It is that time of the year again.. when we get very agitated, Blood pressure goes up, crowd everywhere.. people shout in the middle of the night.

No, I’m not talking about IPL.

Dandanakka nakka nakka dandanakka – got a clue ?

No, it is not about any new kuthu song..It is not even about any dead body dance..

It is our “Ganesha happy birthday” – Ganesh Chathurthi.. aka Vinayaka Chathurthi.

(blog purely based on Bengaluru experience)

If you google Ganesha – you will get more than 1 million answer on the origin of Ganesha and how he got elephant head.

The number of answers you get is more than the hits you will get for current world’s biggest question – “why kattappa killed bahubali?”

That is simply because, after Dosa and SAP, Ganesha is the most customized object in the Milky-way galaxy.

32 officially, how many in real world ? – Ganesha himself might not know..

That doesn’t justify you can do a dabba’kuthu song in the middle of the night, disturbing kids and oldies.

During Diwali, there is a rule for not bursting ‘sound’ crackers after 9 pm or before 5 am etc., but this one doesn’t seem to have any restriction. Even if so, there is not even an announcement in atleast FM channels about it..

The whole concept of dancing and singing seems to be inspired by the north Indian way of celebration, but totally overdone - needlessly needled.  Over there, it is a part of life style, the entire community joins in it and has fun.  That doesn't mean it can be forced on other states - come on, it's not Hindi language LOL.!  So, if someone likes the Tomatina festival, then what ? the entire KR market turns into Bunol ?

At least in Bangalore, I don’t see even 1% of sincere religious belief in celebrating Ganesha Chaturthi. – This is just a tool to collect money, buy imported liquor, have fun.

It’s quite appalling to see the youth of today drink and dance in the road, under police protection, for what appears to be a wastage of resources (time, energy and money).

So, unfortunately ,

Where there is god – There is also nuisance.

Latest model : Bahubali Ganesha

And then, the next side effect -  'click & drag' Ganesha all over the street. This again is based on ancient concept of gods taken in Chariot on auspicious occasions and devotees seek blessing on its way. But in Bangalore, there are atleast 10,000 such chariots that are dragged in busy roads, in peak hours.

Every small temple that was built by a wine shop owner 2 days back, want to have a big Ganesha and do Pooja in public in middle of road under police protection.

If there is a cricket match happening in Chinnaswamy stadium, there are maps and special one-ways published in newspapers. Why cant similar planning be done , atleast on known-busy roads ?

And one cant even take a short cut through gully roads. Because 5 out of 10 gully roads are blocked because that “street association” has a Ganesha installed in the middle of the road.

I quite like the idea of a street association that reports to an area association, but sadly it is used only in activities that block the street – Not even a fire engine can go through.

So,

Where there is god – there is traffic.

And last part – the climax of Ganesha (festival) :  This actually seems like anti-climax. 

During Dussera, a giant effigy of Ravana is made, and in the end, it is shot and burnt.

During Ganesha Chaturthi, a giant idol of Ganesha is made, and in the end, it is dissolved/immersed in water.

One is killed by fire and the other by water ??

This year – BBMP has setup 136 mobile water tanks to immerse idols (spending lakhs of rupees) – but these were not advertised widely – even to the extent of covering Gokul Macheri topic or Indirani Mukherjee case.

Even though Government has insisted on SEZ Ganesha (some social eco-friendly ZZZZ) still all kind of cheap Ganesha’s are made every year. And still they are being dissolved in the beautiful lakes in Bangalore.

Such a pity that half of the lakes were lost to apartment construction, and now the rest for such funny reasons.

Where there is god – there is also pollution.

If you are a religious person and you are scolding me while you were reading the above – fine, but ask yourself against these above three topics – do you really want a Ganesha Chathurthi ( or any similar festival) which results in such chaos, disturbing the senior citizen & children, wasting money, time and energy ?

My view is not to ban the festival as such, but to abolish all the drama surrounded by it to have a peaceful life.

Disclaimer: As I said earlier, this blog applies for Bangalore city where I’m seeing these myself during last 3-4 days and in the previous years as well. Though I lived in Chennai earlier, I haven’t seen such outrageous things , may be because we were staying in the outskirts of the city, thankfully!

