineering Centre with his august presence on the 19th of May 2004. I had this once in a lifetime oppurtunity to interact with him on that day, share his views about Java, get an autograph on a book written by him and finally crack some jokes on a dessert of vanilla ice cream.

The next day (20th of May 2004), I once again has an exclusive oppurtunity to interview him for the newsletter (I am glad I took up the editorial post for the Sun newsletter). Sitting in a S-class Benz Car with him and sailing through the morning traffic of Bangalore saw us through the entire part of the interview. The two days of spending those invaluable time with him is an indelible milestone in my life - some thing that makes me proud of Java, Sun and myself (for being part of this).


Me with Dr.James Gosling

Say no to Plastic

I was in Ooty a couple of weeks back and I was surprised to see sign boards all over the place saying "NO TO PLASTIC BAGS". It was quite pleasing to see that all the people in this town are quite conscious about using plastic bags which has made quite a difference to the whole place.

Though many of us know that plastic bags are an environmental hazard, non biodegradable, how many of us actually refrain from using them? I was thinking about this a while back and decided not to accept plastic bags from shops anymore. Also, I strongly feel that supermarket chains like FoodWorld, Monday2Sunday,etc should encourage usage of paper bags as against plastic bags. If big chains like these discourage plastic usage, it will create more awareness amongst us and make us conscious about our actions.

Let us try and do a bit to save our environment - SAY NO TO PLASTIC!

On a nice sojourn

Took off on Friday 23rd and went on a two day trip to Ooty (a hill station) with my parents. We left Coimbatore on Friday morning at 11 am and reached Ooty at 2 in the afternoon. Our visit coincided with the Rain God's visit that afternoon. Incessant rains forced us to stay indoors till 6 in the evening. After that we took a nice saunter and visited Charring Cross. Did some window shopping and called it a day. The next day we hired a cab and visisted the Dodabedda peak, Pykara Dam, Boat house, Brindavan Gardens, Rose Garden and a few picturesque valleys. This took us till almost 3 in the afternoon. We took a lot of snaps and had a real good time visiting these places. The best part of course, being the weather. It was so much of a relief to get out of the heat wave that grasped most part of the South and to enjoy the chilly winds of the Western Ghats. After bidding good bye to our relatives, we started our descend to Cbe the same evening and reached "Home sweet home" by 8 pm on Saturday evening. Sunday was a quiet day and we spent most of the time indoors except for a few hours to see the doctor and buy a pair of shoes for Madhu (my brother). Caught the bus at 10 pm and headed straight to Bangalore. The weekend was truly rejuvenating and it was a much needed break!!

A new feather to the old bird

Today we had our ground floor inauguration at SUN IEC amidst all pompous. Mark and Vijay did the formalities and this is truly a historic milestone in IEC's achievements. With hi-tech labs, sun standard cubicles and beautiful conference rooms, the place looks really a s/w engineer's haven. So much for the lucky chaps to work in this new place, while I enjoy my little nook on the 6th floor.

Treat in the "Gramin" style

Yesterday, our gang went to Gramin to celebarate the occasion of Athu getting her H1B this year. We had a good time squeezing each other in the rat hole place, but the food (an authentic North Indian sytle) was really good and that simmerred our frustations a wee bit.
Though the place was qutie claustrophobic, people were pouring in all the time. So much to please the taste buds, that people preferred to hang on till they got their little nook. JB and Athu had to put up with some curd spilling on them, thanks to the waiters, but that did not let our fun be washed away. Quite a fun evening it was overall.

To do or not to do

In feb 2000, Rob Pike published a white paper "System Software Research is Irrelevant". This is more than a truth now and people who have realised this are silently admitting to the statement. Today, we are all concerned/bothered about creating new applications with existring technology or coming up with a technology that is actually an amalagamation of existing technologies. Where has all the thinking gone in coming up with a new OS with a new architecture..not a Windows based or a unix based one..something which is different??
does all this make any sense???