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Monday, July 11, 2005 My new blog: http://theonewhere.blogspot.com/ You will be redirected in 10 seconds.... posted by Yy | 10:02:00 AM Sunday, October 03, 2004  Me Distributed under GPL posted by Yy | 10:51:00 AM Thursday, March 11, 2004 The celebration started with Chaitu being made the bride on 4th of March. and Jaggu had tears rolling on his cheeks with that scene. Pardhu, Bazzi, Gudla, Capsu and me reached Andhra Paris by the morning of 6th. With Sai for us in the railway station, we were put up in hotel rooms. and then came Raj from Hyderabad. Raj with his perfect V, complexion close to Nishanth, dressing better than most of the Bollywood, with histrionics bettering Kamal Hassan's, ever sophisticated sense of humor and with his camera-cum-video phone was stealing the rest of the day. Statutory Warning: Do not invite Raj for your wedding, to avoid the lurking danger of you turning into Venkatesh, the ultimate tyagamurthi. (for those who didn't know, he is turning to be Sri Varu for Srimathi) Okay, after that brief and prolonged (!!??) stroke of depression, we proceeded to the venue, Sri Vasavi Kanyakaparameswari Temple of Tenali. A special stage has been fabricated in the temple of Kanayaka, the family deity of all Vysyas of Andhra Pradesh. Before this, Jaggu stopped Sree Vijay Krishna Dara from his bon voyage to brahmacharya and Kasi by inviting him to marry his sister Chaitanya Latha. Jaggu displayed his flair of artistry by applying the paste of turmeric and kumkum to Vijay's feet. Extremely pleased, Vijay accepted the invitation and hung up the journey. Vijay then proceeded in Jaggu's Zen to Chaitu's house to accompany the bride to the venue. This back and forth trip by Car was carried in a procession-like fashion through Rue De Bose and the Pont De Gandhi.(Bose Road and Gandhi Chowk respectively, in French). The procession also witnessed sporadic dances by Jaggu, Sai, Pandu(Jaggu's brother) and his friends. And this started the phenomenon: ApeJaha - Akka Pelli Ki Jaggu Hadavidi. The procession reached the venue just in time and the so Vijay and Chaitu had to do the jeela-karra-bellam with out the change in dress. (as you have seen in the photographs). With this Vijay and Chaitu were pronounced husband and wife. Followed by Sapthapadi, Mangalasuthra Dharana, Veekshanam, Talambralu, Arundhathi Darsanam, Grihapravesam and a long break. And I was shooting all these events with Raj's 6600 and so I too was the cynosure for a short while. "Andhra Famous" S.Mastan's band played some good tunes like "Nemaliki nerpina nadakalivi...", "Himagiri Sogasulu muripinchunu manasalu..."...etc. and Raj in his usual flair was cracking jokes at the band and their loud volume. We gifted a small bronze Radha Sametha Krishna with "Cool-it!" written on the gift wrapper. Interested(including Jaggu) might contribute in US$ to card no. XZCV ZXCV XXZV CXZZ). Anji's sister and bavagaru too attended the marriage. Anji is 99% his sister, duplicated to the minutest level of expression (as certified by Kiran Raj). After a good meal, we settled for a post-lunch chat. Owing to "pressing" commitments, Raj and Gudla had to leave the place. Later, Vijay had a long chat with his pedda bavamaridi and bavamaridi's friends. Mohamaatam Jaggu was giving brief biographies of all of us to every human we encounter. Vijay too was obviously a repeated victim of these brief bio sessions. The chat continued for a long while...starting with his regrets on quitting the club "Bachelors".....followed by his company, it's business, it's vision,......his previous vacations in the US....vacations in the pipeline......his opinion on returning back to India.....telugu movies in the US.......the royal treatments he gets when he is back home at India...his parents pestering him for the past 3 years asking him to get married......etc...etc... I was putting Nishanth, Aluri, Sandy, SOS, Ravi Chandra......a variety of people (ocassionaly myself) in those scenarios and was having real fun. After his schooling (till +2) in Guntur Vignan, Vijay joined Vasavi, rejecting a Group C admission in BITS. Post-Vasavi, Vijay has done his MS in Industrial Engg. at Bradley Univ, Peoria, Illinois. He was recruited by the heavy machinery giant Caterpillar and he has been working there for the past 6 years. This constitutes the bigger chuck of his close to 8 year stay in the US...which do bear an impact on his accent. We found Vijay to be extremely down to earth, warm and affectionate, cooler than the coolest of cool-it! etc....etc...