Manoranjan's maro charithra

So, you know I’m going to write about Uthama Villan. But before that, I want to touch up on a movie review in general.

In my opinion, movies are not to be reviewed or analysed or explained. It is all about spot entertainment. (And entertainment is not only about laughing and dancing). If you didn’t get entertained, then it is simply not your mug of beer. Movie is an experience to be shared.

Movies are of different kinds – Some make you think, some make you laugh so much that you forget why you are laughing. Movies like Inception gives you homework too.

Movie goers are like Zoo visitors. Most people go to Zoo only to see Lion and tiger – and don’t bother about the hundreds of colorful and interesting birds and smaller animals.

That is the case with Uthama villan. 

When there is no dialogue or song, and there is silence, people get bored and crazy.

So, what are these nuances of a Kamal Movie ? Or, what am I blabbering here..

This blog has to be elaborate in order to share atleast 5 % of what I enjoyed in the movie, so if you are not interested, you are welcome to close the browser and check IPL score.

To start with a small example – In movie Padayappa, in a scene, Ramya Krishnan removes her sunglasses and at same time Rajni wears his sunglasses – Crowd roars. Because thalaivar wears a sunglass. Few people would have understood that it symbolically tells that character weightage has shifted from villain to hero. This is just 0.001% of what we see in a Kamal movie.

And to start with an easy example from UV, In a scene, Kamal stares at a fish that is just caught and put in a basket,. The Fish jumps and struggles – symbolising that Kamal is nearing his death and is struggling in life.- again, no dialogues at all!

Clear? Now, lets go into interesting ones:

My favorite one:

Scene: Kamal writes a letter to his girlfriend, and she also writes to Kamal (not a reply). Both letters are hidden by his PA. After 25 years, Kamal comes to know of this. He asks his PA to read out the second letter.

Location – a mini theatre where movie previews happen. The word Uthama villan is written in Tamil fonts, with the dot over the last alphabet “in”(ன் ) in red color.

As Kamal comes closer to the screen, his shadow falls on the word villan (also interpreted as villain) – meaning, as the letter was not read in time, Kamal became a villain by circumstances.

Next, as Kamal takes his position to listen to the letter, the red dot over the alphabet “ன் ” falls on his nose – indirectly showing his anger on the PA for having hidden that letter.

Once the letter is fully read, Kamal comes closer to his PA and now, the red dot is on his forehead, indicating that he has come over the incident and is now acting with wisdom.

What an intelligently written and enacted scene !? they’ve simply captured the emotions and explanations which would otherwise take thousands of words and few flashback scenes.

Next scene – where Kamal asks his daughter (separated from him) to read out the first letter.

Location – Shooting spot – Kamal has just come out of a shoot, with a Theeyam make up. 

As she reads the letter, he is removing his make-up. Once the letter is fully read, his original face is back. In her mind, She had a negative image about Kamal, and as she is understanding the truth through the letter, her impression on Kamal changed which was shown through his make-up removal on screen.

This scene has a lot more interesting points like the background image outside the door, but I’m not going to write about all of those.

And then there are performances, humorous dialogues, meaningful songs etc., which lifts the movie. The song in the historical portions are important, as they reveal the most important thing which is again revealed only in the climax in one line. No, i won't disclose it.

The opening song is a nice spoof of present day’s commercial movies.

Kamal's movie, this one in particular needs mind, brain and patience to sit back and enjoy it. This movie will not appeal to all categories of Audience, and if you are one of them, its not entirely your fault. As I said, this is just not your mug of beer.

There are many more hidden messages in each scene, each frame which I haven’t written above. One of the smartest thing is the title - it is actually villan - Villu means Bow, and who is master in that is villan, this was smartly used in English as villain to play with circumstances.

To me, this is one of the most intelligently written and enacted movie I’ve ever watched.

This movie should be appreciated and celebrated. But knowing our Indian movie bluffs, they will term this as a torturous disaster, and after 10-15 years, come back and term this as a cult classic legendary movie. Shame!

