Category: Daily Notes

Fighting with Zee, SET for remote time, Sun TV in our home is hardly a winner. Niether of us are fans of the family dramas that rule the evening hours of the Indian channels. But one serial, Chidambara Ragasiyam has impressed me a whole lot. I like it so much that I have grown religious to watching it as I used to watch SpiderMan at 3 PM in DD in 1980s. Even when I forget everything, my mind clock exactly reminds me at 10pm on wednesday (Sun Tv in US is delayed a bit to account for west coast) and I get glued to the couch for a full 1/2 hour (Except for some annoying ads like kungumam, for which I switch to a basketball game or DiscoveryHD).

Marmadesam fame, Naga (naga001@hotmail.com) directs this thriller that clearly differs by miles from the rest of the Sun TV’s so called family soaps. And Naga has to be appreciated for being higly creative in all aspects when it is so easy for a director to get bogged down by the template-style serials that only care about good looking women who cry ostentatiously.

Naga, to start with, has done a great job penning a simple but spectacular story(and screenplay), an arresting thriller revolving around Nadi Josiyam and a handful of well-done charcters. Second, the individuals chosen for the roles were the odd ones out in the TVdom of chennai. They are not those you would see in every serial, eventually to confusing you to wonder, what serial you are really watching. Everyone one of the characters seem to be well carved and actors well chosen. They have done their part aptly if not extraordinarily. Thats more than enough for becoz the director has given your quality work in all aspects so you can overlook some subtle drawbacks.

Rehan scoring the music has done a neat but killer work by carefully recreating the theme “unknown” into the music. The grand theme music accentuated by strong percussion and skillfully rendered native sacred verses, is well conceived that it just pumps up your blood well before the serial starts. The title and credits designer must be whole heartedly appreciated. Excellent piece of work with finger prints design and some excellent origami work that begs you look into the screen while the credits roll. The sets and production design is also commendable more so becoz it blends well with the story line. A perfect 19the century rural home (with open-air mithams, that I remember seeing in my grandpa’s place in Thirukkannamangai) where Akash’s grandma lives to the more modern stylistically decoreated chennai house of YG Mahendran ( i dont remember his character’s name), the production design crew speak thru their sensible work. They knew exactly what they were doing. Unlike the more static shots of the other Sun TV soaps, here the camera is more a dynamic character that is so critical to the scenes. The wandering camera pumps more reality into the scenes and I always feel like I am watching all this happen live infront of me, while I swing above the characters freely in air.

The story is compelling that the audience gets engrossed in trying to solve the mystery themselves ( though they wont! ). The trick is also not to make it easy so you will keep coming abck to next serial to find out what the heck is going to happen. I consider myself to be a NOT a dumb viewer ( if not intelligent ) and every serial has only made me feel good that I chose to watch it and makes me want to come back next week. I think, in this world of chaotic TV media, such a feat is a great accompolishment.

Few other worthy programs for which I take the time to sit thru the whole half hour are …

‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ in Zee, great singing talents, accompolished judges and a wonderful host, Shaan. Sun TV screwed big time with Sabdha Swarangal where niether the host is engaging nor the guests are while the participants try to in vain. If I get to be in front of the TV when this is on, I sure watch SaReGaMaPa.

“Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai”, a reality-like interview-like talk show. But the host lets the guest and his/her friends/families speak, while he just skillfully engages them and the audience. Depending on who the guest is, I watch it.

Suki Sivam, on mornings in Sun TV. Its a fresh early morning treat to hear him talk about art of living. He is a man of wisdom but most important, a knack to explain some great prophecies in simplest of the terms. We wont leave with an empty hand for sure. More than the art of living, he is also a master of public speaking.

Solomon Pappaiah, on mornings in Sun TV. Who better than he do we need everyday to help us understand the inordinate verses of great Tamil classics & epcis on ‘How to live’. A perfect definition for ‘wit’ – ability to express in an ingeniously humorous manner.

While I like the above spots on TV, as of today, Chidambara Ragasiyam is the only one that drags me into it while others I watch more ad-hoc.

Instead of wasting her time and capacity to torn Sankaracharya’s reputation, I wish jayalalitha puts her political cleverness to work in getting BMW to set up its Indian operations in Chennai or elsewhere in Tamilnadu. When a heavy communist Kerala could be in the probable list without doing much to woo BMW, Tamilnadu can do lot better with one of nation’s best natural and human resources. Neither the chief minister knows priorities nor the citizens(in reacting to CM).

Written in a two part series, Rajesh Jain gives a glimpse of some the things characteristic of the thriving India. One observation got my attention in that post is this line about Internet Telephony :

Smart Indians are also buying Vonage boxes in the US and getting them to India to make calls to the US for a flat rate of $30 (Rs 1,350) a month. Geography indeed has no barriers!

