Quo Vadis?

Its been so long since I last posted and much has happened since: Trinity has completed a year and she has been constantly amazing us with her antics - she loves shopping and is always running about with a shopping bag, sometimes filling me with a little dread - she loves the songs of Enthiran and I must confess I haven't heard them much and wont be able to make them out (sorry Thalaiva) but my daughter is making up for it, and she is absolutely delighted to hear the songs on TV each time or when the trailer comes on - she amazed the girl who delivered the ironed clothes when she pointed out the bunch of house keys hanging behind a door that were required to open the locked gate (a security hazard no doubt) - she amazed D and I and absolutely sent to us into a tizzy when we made her sit on a chair before a keyboard to rest and she promptly started fooling around with the keys and when I reduced the volume, she turned it back on again. Well these may not amaze you because you may ha...

You wake up at dawn and with half open eyes survey the dim surroundings around, the others on the bed are asleep. You spot a very small space near wife dearest, a space that will never be sufficient but you stumble to that side of the bed and snuggle up to drift into bliss. Suddenly you are awakened by a gentle nudge, you open the eyes a little to see two little teeth peeking out in between a cute pair of lips curled into an impish smile topped off by two sparkling eyes. Your heart is filled with warmth as your now not so little bundle of joy looks at you with adoring puppy dog eyes. She manages to squeeze into that small space between her mum and dad and snuggles off to sleep again. You drift off in the tight embrace to something that is closest to heaven on earth with a contented smile... then you hear the alarm. It is Monday.

Was challanned by a traffic cop the other day for crossing the stop line near the new Secretariat. It was my fault as I was riding along with a MTC bus and I did not see the lights. What impressed me was the politeness and the respectful tone the traffic constable used to talk to me and while I thought it may be an aberration the sergeant was also of the same type. While I ranted about the MTC drivers going scot free showed me a challan similar to mine for the bus driver that was being dispatched to the MTC head office for salary recovery. I learnt a couple of things that day – police men are not so bad despite being painted black so often, MTC drivers do get penalized for all their violations. I could not resist asking him why the police were not strict with enforcement; he told me a few things: - Policemen are friends of the public and they would still like to be friends and not stick wielders - The onus of policing is on the public and self discipline is a duty, passing the buck to ...

Why does politics raise such a stink? Here we have the pots calling a kettle black (no reference to the shapes of the protagonists), the ruling party being jolted out of their complacency by the mother of all meetings in Coimbatore retaliates with another of their own and then follow it up with the youth wing headed by a grandfather paralyzing traffic in the capital city. I had mentioned in an earlier post that the last vulgar display of power led to the “amma” loosing power, I have a feeling that history will repeat itself and the ruling party is digging their own graves. The CW games fiasco is ensuring that the ugly side of India is there for the world to see. I think Mr. K is of the opinion that the term Common Wealth meant that he should share the wealth with his common cronies. What is even more irksome is that he is still holding on to his job. The pressures of coalition politics ensured another black sheep in the form of the telecommunication minister sitting tight in his post a...

The sermon this Sunday was on the Lord’s Prayer and it gave a new definition to the term prayer, prayer is a relationship and that is captured in the first two words of the prayer. It is true the first two words offer universal son-ship and brotherhood, children of one God, makes us all brothers and sisters. On the note of fatherhood Trinity is now giving so many fulfilling moments that make life so wonderful. Her eyes that light up when I enter home, the pure joy when I lift her up, the impish smile when she has done something that she knows is not permitted at her 10 months, when she cuddles in my arms, the baby steps the list goes on. Trinity also has reopened my eyes to the small joys of life; every time I watch her amuse herself with just a piece of paper I wonder why I get bugged when I have nothing around me and retire to the idiot box. We have tried to amuse her with Fischer Price and Funskool but lose to a discarded sock, a piece of paper, a spoon. The entrepreneurship bug ha...