Note: The below banner on "Beat the heat" is still valid. But everytime i draft something, it starts raining making the subject irrelevant. So, just waiting for the Bangalore climate to decide by itself whether it is summer or monsoon..!!

Beat the heat

coming soon...

RIP Ramesh bhai

This is the first ever time i'm writing a kind of Obituary diary post. (Glad i didn't have to write one in the past) So i dont know how it is ought to be.

Today morning (22nd Feb), I got a very shocking news that my ex-colleague, good friend, and my SAP mentor , Ramesh KV passed away yesterday (21st Feb 2015) by a massive stroke. He should be in his mid 30's and has left behind his wife and two kids , the younger one hardly 6-7 weeks old.

I was speechless in the morning and did not know how to react. It's been 8 hours and i'm slowly coming to terms with what has happened. so just wanted to write whatever i felt.

2005 December, HP bay

I had invited my sub at office to watch Ind Vs SA cricket today as he doesnt have TV in his room, Even though India were winning, making it an otherwise 'perfect Sunday' for a cricket watcher, I remained silent for hours together. Couldn't deviate myself, couldn't celebrate.

I worked with Ramesh for around 3 years - 2002 - 2006, and been in good touch ever since. He was my senior at HP, and when i became the business process analyst for EMEA and APAC, he was already one and moved over to US region, after giving KT to me for above areas. He taught me several interesting things in SAP which aroused interest in me and inspired my decision to go after consulting role / jump to IT industry.

Even after handover, when he was part of US team working in night shift, he still politely made it to office at 7 am whenever i called him for some APAC issues without any sulking.

After few years, when i had quit HP, and then attended an interview to rejoin HP after couple of years, he still showed the same affection and gave some guidance for my career i was trying to shape.

He has given me various important advices , even if not intentionally as a gyan, which is helping me till date.  The last we met was during an alumni meet in Nov 2014 where i learnt that he was doing a free-lance consulting.

As many of you know, I'm not a fan of idol worships. But if there is a person in-charge of maintaining the balance on earth, then he/she must be given lowest rating and sacked with immediate effect. This is not how you balance things. there are people who are on deathbed, neither dying nor surviving, causing financial and mental stress to family members. and then there are rapists, thiefs, terrorists and all sort of cheats. Of all, taking away this young soul CANNOT be justified.

I saw my grandparents's feeling - when they hear almost frequently that their batch-mates / relatives in their level are passing away one by one. Being in similar age group, what kind of feeling they have while hearing such news - i can imagine.

Time seems to have changed now.

A healthy friend in mid 30's is gone, leaving behind wife + 2 kids. No disease, no accident. And we, a group of 10-15 of us, in the same bucket, are speechless. Life is unpredictable. Hell yes.

I still hope someone calls me to inform that this was a sick joke, or a wrong person tagged in facebook.

I wish his family is able to extract all possible strength to overcome this situation. I hope he was adequately insured.

If this news is true, Rest in peace, Ramesh. We all love you and we miss you near and dear.

If not , well then. In our next alumni meet, there will be a chair for you. I'll see you there.

I'm not going to do a spell check or do my usual reviews and checks, as i clearly dont have the guts to go through this again. There could be spelling and grammatical errors - E & OE.

Neither am i going to send a mail that blog has been updated.

I seriously hope Ramesh finds this blog and updates a comment saying - what nonsense have you written, i'm very much here"..

about to click on publish - just double checking whatsapp to confirm if this really happened or is it some bad dream. unfortunately...........

5 points that could win Team-India the 2015 cricket world cup!

Hi there,

With ICC cricket world cup 2015 around the corner, just thought of writing some pieces that formed in my mind.

I’m sure I’m not the only Indian who laughed at the Team-India promo for world cup with caption “won’t give it back”.  – Polite answer – as if someone is going to ask you to give the cup back. We ourselves are going to keep it there and come back without turning back.  Yes, Very optimistic.

So, as most of us saw the recent ODI’s that India played in Australia , it is evident that they are not quite in the boom-boom form which will guarantee them a place in the world cup quarter-finals. I thought they can work on a few areas which will help them, atleast outside the game.