Someone I know told me very recently about how he actually is subscribed to Vonage here in US, but installed the actual Modem/Phone in Chennai (India) and using it as a local US phone. Of course, they need to have broadband in India. After struggling thru the chennai broadband provider to set up the Vonage box across their firewall and fighting it out with their customer service to fix some technical issues ( USB port/firewall port), he somehow managed to set up the phone working. Now, he and anyone else interested in talking to his family in India is making local/long distance calls from all over US, never realizing that the call actually goes to India. They, in turn, make calls to anyone in US as just plain long distance. All for $29 that you pay for Vonage. I doubt if this will continue for ever but until BSNL or Vonage either one figure it out and block the idea, this seems to be a smartest move. I never thought about this idea frankly.

What if all the intenert cafes in chennai and other cities in India, buy vonage and start offering calls to US in dirt cheap rates? ( even less than Rs.2 running rate ). I am betting atleast few hundred clever minds are going to make some good fortune out of this before it bursts out. Watch out on your next trip to India when someone hads over a package to their family, it could a Vonage phone!

Perhaps, its part of Vonage’s plan. Vonage is already offerning local phone numbers, as an add on to your primary phone, for $5. So you can get a local phone number for UK and attach it to your primary phone. Your folks in UK can now make local calls from there with this new local UK number and it iwll ring up on your primary phone here in New york. All for localcall charge for your buddy. Its just picking and available for UK, Canada and Mexico for now. May not be too long before it gets to India.

This did make me laugh [Source : CartoonStock.com ]

This tiny TV-B-Gone, seems like a no-big-deal gizmo has created too much noise in the internet. A tiny key-chain remote that switches off any TV. Simple is it? But why the hell is it selling like $100 Sony playstation? coz of nerds! I am pretty sure not a single soul is buying to use it with their own TVs, but Americans perhaps are so tired of TVs everywhere that they wanted to switch off every TV. Period. Imagine, hanging out silently in an airport, but turning off every TV or turning off all those 200+ big screen TVs in bestbuy all in one shot and nobody knows who did it? Its getting crazy Dude!

If thats one extreme, check out this less insane Listmania extreme from a Amazon.com user. Shiela, an “Ardent Seeker Of Oddities” has created this “Top 25 Weirdest Items You Can Purchase Through Amazon“. So much for amazon. I wonder what kind of weird things will come out such a list from eBay.

This new viral ad for Citroën C4 is truly wow. Made with similar animation techniques from Finding Nemo, this transformer ad is sure to be a fire around the world wide web. I guess the makers deserve kudos for thinking creatively and of course, making it look close to real.

Read more about the ad and how the made it..here

Watch the ad here or here .

Did you miss the famous Honda Accord Ad that made big buzz in the online world? Oh, then, you should sure see it. Its mind boggling when you start thinking about how they could have made it. Watch the Honda ad here.

The next days two days (four in all) will be marked with chaotic travel and outrageous shopping. Close to 10% of US population si travelling in the next four days so we chose to stay put. Arvind and Ranjini will be driving down from detroit to visit us and that might be one heck of a long 10 hour drive tomorrow especially with rain in the forecast. With harini working on friday, we may head out to new york city to catch up with her after work and hang out there for the rest of the evening. If so, it will be almost after three months that i will be visiting the great city, though its only a flash 40 minute drive from here [with traffic triple that]

When everyone is scrambling thru catalogues for thanksgiving under-$400 PC deals, I am going to clean up my old Compaq Presario PC that has been sitting around idle ever since I moved this site from my home to TCH. Why clean up? That beloved PC will be donated to the local church whose computers were stolen recently according to a notice in our coffee room requesting PC donations for the church. I thought it will do some good to church community instead of simply dusting up and eating my desk top space. If you are in US and interested in donating your old computers, here are your choices.

Another Byte They refurbish old computers and distribute them to those who need them, including Indian reservations in the Southwest.
Share the Technology They salvage used computers, repair and upgrade them, then donate them to nonprofit organizations, schools and people with disabilities.
World Computer Exchange They give new life to your donated computers and connect poor youth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to the Internet.
National Cristina Foundation Donations of computers, software, and peripherals are distributed to people with special needs.
Computers for Kids They upgrade old computers and distribute them to needy families, schools, and organizations. (Connecticut-based)
Computers for Youth They only accept corporate donations of 50 or more computers at a time. Good resource for companies.

Happy ThanksGiving!

Atanu Dey, a voracious blogger focused on India’s developmental economics, recently wrote a blog on Corruption in India. What he wrote wasnt totally surprising becoz it described something that most Indians are aware of and most likey, experienced first hand. Needless to say corruption is detrimental to any country’s economic and social growth.

The fact that I agree with crowning India as “Largest Kleptocracy” aside, I asked him a question about how corruption really affects economic growth. The shorter version of the question is No matter whether the money is in the hands of one corrupt official or 10 middle-class private employees or 100 poor rural citizens, that money’s got to be doing something isnt it? if so, shouldnt the economy grow inspite of corrupt public sector officials (including those in the higher esteems of “Politics”). The question may seem stupid and answer may seem obvious, but I wanted to know exactly how?