(Seems like I just read out the road map of some of you .us guys) Pardhu, me and Jaggu were the only ones left for the appagintalu. The handing over ceremony was small and a private affair with only close family members around. An elder lady sung "Hai...gaaa... aalu magalai kaalam gadapaali...", followed by Pardhu singing.."Laaali laali anu raagam saaaguthunte evaru nidura poru...". I could see the satisfaction in Chaitu's eyes. And when the moment arrived all of us, including Jaggu, were in tears. Chaitu hugging her dad was yet another illustration of the great filial bond between father and daughter. Chaitu was then escorted to Guntur. Vijay told us the next day that she was weeping all thru the way too. The next morning, Jaggu and me were at her in-laws' house for Satyanarayana vratamu. Jaggu and me had a real long chat after two years (although not satiated). And for the reception in the evening Jaggu fulfilled his long-cherished dream of wearing a long kurtha. Jaggu was real smart and then I knew why Umesh did so. (Qs regarding Umesh directed to Jaggu). Pardhu was there for the reception too. Chaitu promised me the "Best participant award" for being there for all the stages. With Chaitu getting her H4 dependent VISA yesterday, she will be flying to IL around 20th of this month. Our wishes with her. posted by Yy | 2:17:00 AM Monday, February 09, 2004 ECR (or East Coast Road) Scenic Beachway connects the former French Colony to Chennai. and Can you believe me if I tell you that the 150 Km. journey took less than 2 hours ?? (India Shining ??) ECR, the two lane highway from Chennai to Pondicherry, runs along the Bay of Bengal with some beautiful backwaters and rustic villages. You get all this plus great sign boards plus good road markers plus an Indian road on which you can cruise at an average speed of 100 km/hr for a minimal fee of Rs.47/-. Five of us started to Pondy on Pavan's Santro on Saturday. With billboards saying "weekENDs @ Pondicherry", "Give time a break" and "Start driving slowly so that you get adjusted to pace of life at Pondicherry" all the way, we were expecting a good weekend ahead. Even before we smelt French and it becoming pungent, we could smell beer everywhere. One doesn't need a license to sell beer in Pondy and so water is scarcer than beer in Pondy. The first feel of French was the "Goubert Avenue" or the Beach road in Pondicherry. (Refreshingly new from the Salai culture of Chennai.) The French tricolor was flowing with the sea breeze in the French Consulat General's office on the Goubert Avenue. The avenue also had the office of the chief secretariat of the Govt. of Pondicherry and a host of other mansions constructed in typical French Architecture. It's like traveling back into time by some 50-100 years. We could see quite a large number of French who are still retaining their Indian connection. The whole area near the sea was more French than Indian. Rue de Francois Martin, Rue de Labour Donnais...etc. were the street names there. Sri Aurobindo, the Indian nationalist and later a spiritual guru, lived in a house on the Rue de Francois Martin (Road of Francois Martin) from 1910 to 1922. The Lieutenant Governor of Pondicherry lives in the French fort nearby. The roads were neatly paved, allowing proper discharge of rain water. The shops looked like boutiques displaying everything they had, through the windows. Aurobindo was a nationalist during the early years of his life and so he had flee into the French colony to escape the wrath of the British empire. Aurobindo established an ashram in Pondicherry and did most of his writings from here. Mirra Richard or The Mother born to Turkish and Egyptian parents in Paris was his closest disciple. So for many of the visiting French, the Indian connection is not just the colonial one. But also that of a spiritual one. The sea seemed to be encroaching Pondicherry and hence they made the city-beach rocky. We sat there for a while on the wall like Sid, Sam and Akash (although we were five in number) and saw the distant coast guard ship. On approaching the information bureau, we were given a large city map which was very accurate to scale. and for the next whole day