    1. Men with beards:

It is very evident from history that men with long beards have all been very popular and wonderful at their work. Be it poet Vaali or fictional character Santa Claus, or Ex-prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh. Cricket is not different these days. We have Hashim Amla in South Africa, Moeen Ali in England etc., So, we need to be having a similar guy in the Indian team – preferably an opener.

So, can some please tell Mr.Shikhar Dhawan to stop growing mustache, and start growing Beards ? It can probably help his footwork, if not technically, atleast  tactically! - dhaadi vecha dhawan, ada!

     2. Tattoo:

Well, Team India seem to have adopted this point, but only in the batting department (V.Kohli, M.Vijay etc.,). So, now when we see a Brendon McCullum, Kevin Peterson, we can be satisfied that we have a few in the team to match with. (But don’t ask me why Murali vijay – with a tattoo – in form of his life – is not in WC squad. Hell, I don’t know).

However, it is the bowling department that needs this. Look at Dale Steyn, Mitchell Johnson …forget about their bowling, they just look terror.  And look at our bowlers – Mr. B.Kumar – looks like he didn’t eat food for 3 weeks. (paeru vecheengle, Soru vecheengala’da ?) and Mr. Ishant sharma – when he runs up to bowl – it looks like if someone turns on a portable fan, he will fly back to India. They need to get some tattoo work done, (and probably Vadivelu style muscle like in movie Kadhalan ;-))
- this might work - If not technically, atleast Tattoo'ically!

      3. Spiked hair style:

Recently watched one bingo mad angle advertisement, where the guy puts some grains on his head and when the birds eat them, automatically a spike hair style is formed.

Reason I’m saying this – Most of the spiked hair style cricketers– like Steve Smith, Joe root are excellent fielders. We only have, again Mr. Virat Kohli, sometimes Mr. Raina.. not enough  - order one lorry of hair gels , we need 10 good fielders.  Give the first one to Mr. Ashwin (if he plays) for slip fielding.

People like Stuart Broad, Sunil Narine also sport spike-hairs and are great bowlers. So, maybe, Mr. Umesh Yadav & spring-hairstyled Mr. Jadeja can apply some of those gels too. They might get good swing or spin. Again - if not technically, atleast spike-hairly!

       4. Dancers:

Look at the west Indies team – whenever a wicket falls, or a six is hit, they all dance happily with simple good moves.  While their only problem is with their board and payment etc., - the players are highly talented. Like – Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo (who even danced in a Tamil movie), Pollard etc.,

The last dancer in our team was Mr. Shreesanth who , by-the-way, is still not 100% accused in spot –fixing. He will be raring to drop the towel and make dance moves on cricket pitches. Mr. Murali Vijay did some Caribbean style cameo dance appearances during some CSK matches, but then don’t again ask me why he is not in the squad – I don’t know yaaaa….

        5. Dhoni's signature-club-soda-master-mind-lucky-charm:

Like this Vaastu, Fengshui, Dhoni has his own brand – “lucky charm”

To be successful, you have to be different –That’s the excuse we have for bowling Mr.Joginder Sharma during that T20 finals last over. Whatever.

Sreeshanth – another lucky charm – was in the squad for 2011 WC, played first and last match , bowled 13 overs, gave 130 odd runs, no wickets. India won the cup!

But in this squad, I don’t see any one like that –may be is it Binny ? Or Ashwin ? well ,lets see.

I'm not a cricketer - so I cannot pin-point too much technical changes for the players, I can only write the above as a laymen cricket fan. But, in all, going by the above, its not going to cost a lot to get some aspects in our favor. 

Going by the current form of Team India, I honestly don’t expect them to win more than 2 matches in the tournament.

The below cartoon sums up the AS-IS status of 'wont give it back'.

Recently Misbah-ul-Haq was quoted saying – this time Pakistan will surely beat India.

A fan’s reply was – This is the weakest, out-of-form, out-of-sorts Indian team, in uncomfortable conditions that you will ever get to face. If you can’t beat India this time also, then you are really a horrible & waste team. - Pressure is off.