Atanu replied with this post pointing to this World Bank report on Corruption. After carefully digesting the report for little more than an hour, I get the essence of corruption’s economic consequences as follows [There is still some piece of my question left unanswered by the report, but partially answered by a subsequent comment here] :

Corruption…

– distorts the composition of government expenditure [Govt officals allocate more funds into sectors where they can get more bribery as opposed to sectors which may really need funds: Defense spending vs Education or healthcare spending ]
– reduce economic growth by lowering incentives to invest [less new business so less new jobs etc]
– lowering the quality of public infrastructure and services [When part of budgeted money goes into bribery, the other lesser part forces the quality of infrastructure & services to be compromised]
– decreasing tax revenue [more illegal activity, less legal tax to govt]

In India, corruption has already become deeprooted and is accepted as a norm. As the report points out once corruption has become ingrained, it is very difficult to get rid of and the only hope is forceful reforms from top to bottom. A forced reform is something highly difficult to even get accepted at the Indian politics, much less to be implemented consistently nationwide. [It may be possible as chidambara did with VDS the last time around]

On the other hand, for most citizens bribing gives them predictability and in most cases, accountability. After paying Rs.1000 for a passport atleast they know they will get one for sure within the agreed time frame or know who to ask for it, instead of waiting for few months on the Rs.50 regular service where there is nobody to question when no passport arrives.

Eventually, all answers point to only one remedy : Education. That I truly believe is necessary[but not sufficient]. Basic education should(will?) empower our rural masses to escape out of fateful poverty. And it will be decades before we see any results. But the call for action is to act today. Atanu’s answer to this is RISC[A growth model for India’s rural economic development : Read in detail here]. Quiting his day job in California, Atanu is out in India, working with few others[Rajesh Jain, Suhit Anantula, Reuben Abraham, Anand Chandrasekaran and others ] trying to implement his RISC model (addressing the delivery of basic education piece) that could someday rewrite India’s rural mass’s destiny.

No, the title is incorrect. Think, what did you do for Internet? If you are like me, wondering what we are doing in the internet economy besides watching it, as it booms, here is two more reasons for you to ponder more. These are just two examples of why we should get started now and do it instead of just dreaming it.

Live-Shot.com, may sound like a porn website, but hang in there, it isnt. It represents a latest innovation in internet. Live-shot.com offers the world-wide users a place to hunt in real time. If that sounds ridiculous, you better go and check it out. For a meager, $5.95, from the comfort of your desktop, you can control a live rifle, of course,with the help of high-speed, high-resolution camera, and hunt in a free ranging texas ranch for sheeps, antelops, hops( and much more in future) and also have them shipped to your home! Initially, I couldnt believe it was real much less legal. Until the Texas state goverment and federal goverment writes new laws to protect anything like this, it is absolutely legal and yesterday in NPR, i was told that this website and few others in such business are making hay big time.

This second one is lot more innovative and promising. eMachineShop.com is a website where you can design and order your own parts. Virtually any parts for heavyduty machinary to door knobs to tiny camera parts. Note the word design. While tons of web sites sell parts, this is perhaps the first one to offer you to design your own part right there in their website. The slick idea is not without its challenges. Its indeed great idea to offer industrial-scale design online but how could you manufacture practically anything that users could design on-the-fly online? With just few employees out a small New Jersey office, this website envisions to accompolish that by contracting to manufacturers around the world (think China). While the idea is far fetching, the business is already flourishing according to this USA Today article.

The more I read such stuff, the more the question pops up. What can I do for the internet? Miles to go before I rest…

Saw this specatular documentary on Discovery HD about MIRACLE CONTINENT — ANTARCTICA. The truly pristine atmosphere and the heavenly tranquil of the ice-covered sea provided such a stunning visual retreat that I was in a state of gawp from the moment I switched the TV on.

[Kapitan Khlebnikov, one of world’s most powerful icebreaker expedition ships. Source:Aurora Expeditions]

This russian ice-breaker ship carrying a selected few on-board takes us through some unbelievable views and watching it on widescreen HD ( high definition is a much better video quality than regular TV ) with our dolby surroud sound was just a feast to eyes and ears. I mean as the ship sliced thru tranquil waters and with the wind hissing from all the 5 speakers around me and the NJ weather close to antartic levels at 40F, i had goose bumps on some shots. Right there I replenish all the money spent on HD and home theater. The only appropriate ad in between was for Voom, which was eye-catching too, made me think if i should get that as well [Voom, is another satellite dish provider, like the Dish Network that we have, but Voom is no-nonsense all HD and only HD, howz is that?. Voom offers 60+ HD channels while we have just 5 or so ]. Come this thanksgiving, HD TV is expected to be the hottest seller and no turning back as all media channels are mandated by US Govt to upgrade to HD quality. [Start watching HD, I bet you will less likely want to watch the regular]