we could easily get along in the city, where everything is relative to Sea. The guy at the information bureau also told us about interesting beach resorts on a Sandy beach nearby. The Sandy beach has numerous resorts all of them occupied by French, German and American. We too managed to get a couple of those duplex huts. The huts are barely 100 mts away from the sea. and you get a great view of the sea when you stand on the first floor of the hut. There were five huts in total in the resort. The other huts were occupied by a Russian and Swedish couples. After a good dinner, we settled in the huts for a good sunrise. We got up early in the morning and walked down the hundred meters to see the glory of rising Sun and to witness the fresh breeze and cool waters touching the shore. The beach had good number of westerners practicing oriental techniques like yoga and meditation. and few others were just witnessing the glory of nature while the local fishermen were displaying their expertise in their hunt of crabs on the beach. The Indian idea of holidaying somehow seemed to be very different from their idea of vacationing. The Indian wants the holiday to be action packed with no time to "waste". Where as they wanted to time to reel off and relax. They were sprawling on the beach enjoying the good breeze and bathing in the morning sun rays. A few of them also swam deep into the sea and came back. I think we too spent those few hours like one of them, doing things at a snail's pace. We had a good bath in those less-saline waters on under wears. Shower followed by bath, followed by breakfast, we were again ready for the day. We set off to Chunnambar, a backwater resort, 8kms. from the city. Chunnambar had a great eco-system with shallow back waters, lush green coconut grooves and the sea nearby. We took a 10 min motor boat ride to a nearby islanded beach. The sand was extremely fine and soft. We built a golden quadrilateral and an F1 track on the sand there. I have written "HELP" in font 72 on the sand, like Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) of Cast Away. After the lunch, we had been to Auroville located about 10 kms deep inside a jungle, off the ECR. Auroville is a model international township aspiring to realize the Universal God Consciousness through Karma Yoga. Located deep inside a shrubby jungle, it was started by The Mother in 1968. The top view of the town looks like whirl, probably signifying the Sudarsana Chakra. The eye of the whirl had a massive globe housing a large crystal. The crystal receives the sun rays through a slit on the top and diverges it across the white hall. About 1700 permnent residents (out of which 600 Indians, 300 French and 350 German, 70 American) volunteer in a variety of research activities like non-conventional energy sources, environmental re-generation, bio-farming and cashless economy. Auroville looked like a fresh hope, a promising alternative lifestyle with serene environment all around. We were back in Chennai by 19:30 IST. The road travel almost seemed effortless with the new roads. Hope India Glitters, not just Shines. posted by Yy | 9:18:00 PM Thursday, January 29, 2004 Finally the "Document has been seen" !! Are you coming to the US for indulging in any terrorist activities ? Do you want to violate any export control violations ? Have you traded any controlled substance (e.g.: drug) or been a prostitute or a procurer for prostitutes ? After answering a bunch of such moron questions (for which even Osama Bin Laden would tick a NO) in the form DS-156, I left for a personal appearance. __________________________________________ 28th Jan, 13:45 IST Chennai is now having it's hot season (the other seasons being hotter and hottest) and people waiting eagerly for the VISA outcome of their 'loved' ones under bright Sun. I too was waiting for there to enter the Consulate of the United States. "400 people get stamped everyday !" was what I overheard. "So 400x20x12 is almost 1 lakh from Chennai alone !! No wonder export of human resources is a key issue for the next US presidential election", is what I re-affirmed. My time came and I had gone in through those heavy doors after getting scanned by UV rays, IR rays, X rays and x rays. (The latter x stands for the mathematical variable x) Now, were a series of queues to be stood in, before the interview. Three, to be precise. All