It seems to be the wedding season with people around me getting married and this brought about a new post. Weddings are made in heaven, but all the support roles are played here and unfortunately the support roles tend to take precedence on the big day. If you don’t believe me, accept the fact that weddings are fixed based on the availability of the wedding halls and this availability throws up the auspicious date issues. Wiktionary throws up the following for “auspicious” Adjective auspicious (comparative more auspicious, superlative most auspicious) Positive auspicious Comparative more auspicious Superlative most auspicious 1. Of good omen; indicating future success. 2. Conducive to success. This is an auspicious day. 3. Marked by success; prosperous. What it simply means is that a wedding on these days that have been decided by some one based on whatever divination techniques can bring success. Please note that the operative word is can as many weddings have been doomed even after...

It’s been sometime since the great grandfather of all conferences got over; despite the lofty ideals it was simply a show of power by the ruling family who seem to run the state like the royals of old. It is sad that the fortunes of the future are in the hands of the ancient. The great grandfather conference reminded me of the mother of all weddings when a one time foster son was married off in an extravagant show of wealth and power and crass misuse of public machinery. You can draw as many parallels as you may choose to but the net result is interesting, the raison d’être of the event the foster son is out of public domain and I hope that this conference does not kill what it celebrated. The bandh gave an extra holiday to those mad regions run by madder men who fail to understand that fuel is paying so many other bills and if they will agree to a termination of the government’s largesse under the name subsidy then fuel pricing can be reduced. And for all those brilliant men who said ...

Drove down the Mount road and saw the Chennai Corporation staff pulling down English signboards after the over zealous mayor declared that all boards be in Tamizh. To this mayor I ask what is the use of a board if it cannot be read by many? The governments in successive bouts of madness have killed the language by various stupid ideas. If the jokers must do something, then instead of breaking boards and renaming streets first change the name of the state, because morons it is not Tamil, but Tamizhnadu. Tamizhnadu is the state where the mother tongue is an option instead of being the compulsory second language, in the zeal to remove Hindi these jokers have made several generations opt out of the language of the land and no your pathetic idea of giving state ranks to Tamizh students may not impress or motivate many and I for one would be scandalized to get a laptop with a screen saver of a geriatric even if it was free. Language is meant to communicate and trust me classical Tam...

Vuvuzela or not, the beautiful game is often making me yawn and somehow I miss the good games. I’m a football novice but still I think that to score you need to visit the opponent’s half of the football field to score a goal, passing between team mates in the own stretch is so not happening The cricket overkill and viewer exhaustion is emerging with the recent matches happening away from the glare and despite the headlines on the sports page; I think some sanity may be returning to the sport fan space Swimming is fun and I can’t wait to complete the remaining 13 weekend classes so that I can make it a routine, maybe just maybe I will knock off some kilos on the way. But sadly only bodysuits abound the pool I learn. Trinity is a real bundle of joy with her heart melting smile and naughty antics often driving poor D round the corner Doing some property hunting and finding that the prices are way beyond my purse and by the time I locate a buyable property I think I will find myself in som...

I was invited to attend a discussion with the Indiblogger team and NDTV Hindu team today. The topics to be discussed were the Maoist situation and the government response and Indian cinema. I went prepared on the Maoist scenario and i actually did some thinking on my view point. Opinions like are like butts everyone has one and that is the fact of these talk shows you can show the world yours and get away with it. Please note that you can get away with flashing your opinions only on TV. Sadly the topic was changed to discussing the banning of Facebook by Pakistan, so I thought maybe I will share my thoughts with you... A few quick pointers - - Firstly I am not a commentator and frankly how anyone can comment on something that is so far away, it is not an IPL match after all, beats me - The gun is never a solution and he who wield a sword, perishes by a sword, don't think a gun is any different - Armed uprisings cannot be popular or self sustaining - The Maoists are devils but it...

Been on Blogger over two years now and have been posting irregularly since. Got slowly drawn into Twitter and at last count realized that my followers marginally outnumber the number I follow. Fascinated by the handles that I saw I thought maybe I should try it too and for those who wonder where it originated, watch Yup my handle is vadapoche and you can keep up with me on Twitter if you have'nt already.