[Ice mountains of the antartic. Source:Disovery]
Engorssed in that rare audio visual experience of Antartica, I learnt a few facts that I have never known before. I knew Antartica was a continent, but didnt know it was fully discovered and mapped just about 125 years ago! One would expect a continent to be made up of countires, but not so with Antartica, which has no countries but exists just as a one single mammoth continent(about 1.5 times size of US). I never gave a thought about who has rights over that continent or rather who owns it?. Apparently, its owned by NONE. The continent has been dedicated to science!!! Its governed by an international treaty signed by 20+ countires who camp out there just for exclusive scientific reasearch. A real treasure for earth scientists and environmentalists. [I was delighted to see India among those few countries having a research stake in the continent 🙂 )

Lead by this hint from Rajesh, I hit this recent news CNN article about RipeTV. Having experienced Comcast On Demand for a year when we lived in jersey city, this news isnt totally surprising. RipeTV should just be on more to the host of video programming choices available in Comcast On Demand for consumers. For free, Comcast was offerening everything ranging from short independent movies to internation fashion shows to exotic travel guides via On Demand. That means, just before our planned vacation to Costarica, we could turn to Comcast On Demand and select the travel guide for Costarica for a on-time pre-vacation experience of whats in store, all at the convinience of our living room. We will also welcome the targeted ads for costarica’s local restaurants and shopping centers placed in these guides coz they make more sense for someone visiting cosatrica.

But the last statement from RipeTV on that news article turned my attention:

And eventually, if the service takes off, the company wants to solicit the audience to create programs for RipeTV. “We want to get to the point where the audience programs the content,” Magnussen said, “so we’re the eBay of TV networks.”

As I expressed my excitement in previous post about how more and more common people are creating content(audio/video/written) for modern media, RipeTV and others will naturally want to be eBays, Yahoos and Googles of Citizen’s content.

Inspired by Finding Nemo and Pixar reputation, we saw ‘The Incredibles’ last night. The movie was good enough but no where close to Finding Nemo. The premise was pretty creative : After all, super hero’s also have their own life, family, kids and a day to retire 🙂 I laughed out loud on some funny scenes but mostly the movie was dragging ( proof : harini slept off for most part ). My take : Its not worth the $10 a piece theater trip, a $3 blockbuster trip in about 3 months would suffice 🙂

Incredibles was definitely watchable by all means, but this afternoon, we were tortured by a tamil movie : Jana. If ajith is trying to say from the movie that he wants to be a super star, then i only pity him. The movie, an exact shameless rework of Badhsha, is not even worth the $2 rent. Total utter criminal waste of time, money and resources!!! Badhsha was a genuine movie that fits Superstar’s calibre, but Ajit as Jana, as an ultimate dada of Mumbai? Comes nowhere close poor chap, diehard Ajith fans may make the theaters look full but I will honour that with a thousand farts!!!

I have been wanting to write about this short film ever since the movie was made three months ago. Today, the day of famous Hindu festival, Deepavali, perhaps was pre-destined to be day of release for this short (and sweet) film – Stinking Cigar.

Stinking Cigar is being released today for the general public. Directed by the upcoming director, Arun Vaidyanathan, and music by another talented muscian from chennai living not too far from here in the washington area, Srikanth, the movie is a visual presentation of a touchy poem. The film gives a glimpse into the mind of charming Jennifer as she defies everything to win back her mom’s love. With that introduction, I invite you all to watch the short.

[Click on this poster to watch the movie with a Real Media Player. If you are on dial-up and in India, unfortunately, it might take forever to download. Sorry, we couldnt help you with that]

For those of you who might be wondering what I ( rather we, myself and harini ) have to do with this…becoz of my interests in screenplay and short films ( which is how I got to know Arun in the first place ), Arun offered us a role in making this movie. Though arun, who also lives here in the New Jersey area, christened me as assistant director of the film, we just played the small part of helping out in everything during the making of the movie. That included everything from what an assistant director would do to keep track of every frame shot to what a light boy would do. And I enjoyed thoroughly, learning from every momemt. I could write a really lengthy story about our experiences but to make it short : It was a long and tiring two days of hard work that we hope shows up in the quality of film.

On your part, You could help with ecouraging us by watching the movie and sharing the good things and most importantly, the things that need improvement. Arun or myself will be more than happy to answer your questions, which the film is certain to evoke at least a few.

Have you used a (western) toilet? “Yes, Of course”, you say.

Have you ever fixed an overflowing western toilet bowl? “NOOOOO!!!!”, I hear you shout.