the three had Indians servicing and so I was not expecting courteousness, pride in service etc. and they met my expectations. But the counters reflected the thoughtfulness of their designers and the American empathy for disabled (or physically challenged.) Finally after clearing the maze, I reached the main hall, where personal interviews was taking place. There were big photo frames of Mr. George Bush, Mr.,. Colin Powell and Mr. Donald Rumsfeld (?) , all of them smiling to their fullest, were hanged on one of the walls. The opposite wall had three flags near it, the stars and stripes, the tricolor and the US consulate flag. There were 6 counters and six American officers taking the interviews and I started waiting for my turn. The hall, surprisingly, didn't have a token displayer !! and there was an Indian reading out the numbers for people waiting there. These numbers were again supposed to stand in the Queue before the officer !! "What I disgrace !!", I told myself. The hall had about four broad categories of people waiting for VISAs. Mom&Dads waiting to visit their vilayati son/daughter, wives waiting to travel with their green/H1 husbands, students and ofcourse people like us. For the first category, there were translators beside the officer waiting to help them. You hear two languages in the hall....easy guess....English and Telugu. (The Mom&Dad category were completely Telugu.) The officers were pretty rude and un welcoming, which was not expected. My chance came..and here goes the conversation... ____________________________________ "Good afternoon, Officer" "You came for an L1?" "Yeah" "So How long have been with Cognizant ?" "The past seven months" "Who is your customer ?" "ADP Dealer Services, Houston, TX" "How much will you be paid ?" "Around thirty three hundred USD !!" "Okay! Pay your DD in counter 1" "Oh! Thanq and have a nice day" _____________________________________ and that means that my VISA is stamped. I was Out and was again on the Annasalai. posted by Yy | 2:50:00 AM Thursday, December 04, 2003 Heard about "The Selfish Gene" ? What all that means is Genes which are selfish have great chances of spreading. That is successful are those genes which are selfish. Genes which are not selfish are just wiped out. So are individuals. But does wiping out means Moksha Saadhana ? I think it does mean so. Because rationality says that it makes more sense if you are selfish. But religion says the only path to salvation is unselfishness. Science also says that unselfish genes will be wiped out. I guess they re-unite with God. Hey, this seems to be a relevation !! :-) posted by Yy | 6:36:00 AM Tuesday, October 21, 2003 It's ages since I blogged something ! I seem to be steering life for the first time. Sounds wierd to myself !! Remember Pilani...? Time was measured in semesters during that time. Time now consists of weeks packed in quantums of 5 and 2 days. I'm waiting for those large quantums - semesters. We are having better times in Chennai with the addition of a few more kool-its. Remember "Desamante matti Kadoi, desamante manushuloi..." by Kandukuri ? So is Chennai or for that matter anyplace in the world. It's people around you who make the difference. Gudla got a new pulsar recently. And he is naturally quite excited about it. I attended a training program called "Cross Cultural Adaptability" recently. The trainer was Mr. Soli Colah. He was fabulous. During those three days of training I realized that although I was pre-dominantly a world citizen, I did have certain traces of multi-active cultures which made me Indian ! Hope I keep updating the blog regularly. posted by Yy | 6:52:00 AM Thursday, August 21, 2003 Hey, I smelt US today ! (hey NRIs, stop laughing at me. ha!) okay. where ?? Been to the library inside American Consulate, Chennai today. The consulate reflected the American psyche. Big and powerful. All the doors were heavy and technology operated. They needed one American or two Indians for a push ! (Thank God, the pull is taken care of technology) It was ordered (nothing spl. considering thatit was an American consulate). But the interesting thing is that Indians working there seem to have imbibed those qualities. There was good greenery. The building was commodius, had good parking facility. It was designed to accomodate physically challenged. The sun-shade funda was interesting, although it is a