Been awhile since I last posted so just thought I’ll put some random thoughts together - Went to Mumbai for a review & strategy plan meet and found that somewhere strategies got lost in between tactics - Found that the over priced service apartment did not live up to its price. - Heard during the meeting that we are constrained only by ourselves and not the environment - Was reminded that nothing is impossible if we choose to make it happen - Spent a couple of days doing nothing because planning and no action made all those grand sight seeing plans, just that plans - Found that there will be a fashion street everywhere and that bargaining on the streets must start at 50% of quoted price - Saw decay, dirt, despair everywhere and generally felt depressed - Heard again that people there sleep less, travel more, work harder etc and remembered that they lived lesser too (read in the paper some where that the avg life of a Mumbaikar is 3-4 years lesser than those from other cities) - Won...

I remember a scene vaguely in a Sathiyaraj movie where a kid asks him why he was using his caste as a surname and Sathiyaraj gets a paradigm shift moment. I look round and see that this is not an isolated case, the naming I mean. A whole lot of people proudly put their community or more specifically their castes behind them as if it is some honorary degree. The question is why? This is a land which has given birth to many religions and the predominant way of life, it is not a religion mind you threw up some rules on who does what and so came the class system where one prayed, one sowed, one traded, one ruled or something like that and the rest they say is history. Today I know a “Vanniya Kula Kshatriya” if you understand something of the language you understand that it would amount to a “trader class warrior” and he is sitting in a software company. Isn't this a fair sign of how obsolete some of these "rules" have become.We have left so much behind and yet we hold on to s...

Its 20 days since my last post and let me look back and see what happened in between: -Appraisals were not “aapraisals” this time, thank to some work, some luck and lots of grace from above. It was a reasonably good one, however a small slip between the cup and the lip made it a little lower than exceptional. So there is more to look forward next time -Trinity got her head shaved and it took some time for me to get used to her bald pate. Undeniably a girl’s crowning glory is her hair. On the topic of hair shaving, I do not think it is a great idea to go to church and shave the head there, no it may be acceptable to some, but it simply is not what I do. Bowing to family pressure we went to Our Lady of Health church in Besant Nagar, but one look at the unhygienic surroundings & we made a quick dash to Naturals and got the deed done -Went to Hyderabad with family for the wedding of a classmate. It was a mixed bag, we did some sight seeing despite the heat, but some how felt very unwel...

Near my office, I saw this. Wonder if it is a fact. Note the woman in black on the scooty, a closer observation may reveal to you that she is wearing a sweater in the hot Chennai sun in the morning. Not sure if it is vanity or insanity. This truck was apparently coming on the other side and it appears that the driver was exploring new ways of crossing the road.

IPL commentary is a sure fire cure for insomnia and the only saving grace is one gentleman who went in for hair transplant before Sehwag. If it were not for him you would simply drown into parrot talk that will kill you with its monotony or clichés. How many times can you stare at a blimp and be reminded of the contributions of the Pace Foundation to Indian cricket, maybe its time that some of the superstars get back to the Foundation to remind themselves of the basics. I fear that IPL 4 will have a sponsor for every delivery that will be bowled at the rate things are going and overkill can kill you painfully. And another word for omnipresent is Lalit Modi. Crime pays big time and in India it can be a great pension scheme, can’t remember the number of criminals who have swindled the public, shot to infamy and then with fickle public memories retire out of the lime light to enjoy their ill gotten wealth. Justice delayed is justice denied, one of the foundations of justice but the Indian...

The most talked about bat in town will be the Mongoose though it has broken many hearts after the Delhi sojourn. The CSK self combustion is worth a separate post but I’m not interested in debating something that has been done to death. But I cant resist offering some scraps of opinion to the CSK management: - Murali Vijay is an opener and if you want an anchor or someone to face hostile bowling it is he, if he is not doing that don’t let him do anything else or he will drop catches and then the match a la Gibbs - Parthiv and Raina should expand their strokes to more straight bat hits, horizontal swipes when they click look nice otherwise look terrible Anyway I digress this post is not entirely about the IPL. You can’t ignore a gorilla that commands prices of 3200 crores for just the rights to two teams. I predict that the phenomenon may implode soon in its excesses as already I am stifling a few yawns during the matches. Also Lalith Modi is getting too big and I am surprised that there...