After spending an hour trying to fix one of our’s last night, Lemme tell you, you dont want to be doing that. Thankfully for us, it was overflowing before use. Lets not even imagine what would have happened otherwise. In this enticing experience I learned how the toilet bowls/flush work ! Thanks to my personal librarian(who else? google, hehehehe!), I had already edified myself with some literature about fixing toilet bowls before I let lose the left over mechanical engineer[I made a futile attempt a few weeks ago trying to replace a flat tire in my lovely Honda Accord] within me. I soon realized that my beloved toilet bowl’s uninformed tantrum was little unique and a solution for that has not been documented ever. Apparently, the smart guy who lived here before us had put a quick temporary fix to whatever has happened before. To fix your own mess is onething, to fix someone else’s is totally different. Its harder than it looks! Besides, the few little parts are so meticulously placed within a 6 inch wide tank, there is hardly any place to stick your hand inside. [I had just then read this section on the same webpage about how LA police had to rescue a man who had his hands stuck inside a toilet bowl!!! Poor cops had to unscrew the whole toilet and drag the man with his hands still stuck to the toilet to a firestation before they could free him of his mischief!!] So I was ultra conscious, though I was working with the tank and not with the toilet bowl. I finally managed to take out the small strip of wire that was broken, internally connecting the handle to the water outlet cup. After that it was business as usual. I fixed it, put it back and tightened the two ends with extra care. Followed it with a series of performance testing by flushing the toilet thrice within a span of 30 seconds[should say stress test isnt it?] and ensured that the mechanical engineer is still sane.

An interesting observation came out of this. This toilet has shown its ugly face only twice. And on those two occasions, we had a guest. I figured its got to be the guest somehow screwing it up. So its got to be the pressure with which they push the handle down, that breaks out the smart patch wire!!! YES, Its got to be. I now realize how much we both have learnt to live in harmony with our toilets??? Our broken toilets and us co-existed peacefully with so much understanding and an darn alien disturbed our peace!

So, the next time you use a toilet at someone else’s place – touch, hold and press the handle with tender care – He might have worked his ass off to fix it the night before!!!

PS:Did you notice the link I had put on Honda? Turn your speakers on and check that simple but mind blowing ad/movie for Honda Accord and if you arent amazed…I suggest u see it again.

Left Tampa at 85 degrees and landed at newark. It was just under 45 here. It was total blast on the afternoon of tuesday. We went out to the beach at clearwater for some fun team games, only one of which had a meaningful name – Tug of War which surprisingly our team won.

We started off with a game where we split our team into two and stand against each split, throwing at each other small balloons filled with water. As soon as you throw you go back and stand behind the last one. So as the gap keeps growing its becomes tough to catch the balloon let alone not to crack the water out of it. We werent too fascinated by the first game besides we were just getting to know who else is in our team. We screwed up right the first throw, the water was all over the face. We flunked. [Try to catch a small balloon filled with water, 9 out 10 times you can’t]

[Clearwater Beach, Florida. Thanks to www.gotoflorida.net]

Next, everyone in our team form a circle holding each other’s hands and have to pass around a large plastic ring without letting each ago. Without letting the hands you have roll yourself into the ring from one person to next all the way around until the right comes back to the first person. Uh! We had no choice but to lose. One of my fellow mates was a lady who must have been over 250 pounds with a mid body surface area just a bit larger than the ring. So instead of embarassing her, the guy before her candidly let the hands go so we dropped the ring and gracefully gave up.

This was followed by another game with? What else? Water. Oh Come on, we were on the coast of mexico, what else to expect? However it go lot interesting this time around. We were given plastic cups with thin flexi straps attached to it and we had to hold the cup over our head with the string strapped around our face. Nope, you cant hold the cup with your hands at any cost! You run all the way to the beach, fill the cup full, strap it back into your head, hold your hands down, run back. I should say we stop running and better start walking, or rather crawling as if you have your heels over your head. And then walk all across over to your partner who has a bucket on ground, fill it with your cup of water. We had to drop the water by turning our head s down and not with hands. No kidding, this is serious game. We managed to fill the bucket half way, thanks to some wonderful work from my team mates. we won second spot on that one. [you asking me what i was doing? Jeez, with my head up at little over 6 feet from ground, how can you expect me to tilt a cup of water from there, all the way down, and the water got to fall exactly into the bucket? in full?…no way…I contributed few drops ! ]

With a scorching southern sun over our head and all the running arounds, we were drenched with sweat and sand. Tug of war followed as the last action packed game. With four of our team being women over 40+, there was not enough muscle to pull us off. At least thats what I thought, with some other teams with four or more guys, some of whom looked like real football players. But…But…not sure where we derived our strength from…but we pulled off one by one and beat every other team to WIN it. Yes, especially the final was a REAL tug of war, that lasted big too longer. They almost got us down on the other side, but we werent giving up. With me supposedly the strongest among the six being at the last[dont you know that strategy for tug of war?], I was screaming “GYEAARARARRARRRAAAAA!!!!” at the top of my lungs pulling the rope as if i was falling off a cliff. Perhaps, we just held it one second longer. They gave up and so we were all throw down on to the hot sand. I knew we won. That was much more satisfying than the other games. The guys watching from outside said it was pretty intense and patted me for my vocal support!(and of course for physical support too, remember in tug of war, the weakest link is the most important, so if you win, you should thank the weakest guy more than the strongest! )

We came back to the hotel, I took a quick shower back in my room { i was awfully dirty since I was also a target for some of the left over waterballons! } and came down to the swimming pool for a good relaxing swim. After an hour or so, we all started the water sports. I wrecked the waverunners with total enthusiam. I have already been on one of these before, so this time I was just having a total blast with full throttle. I never tried to let the gas go at all. With more and more of our folks joining the ocean on more waverunners, there were more waves, more speed and more wakes to be jumped over! It was true a thriller, with life jackets on, you have no reason to worry of falling over as long as you safely away from other riders. Speed was the food for those two hours and I was feeding voraciously catching every wave at its peak!