Fine then, lets see what this world cup has got to offer.  

I will be cheering for South Africa – very good team, talented , well settled team, but very very unlucky….. so far.!

See you later,

bye for now.

update on 28th March

Well, the world-cup 2015 is not over yet. But as India is not in it anymore, just thought of updating this blog. I must say that my anti-Jinx almost worked out !!  Just that i should have extended it to Kohli also.

The only problem was one Mr. Jadeja, who allegedly followed my blog and changed his hairstyle for the semi-finals and India lost. :-(

If someone had told in the beginning of the tournament that India would finish 3rd (SA lost to India, so being semifinalist, we will be No.3), any of us would have taken it blindly.

I don't think any Indian fan will complain of this performance, having won 7 games continuously, taking 70 wickets, setting a new benchmark. And those 70 wickets include 20 of Pakistan and South Africa - Wow!

As most of friends said,
If they win, we are happy that India Won.
If they lose, we don't care, as they are just a BCCI team and not even our national team!

Wat ? er !

Hello there,

Wish you all a happy new year 2015! Hope you have started the new year on a healthy note.

So, that blog which I mentioned earlier, is finally here. Potti vandirichi, Potti vandirichi.. :-)

As the name suggests, this is about water. But this is not to give gyan about how not to waste water, but rather to share about one technique which I implemented.

Because,

How not to waste water – is more of behavioral approach. Like for example – not to leave the tap open while brushing teeth, not to leave the shower on while not standing there etc. These are known to all, and no matter how many ever blog is written, unless the attitude is right, this cannot be achieved.

But the one I’m sharing here – is a one-time setup.

The idea is to save the outlet water from the water-purifiers that usually goes into the kitchen sink.

Water purifier industry in India is growing day-by-day.  People feeling the importance of hygienic water, consequences of water-borne diseases, low prices of purifiers – have all influenced it.

Around 35,000 water purifiers are sold ONLY in Bangalore, each year. The overall volume in India is expected to be 1.5 Crore units by end of 2015. (Currently 78 lakhs).

The CAGR (Compound Annual growth rate) for water purifier is expected to be 25% (currently at 22%).

Okay, here is how it looks:

Usually, one tube goes into the water purifier for input, whereas one come out to dispose the waste water.

All we need to do is to get extension tubes and divert the outlet to a different destination where that water can be used. Now, this waste water is obviously not fit for drinking, but can surely be used for utility purpose, like washing vessels, watering the plants etc.,

The extension tubes are available with the water-purifier servicing fellow for an average price of Rs.100 per 2 meter tube.

In my case, the bedroom balcony where I have a small garden, is just 3 meter from the kitchen window (structure-wise), and I just needed a 4 meter cable to connect both. Now, the outlet water reaches balcony through the kitchen window (from outside the building) which is very convenient to water the plants.

And as the original water is from bore-well (with a mix of ‘so-called’ cauvery water), the water purifier just takes the drinkable part of it, and leaves the remaining which is nothing but mud and other common elements obtained from the ground. So this is just good for the plants.

Roughly, in Bangalore, the water purifiers, at an average, throw 1 litre of water for every 1 litre that is filtered in. So, if you consume 8 litre of filtered water in a day, then 8 litre of water goes out through the outlet tube as well. This is a huge quantity and can be used extensively.

If you live in an independent house, this also saves your personal electricity expenses where the water that is pumped up to the overhead tank is used for household purpose. This activity will no longer be required if you use the outlet water smartly.

I implemented this 6 months back and it has saved a lot of water for us. The maid uses this to wash the floor, to clean the bathrooms, we water the plants with this – every day.

.

India has 17% of world’s population, but only 4% of its water.

And out of that 4%, only 5 % is given for municipality purpose (88% goes for irrigation).

Just thought of sharing this. I would be more than happy if atleast 10 people adapt this, thereby saving around 80 litre of water every day.

The above is just one idea, I’m sure there are many (lik Rain water harvesting). If you know other simple-to-implement ideas, please put in a comment for the benefit of others (or email me).

ta ta bye bye for now..