little difficult to write it down in words. The library psyched me. I could make out the sections only after a little examination. It had books from Political Science, Economics, trade, Cinema etc. Actually I had been there for a book called "Anti-intellectualism in American life" by Richard Hofstadter. I could find it finally. Then i turned to the newspaper section. Read "The Washington Post" dated Aug 16-17. They were generous enough to give a little space for India. The news was from New Delhi, PM Vajpayee's declaration of Lunar Mission from India in 2008. (The excitement of reading Indian news was although missing. :) ) Gone thru the magazines of Washington Post. One of them carried Tobey Maguire(Spider-man guy) on its face. The magazine was full of usual papparazzi and media glitteretti. Now I can imagine a typical newspaper from California !! The Literary review section of Washington Post had 3/4ths crap in it. (Just compare with The Hindu's !!) Writing a book in US seemed pretty simple. and that's it ! Myshort trip to the US ended.and they lived happily ever after posted by Yy | 2:50:00 AM Monday, August 18, 2003 Malcolm Muggeridge was a great British journalist. His birth centenary falls this July. Muggeridge is widely regarded as the discoverer of Mother Teresa. He is also popular for his wit and humour. He once said..."Only dead fish swim with the river." posted by Yy | 5:47:00 AM Tuesday, April 22, 2003 Want to know the great Einstein's feelings for India ?? posted by Yy | 11:50:00 PM Wednesday, April 09, 2003 Now that Saddam's evil regime ends, Iraq will be subjected to a new kind of colonialism by the US. But still people will be loyal to Bush and the US for liberating them from Saddam. Oil is the price Iraqis have to pay for their liberation. As i repeat very few good things come free of cost. Linux is one of them. posted by Yy | 10:25:00 PM Thursday, April 03, 2003 "No people on this planet would prefer an alien government to that of their own in-efficient government", is a popular dialogue from Sir Richard Attenborough's Gandhi. The dialogue is more relevant now than ever. US is 'struggling' to liberate Iraqis from the 'fangs' of Saddam Hussein. Let's wait and watch how the US is gonna appease the Iraqis. posted by Yy | 7:56:00 PM Friday, March 28, 2003 British PM Mr.Tony Blair is voicing the moral grounds of the on going war. He is really giving the US led war a humane picture. More than all these, u shud see him talking to believe his beliefs abt liberating the people of Iraq. Colin Powell declines all kinds of non-US (and non-coalition) participation in the post war scenario. This evidently means US is gonna get it's flag flying in Iraq tooo.... posted by Yy | 2:28:00 AM Tuesday, March 25, 2003 US is gonna face the wrath. "whose wrath ?" Time is gonna decide that !! posted by Yy | 11:51:00 PM Tuesday, March 18, 2003 "Born out of fear" - Iraqi gravid mothers were rushed to the hospitals, demanding caesareans resulting in premature babies. The carrying mothers were obviously fearing a delivery during the imminent war. What can be more brutal ? US is redefining tyranny and arrogance. How different is US behaving from the barbarian Byzantine kingdoms of yester years ? They do differ in one issue atleast, U.S. promises to reconstruct Iraq and 'handover' the oil wealth to Iraqis after carpet bombing the entire landscape.(If there are anybody left !!) U.S. has also proclaimed that the sole rights for the reconstruction and rehabilitation rest with US firms. ( For their economy to prosper ??) I consider myself very unfortunate(or timid?) for not being able to show my protest. (Am I far too americanized for sounding a retreat ??) How do i show my protest ? Bann US' products ?? Stop working for US ?? (This is next to impossible, Honeywell is a US based company. Even Wipro, Infosys work for some XYZ of US) i'm still in search of meaningful protest or Is it necessary that i protest, in the first place ?? As Vatican said, "Those who decide that all peaceful means that international law makes available are exhausted assume a greater responsibility before God, their conscience and history". posted by Yy | 8:06:00 PM This is what Australian Media has got to say abt Sachin Tendulkar, "The most exciting batsman of his time because he finds the right balance between reason and passion, techinque and power, nerves and placement