[If you didnt know what a waverunner is…Thanks to www.floridastateparks.org]

After that stint, I saw a kayak lying over the coast doing nothing. Though I didnt sign up for it initially, I was allowed to take it for a ride. Since I had done this one as well once in austin, I got going without much difficulty. Only now, kayaking is lot more streneous than holding the gas on the waverunners. With so many sports activities dispersing waves around, it got much harder to kayak than on a stagnant water. I managed to hang around for half hour before I realized Iam putting myself up for too much trouble. Back on the shore, I spent another hour or so on the pool relaxing.

We followed that with a great dinner at cuban restaurant next door. The next day went with another few presentations and then we were off to the airport on our way back. Tampa was still shining beaches and the occasional dolphins that showed up were still inviting, if only I had won a lottery. For I dont want to think how much it would have cost me if I had to pay for all the fun we had. I think I glanced over a board next to the water front that read – “Rent a waverunner for just $125 an hour!”

Lot of things had happened around the world while I was off, especially the one that surprised me when Harini told me over the phone that “Veerappan shot dead in encounter”! I havent had time yet to read all the conspiracy theories, yet to swim out of my backlog of emails.

Atanu Dey whines about a recent decision by our all-star Lallo to reject the idea of importing wheels for trains. He rather proposed ( or did he already approve ? ) a steel plant to manufacture wheels! And the best place for the plant : Naturally, Bihar!

I feel bad that not much could be done with these political moves. While Manmohan and Chidambaram are trying to promote the UPA’s plans for more FDI combined with rural development, Our Laloo comes in and bowls a yorker. All poor UPA wickets gone in a single delivery!. He doesnt stop there, he comes in at the rate of one per week these days. The latest one with a coal/iorn ore freight scam. Perhaps he thought everyone would forget the once famous fodder scam. Come on, Laloo, Ain’t it all part of the same game?

But as i think about it? Is laloo that stupid to have all the train bogies wait for 10 years before the first “Indian” wheels come out of Bihar? Agreed, Laloo is smart not necessarily stupid. Is Mr.Singh so? When Laloo claims that he will immediately speak to the PM to report the coal freight scam, why cant he make a freaking call to Mr.Singh to clarify his “doubts” on India’s self-sufficiency? ok…eventually I have to be settle with Lallo as long as his buddies in Bihar dont churn out square wheels!

Tim Worstall, in his rebuttal posts a terrific question : What do you think will make the people of India richer? An indigenous railroad wheel manufacturing industry? Or a train system with 20,000 extra carriages on it and a further similar number running on new not old wheels?

Aside of the topic – UPA – United Progressive Alliance and CMP, common minimum programme. Only our IAS officers can come up with such astonishingly ambitious but really-means-nothing acronyms every political season for their alilances! Whats in a name? Thousands of people across the world dont read past the title. So these titles, for the uninformed foreigner, perhaps gives a positive outlook. Ah! Let it be, if thats the only good thing out it.

As I was collecting my mails from the mail box at my last residence this past weekend, I noticed a cover, so simple in its look, with the name arunachalam krishnasamy written on top of it. I figured, for our old and naive african american US postal delivery lady, the first 7 letters of the last name matched and she didnt have to match the rest of the name, so she must have dropped it into my mail box. Poor thing, she must have sure noticed the different first name, but perhaps thought i had new family member of something.

And there I noticed there was a spanish stamp for .70 Euro and the sender address on the left side read something like “El Gordo Mega Internation, espanalo” nd some more stuff in spanish. Since our arunachalam’s address was printed (not hand written) i thought this guy must have gotten some serious mail here. Thats when I realized that it didnt have any apartment number. Oops! it read 100 warren street. jersey city, nj, usa. Strange?

I knew the bummers at our apartment building management office under any circumstances, even if the earth is going to be blown up in 10 seconds, wouldnt share the “private” information of its residents. So there is no point in asking them for which apartment our to-be-friend arunachalam lives.

After locking up the mail box, I went through the deck of mails one by one and the everything was some crap except our supposedly genuine looking letter to arunachalam. Hmm? I figured since this is a fellow indian, i could take the liberty of opening up his mail and if its something absolutely important, i somehow could locate and hand this over to him and justify my intrusion of his private mail.

As i read the first few lines of the letter, i couldnt believe what I was reading “Award Notification…Final Notice…E750,000 REF NO: EGS/2551256003/03 BATCH NO: 4/0017/IPD. And it went on to describe how important it is to keep this confidential and so on, and finally insisted to contact them before october 14th.

Harini was standing next to me doing something. I looked at her and said, “Dude, this is some serious shit, we got to find this guy ya?” She had no clue whatsoever.