I participated in the Indiblogger meet in Chennai on Saturday and it was an interesting experience, thought I will share it with you. The good: The venue GRT Grand Convention center is a better venue than the earlier one (Deecee Manor) The bad: The venues are still limiting capacity maybe next time we can give up the aircon claustrophobic confines and take maybe OAT at IIT? The good: This was the second meet The bad: this was the second meet in 3 years and if this is the blog capital then it deserves better The good: The large number of people who came for IB10 The bad: the very few repeat visitors from IB08 The good: The huge age band of members The bad: very few school students unlike last time The good: The programme was well planned and structured The bad: The planning took away the unconference, it still resembled an office meeting The good: The riotous Hitler video really was awesome The bad: too little of awesomeness The good: the team of Indiblogger, who put things together The...

What’s in a name? It depends – if you are someone who convults parent given names to weird unpronounceable spellings that should change the life of the so named for a charge it is your bread and butter -if you are a superstar who’s claim to fame is not just good acting and histrionics but a cult name like Rajinikanth it can be your calling card -if you are a believer of misspelling or respelling the name will bring an riches and what not, it can be the passport to something else -if you are sufferer when people who cannot for the world of it pronounce it with the same good meaning given by your parents and end up murdering it to new levels, it can be a cross for a life time -if you want an extra term of endearment to your loved ones and end up with an official name and a pet name so even at your wedding you may have a card that read XXX a.k.a YYY it can be an often unwanted excess baggage -if you want to be relatively anonymous or a change of image for professional reasons like a nom d...

I did not follow the second innings of the match yesterday as I felt that it may be a damp squib and so it was reflective of the margin of nearly 100 runs that separated the Mumbai Indians and the Delhi Daredevils. Twitter is full of tweets on how the Thackeray’s will change the name of the imports into Marathi names like Keiron Pollard to Karan Poddar… Though it may be the least imaginative of all franchisee names given the current scenario MI tells the world that Mumbai is for all Indians and many high priced imports and if the MNS thinks otherwise they can bid for the 9th team when it starts. Malawathi oops Mayawathi is hogging the news space and the vulgar display of sycophancy and money power is sinking to new depths and positively makes you throw up. This is the state that recently declared it bankrupt after the many memorials and statues to pay compensations to the victims of the ashram stampede. Saw the news today where a MLA from the Samajwadi Party is missing after setting a ...

My prolonged absence from blogosphere has made my ranking drop 12 notches and I’m now languishing at 36, any more absence and… Getting a little frustrated with the unfriendly systems in place at work, hygiene factors are taking a back seat and despite my boss’ best efforts it is a real dampener and everything boils down to money. Chennai Super Kings opened their account and it was an interesting match. The CSK top order was extremely scratchy and they some how scratched their way around till the unbeaten partnership that took away the game. But what was more pleasing was the bowling of Morkel who kept it simple and bowled straight on a good length. Aggressive fielding helped and it was a team effort that made KKR look very ordinary. Staying with the IPL, this year it looks like the CSK missed a trick by not picking up ICL players who are shining in many other teams, especially some local bowlers who can add muscle to the team. I think that the time out this year can be used as a good t...

Its been awhile since I blogged and I have already explained my prolonged absence in earlier mails. I have signed up for the blogger meet that is happening shortly and so I got back into the blogosphere. Q4 has been busy and it has been good, with success tasting sweet but the rewards are still looking elusive. So waiting with a silent prayer. I have finally got a team actually one member has joined and the other will join shortly, these two will lessen my workloads and let me do my normal job which had got changed recently. Trinity is growing fast and spreading loads of happiness around. My office travel weary body has got some rest and is recuperating before the next set of trips which are thankfully day trips only. Farmville is the greatest time pass apart from the occasional TV sessions. Have decided that Mafia is no longer my cup of tea and have retired to the farmlands exclusively! Had an opportunity to sing with a choir for a gospel concert and had a good time doing it. Looking ...