and judgement that applies to all tastes." posted by Yy | 2:55:00 AM Wednesday, March 12, 2003 US is considered to be one of the most tolerate nations in the world !! But listen to this to alter ur opinions. Cafeterias in the US house of Representatives have begun to serve french fries with a new name called freedom fries. Similarly french toast becomes freedom toast !! All this because France threatens to veto US' move on Iraq. posted by Yy | 10:52:00 PM If u r a cricketer, the only way to be their in history is by giving some good compliments on Sachin Tendulkar. U can be borne into the history only thru him. Such ruthless he is gonna be with his contemporaries. He is gonna make more than 700 runs this world cup and is threatening to make the cup all his, with his bat alone. Hail! Sachin posted by Yy | 2:24:00 AM Tuesday, March 11, 2003 Saathvik Srinath in cricket. More abt him in this interesting story. posted by Yy | 11:23:00 PM Circle has been the most intriguing geometric figure i ever faced. I'd been fortunate enough to witness a tribal dance in the Araku Valley, Vishakapatnam, INDIA. They were relying heavily on circular patterns for bringing aesthetic beauty into their dance. All their instruments had a circle somewhere in them. In short they had cirlce in all walks of their life. I guess this is the case with every other aboriginal race in the world. It is so natural to man kind that the figure we draw after a st. line is cirlce. We gave a cirlce to represent zero. pi the mysterious number for time immemorial is from cirlce. More than all these, cirlce has deeper significances in our lives. "The great circle of life..." goes the a song of Elton John in The Lion King. So does another famous saying..."Everything comes in full cirlce"... Wishing to see more connotations/annotations on circle... posted by Yy | 8:30:00 PM According to a report published by journal of Nature Neuroscience, car experts perceive automobiles using neurons in a small part of the brain long thought to be dedicated to recognizing faces !! More on this at SCIAM's site. posted by Yy | 1:02:00 AM Monday, March 10, 2003 Recently, R & B has replaced a few Tamil sign boards with Hindi/English ones in Tamil Nadu !! and there was a fight over this in the Parliament. TN's MPs say that they should not be forced to learn Hindi. Bihari and UP MPs protest with Hindi Naare !! How can somebody force me to leave my mother-tongue for some 'foreign' language ?? (anyway, my mother tongue is Telugu). Yes, we do need one language across all state barriers, but that cannot be at the cost of native languages. Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam are no aboriginal languages that somebody can wish to extinct-ify them. "Language is central to any culture", says Noam Chomsky. Telugu is comparable to the devabhasha Samskrit, in all aspects and has got whole of Carnatic music woven around it. It is also a language rich in terms of literature. It has got a whole culture around it. So are the other South Indian languages. We are known for our diversity and diversity is what keeps world alive. Let's not put our languages on the list of endangered ones. posted by Yy | 8:28:00 PM Sunday, March 09, 2003 Mandira Bedi, the bimbo, moderator for extraa innings on SET MAX is causing flutters across India. Her cricketing knowledge has been troubling the panel as much as viewers. Even her gorgeous looks cudn't come to her rescue. Learn feeling comfortable, since SET MAX is all set to bring Lisa Ray for the next LokSabha polls !! posted by Yy | 10:26:00 PM Allan Donald's swan song - South African cricketer bid farewell to the game after the South Africans were thrown out of the cup(2003) by the Rain God. He said that there were more ups in his career than downs and he could walk out of the press room with his head held high. He recollected his misfortunate run-out in the semis against Australia in 1999 world cup and he expressed his gladness that he didn't have to make that single run this world cup !! He said that he believes that if things are not meant to be, they are not meant to be. "I played for 4 world cups and we couldn't win even one. That is the beauty of professional sport". He concluded saying that he would strive to improve South African cricket following his retirement. posted by Yy | 9:40:00 PM |
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