I said, “This guy has won a lottery in europe. Poor chap must have bought a ticket when he went for a vacation or something, and HE WON!, so we got to find this guy out somehow”. She could see that I was visibly restless. I felt helpless becoz I know this guys lives in the same high rise, How could I ever know which apartment he is on, in that 500+ apartments? I started minting ideas. I said, lets go home immdtly and somehow lets locate this guy. we got to do something. I mean, there is no way I am going to let this million dollars go into the drains. For a second i thought I should legally change my name! Who in whole of spain would know that Arunachalam and Sudharshan are different?

We drove back home. I had to do other things so left this in the back of my mind trying to figure out ideas to locate this to-be-rich guy. After all, the name also sounds he might be from tamilnadu, so atleast he would give me something. Dude, something is better than nothing. Atleast I am honestly trying so hard to locate him ya?

Brilliant was I, checked out first thing on verizon white pages and there he was. Called that 201 number. Damn, it goes to some voice mail. I said, “my name is sudharshan. This message is for Arunachalam Krishnasamy. Please call me back immediately at xxx number. This is important”. I made sure I pronounced my name and his name exactly and in the best possible INDIAN accent. I didnt want to take chances that he could miss my name or number or i could miss his name! Noone called me back that day.

You would think what else I would have done to locate him. Yes, I did run a google search. There were tons of Arunachalams and krishnasamys but NOT that one combination and one from new jersey!. I was only praying that this guy lives on the damn earth still. Dont anyone dare to tell me he is nomore!

On tuesday I said, why not just contact the spanish company and let them know that I am seriously working on locating this person and request them to hold the funds for another week or two. Good idea isnt it?

And so, I ran a search for “El Gordo”. As I scanned through the search results. I read a word that made my brain burst for a second. “El Gordo…Lottery…Scam…”

“F**K my OZONE !!!”

NOOOOOO! I told myself I am not that stupid. But I was. Couldnt believe it. Immediately tore off the envelope into uncountable pieces and dumped it into the garbage can. Dragged the garbage can out immediately and dumped it into the bigger one on the floor outside.

I didnt want to see or think about that damn thing again. Suckers! Wasted a few hours of my precious life! I didnt even want to save that stupid spanish stamp.

Amazing and ridiculous that the 60,000 visas that gets allocated every year got filled out on the very first day of the season.

Visa power: Uncle Sam’s ‘no’ hurts India

Looks like Indians are giving the toughest trouble to the policy makers here in US. I said Indians for one reason that everyone knows that more than 60 to 70% of the applicants in that 60,000 are from India.

In a way, I am a victim as well as beneficiary of this policy. Rollback to six years ago, when my H1b was being processed and when I was expecting that “flying out next week” call to pack my things up, I got a call from the recruiter at the then CBSI (now covansys) that my visa processing has been held up becoz the quota was over. That was somewhere in April of the year. Back then, it took from October to April to fill up those 65,000 ( This year it just took ONE GOD DAMN SINGLE DAY! ). So I was politely told to wait until Ocotber of that year. But my feelings were not as polite. I called up friend Ramesh, who then was working at CBSI Chicago, to ask him if he can do anything for me, as if he was the Secretary of State or something. Feels funny now, but when you are waiting in such a situation, you feel like you can beg to any soul living in US. Eventually, I was benefited for waiting 6 months becoz my application must have been up in the stack when the opened the offices on October 1st. As a bonus, US had increased the quota that year from 65,000 to some 130,000 or something. So that was the season when every tom, dick and this harry ( who? ofcourse me !) came to US.

Today I can exactly imagine how many such folks back in India must have felt when this news came out this morning. Good Luck to those guys who were lucky to have fell in the 60,000 odds and ‘Be Patient’ to those who fell out. There is always a next october…like I had 🙂

Even though the BJP goverment was stumped for its slogan ‘India Shining’, the reality is India is indeed Shining. This month CNN is running a special report called ‘Eye on India’. It might seem like Singh government has done something spectacular in the last 100 days, but the BJP govmt created the momentum.

CNN Special Report ‘Eye on India’

The Domestic Airlines Industry is booming like a rocket. Deccan airlines recently announced a Rs.500 ticket from Delhi to Mumbai. Thats less than $15. Even less than what one would have to pay to take a taxi from Mumbai airport to downtown. I hope these competitions are not deceiving. (I wonder how they could slash prices so low and still make money out it) Neverthless, they are giving people real options to think about travel and tourism.

The media industry veiled by the glamour of bollywood is running HOT as well with more and more programming channels popping up Zoom, the latest addition is targeted towards ‘metrosexuals’…the keyword that epitomizes the Indian youth (payed heftly, thanks to US BPO Market!). Zoom also promises to stay away from the MIL-DIL soaps by offering more content on lifestyle, fashion and music. Recent changes in the govt policies for media industry, including the “Industry” status to Film sector, has sparked the growth.

If the UPA govt promise to focus on the poor remains to be achieved, there is hope for everyone and the country to touch the sky!.