Off late I am constantly finding new excuses for not updating my blog; well here are the latest additions… - My mum gave away Melisaa when I was not around, not her fault entirely but some people came over willing to adopt, they fell in love with her instantly and took her away. After 8 years it took some time to come to terms with the fact that I will not have Melissa welcoming me home ever again. For a week we were all going around with a lump in our throats, but last heard that Melissa has settled down and is apparently happy in her new home. - Visited Andhra Pradesh (no Telengana) and was occupied completely with the increasing list of clients to be serviced - Trinity has completed 4 months and is monopolizing a lot of time at home - Nathan (my god son and nephew) got baptized and the festivities and social obligations took up a lot of time - Have purchased 500 each of all available properties in the New Your tier and am getting insane amounts of money so much that I’m contemplatin...

It is always good to have a week end break to recharge the batteries. Among the interesting happenings over the weekend was the one campaign on Facebook that was quite amusing. So to those guys in the know, (I hazarded a guess after the third status message and got it right after Googling), they now know what the colours actually were. Ranging from the usual blacks, whites and a red that drew a few oohs and aahs from other women, quite a few young ladies dared to show or actually tell their true inner colours. Among the colours was the striped variety contributed by my dear friend Jack sparrow who thinking it was a fad jumped into the fray with his version only to realize that it would look rather queer on him. And another well meaning friend who supported the cause felt that he should contribute white because his vest is usually of that shade. The TOI as usual came up with some more exotic varieties in its issue. If it must be colour then go for pink, I mean the ribbon, gloves or even...

Driving by the Marina in the rain around half past noon, I noticed a few couples lost in love (I hope) enjoying the wonderful weather. One couple caught my interest, the guy was dressed in formals and had a salesman bag slung around his shoulder, the girl was in a salwar with the dupatta draped around her head, they were walking towards the sea from their bike parked on the shoulder of the road. They were getting drenched and kept going all the while the guy had a folded umbrella in his hands. Saw another couple standing under a small umbrella in the classic pose of lost in each others eyes oblivious to the downpour around. Real life so often throws up such gems that no movie can

Today - The newspaper reports that a Deputy Commissioner of Customs was caught by the CBI accepting a bribe hold your breath of Rs. 2500. I remember reading about the arrest of quite a few officials with much higher sums of money at the airport and last heard they are out on bail. So what will happen to this person who got caught for 2500 rupees? - Is the start of the road safety week and many well meaning school kids were standing at road corners holding small placards with very well meaning statements. Just realized that not only are they risking their life and limbs to our notorious traffic but they are potential traffic hazards the same as the now banned hoardings - A pathetic duo on a TVS 50 casually drove the entire stretch of the long flyover in T. Nagar on the wrong side aiming to save 200 meters and made my blood boil over - A desktop calendar with pics of baby Trinity adorns my workstation and is drawing admirers in droves - I was supposed to be in Hyderabad of Telengana but ...

Hi, I will start this post with a few lines sent by Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan to the Chennai Photowalk mailing group on Facebook : “…January 1 is not going to be drastically different from Dec 31, or heck, even Dec 1. It's not the birth of new life - spring is. It's not a new season. It's not a new beginning. It rarely is the beginning of anything new. Months change every 28-30 days. SO, January 1 is no special month's start. My life will not change tomorrow. Neither will those of many I know. My outlook, my thoughts, my viewpoints don't change. I am not going to magically become thinner, stronger, funnier, or more talented. I will most definitely not win any lottery/beauty pageant next month, much less the next day…” I will break off here because in a few lines it sums up the day that went by. A few learnings from the New Year eve and New Year day that I thought I will share with you - SMS will be charged on big days and so prudence will spare the bank - Eating...