Aside all the good things about living close to new york city, there is one unfortunate consequence of friends visting us combining with their tour of new york city! The catch : Those tours have no hotel stay 🙂 (No offense; those who visited us) So that story repeated for the 5th or 6th time this past weekend. So we visited the world trade center site for a 200th time and thats apart from the daily stop over there that I am used to when commuting to work 🙂 Add to that the woes in the messy processes for buying a home, we have been stuck with so many things to do in the past one month, I would have never believed that I will find no time to post a note here. Its not about the time anymore, its about the mental readiness to spend that time on to writing something worth. Another part of your brain tells you that “Just gimme a break”.

We celeberated Krishna Jayanthi yesterday with loads of bakshanams(sweets & snacks) feasted to Lord Krishna. Our toddler krishna idol was given a nice bath and was transformed into his festive attire. To save her some last minute work, Harini had cooked and packed all the the snacks a week earlier. They have been dangerously arousing our appetites since then. To make it even worse, she had boxed them in transparent plastic cases and elegantly arranged them right over the fridge. Just FYI, that is the first and brightest spot that will catch your eye everytime you walk into the kitchen!. But Harini acted as a demon for last 5 days gaurding the snacks from me. Seedai and thatta murukkus were most vulnerable, I could have done dozen things to steal them, but then I didnt. At least, I shouldnt admit that I didnt -:). Finally the demon transformed into a pious and traditional patron yesterday to perform the poojas. Me the evil was eyeing the obvious! We all had a taste of the snacks around noon yesterday and I should say, they were worth all the anxiety and wait. Seedais rocked, undeinably of Lala sweets quality! Murukku Thenguzhals come close second with Rava urundais grabbing the bronze (with olympics season, my ideas run wild! ). She told us Rava urundai was screwed up, but as always, we werent wise enough to notice. After all I savor them once a year, How in a life time I can remember what it tasted or looked like last year?

Funny, it takes me two paras to come to explain the title. Imagine if I hadnt looked at the title just a second ago, I would have slipped two more here before my horse treaded back on course. So recently I changed my really really neanderthal timeline sanyo phone to a new, trendy and cool, Nokia 6225, with a camera (for which I didnt find a real use though I like the built-in FM, grabbing everyone attention with ads & music from pockets! ). In order to change my not-so-great SprintPCS service from my old brick phone to the new hep one, I called up Sprint customer service. After a minute or two, a lady voice sounded as if it was a robot. I really should have recorded it for you to believe how she actually said the words, “Hello Sir”. It was programmed to be that way, the same precise, even if she repeats a million times. Of course, it took no time for me to figure that she was an Indian female (from a call center in blore or delhi). But her english was so strangely funny that a computer would do a better job. Atleast I would have felt better if I didnt knew it was a human. As she started helping me transfer the service to the new phones, I understood she was reading everything from a screen or paper infront of her. But that robot english was so annoying. It was clear and understandable but with absolutely NO emotions attached it. Trying to do one aspect of phone based customer service, she was totally lost on the human aspect of the call. After all, isnt that why we are still having humans answer the phones at call centers? And she said ‘Sir’, about three times for each sentence, it was as if I was a district collector and she was a peon. But its all ok until the wierdest part that came towards the end. After switching the service(technically she was perfect!) and after I said thanks,

she said, Sir…Sir, H O L D O N Sir, I would like to tell you about some our long distance service..etc?

I said, “no thanks, I am not interested now”.

She said, “N O, S I R. Its part of my job to explain this to your Sir”.

I said, “No, Mam, I have already heard about it and I am not interested now, Thanks for your offer”

She said, “P A R D O N M E, Sir, My call is not complete until I tell you about this Sir”

I screamed “WW HH AA TTTTT?” I said to myself, “Holy Mother, please save me from this ruthless evil of Off Shore Marketing ! ”

She of course is relentless and wasnt stopping, ” Sir, Can you tell me how much you are paying for your current long distance service Sir? ”

I just thought I should help another fellow indian by not hanging up on her, but she was just pissing my paitence off.

I said “I am sorry Mam, I dont want to share that info with you, I really need to hang up now, Thanks for your help”

She goes, “Sir, Long Distance calls are getting expensive and Sir, this is a rare oppurtunity for you to save Sir”. As she said that, I was burning with fury.

I said “Listen Mam, I am paying $9 a month for Verizon local only with no frills attached, Can you beat that?”

She said, “O H, H O, O H R E A L L Y, Sir, I am sorry I wont be able to do anything for you with that Sir”

I thought, “YOU wont be able to do anything for ME? Holy Mother, DIDNT I TELL YOU THAT BEFORE, Why in the hell didnt you listen?”

Somewhere in the middle of this comic conversation I switched over to speaker phone so harini could listen to the robotic accented english of this Indian female. As I hung up the phone, Harini was literally holding her palm across her mouth laughing herself out. It is unfair to judge all India call centers based on this one funny experience, but my first impression will stay for a while.