Parenthood!

“Congratulations Mr Joshy, It’s a girl” – Dr (who shall not be named … just because I don’t remember her name)

There are certain phases in life, which will blow the wind out your sails just when you are thinking that you have seen it all. Not that I hold anything against any of these phases but it is an eye opener(in this context) for new fathers especially who have little idea on parenthood and when you are taught as a kid that storks brought in the babies J . But I was prepared and having being certified as a good babysitter in the resume, I was backing myself to walk through the park on this one. But like they say there is nothing like a first hand experience. And no I don’t mean the usual poops, diapers changing and shopping for stuff kind off headache. Those are the easier parts of this experience.

Let me begin by stating that there is no sight better than in world than the smile of a newborn. However you will soon realize your ignorance that a newborn can hardly recognize you and that smile was in lieu of the pee that just watered down your freshly pressed shirt. Its particularly hard on us who are engineers bred with algorithms and reasoning to fathom the reason for waking up and crying at unearthly hours. Pragmatism my dear reader is something you leave at the doorstep while raising kids nowadays. Its far easier to appreciate others kids than to raise one of your own .My parents had four! I only have to look at my persona to comprehend the horrors that my mom would had undergone while raising us up. A mom is a cook, a gardener, a babysitter, a counselor, a friend, a nutritionist ,a teacher and much more . You value your elders a lot more in these circumstances than perhaps when you were a bachelor or a newly married couple!

Some one once said “It now takes more to entertain a child than it once did to educate his father” .I can vouch for it, as I am pretty certain that the toys and other accessories that I bought till date for my daughter (who is only 3 months old at the time of writing this blog) has exceeded my expenses that in incurred during the course of my engineering degree. It remains to be seen however if can ever educate her to be one! There are more fringe expenses now that ever and these are not necessary evils , but more of a temptation. How often have we fallen for the discounts tricks on the retail website or a end of season sale? After all for whom are we saving? – I hate that obnoxious argument. And mind you its not just the local retailer, the hospitals and doctors are also well aware of our insecurities and make us shell out more than its required. But in spite of knowing all this, we are happy to tread the same line time and over again. Human behavior of software engineers are so predictable you can as well write a algo for it .

My dad not pretty long ago remarked that “Son you have no dearth of intelligence ,but I am not sure about common sense”. And I know for certain in this silicon valley, I am not the only one. We are constantly trying to figure out what the kid’s next course of action might be. We are busy creating funds for our kids than creating time for them. We are busy on our smartphones than helping our partner out. We are busy searching the internet than ask our elders for opinions who have raised us. I am not saying technology had not enabled us, its more prudent to take a step back and unwind back to our own childhood. Were it any less exciting ,just because we were lacked gadgets and kinderjoy(this part of the  blog is sponsored by them!)? I now whatsapp my doctor with reports and he verifies and replies promptly! I remember taking the long journey to hospitals and then taking an appointment and then waiting in the serpentine queue for my turn to face the doctor.

Finally coming back to my kid , there have been days where I have lost sleep and days when I am not my 100%, but when those big eyes look up to you, I realize this is a wonderful space to be in. Its always a mystery as you see your child coping this whole new world. Will she do it right? Will she fail? Should I help her out ? Will she listen to me? You can almost measure her progress as you can see her discovering and learning on the fly .It is these moments which I will treasure and try to capture than the moments which I try to spend to help create a better future for my kid. And I know these moments are not too many!

How to file taxes online in India?

I was thinking to write about this a long time back but have been hesitant given that we all know how taxes work in India.But of late there has been significant changes that we can see and we can easily file taxes online .And given that anyone earning more than 10 lakh per annual year as package ,its mandatory to file taxes online ,we are all subjected to go the dreaded site incometaxindia.gov.in and go through their myriad forms and pages.Hence this post on how to file ITR-1 a simple one,which might disappoint you advanced folks,but nevertheless a starting point for the basic tax payer who wants to avoid the hassle of giving a few hundred bucks to your local accountant.

So this is what you need.First of all you need to get an account in incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in .

You need to register with your PAN card no and Please remember your password (easier said than done)!
Remember if you lose yours creds there is no way you can get another account because every indian has only one PAN and this site allows registration only through a PAN.So once again PLEASE REMEMBER YOUR PASSWORD.

Once you have logged in you will find and easy menu and a column in right which gives you the option to select your action.

you can either select quick e-file ITR or download the ITR from the options .One will give you a online form and the other will help you download a excel which you will have to fill with the help of your form 16.So far so good?

Now there are some simple doubts like, which is my assessment year and is it the same as financial year?No - the assessment year is a year in advance eg: if the current year is 2014 ,most likely you are filing taxes for the financial year from April 2013 - March 2014 ,but your assessment year is going to be 2014-2015.Also another doubt most likely that you will face is what is my Income Tax Ward/Circle.To help you find this out there is an url/page https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-Filing/UserLogin/LoginHome.html which is basically the login url of income tax efiling and you will have select the Services drop down menu in the page.

You will get the "Know your Jurisdictional AO" item which you can click, and which in turn leads to a page ,asking for your PAN . Once you pass on your PAN and enter the omnipresent captcha ,the following page will give you your Income Tax Ward/Circle.

Ok so you go ahead and fill the rest of the information as they are pretty easy as most of it is present in the Form - 16. Primarily it will have 4 major tabs. 1- Income Details 2 - TDS 3 - Taxes paid and verification 4 - 80G.Only thing you need to be careful about is when you have multiple form - 16's .Hence you will be required to sum up the total in your income details and mention all the employers who paid you salary or from whom you got, form 16 in the TDS tab!

Once you have mentioned all the required employers,you can also mention the TDS of other sources of income below it.Sometimes it also happens that you need to pay taxes back to the govt because you would have switched companies and the individually each salary was not taxable but when summed up they were!Or you have other sources of income for which you need to pay taxes.For that you will have to complete the entire ITR - 1 and click on the Calculate taxes button available on sheet 1 which is named "Income Details".Once every other info is entered and validated and you click "Calculate taxes" button ,the excel will generate the taxes that you need to pay in the tax computation part in "Income details" sheet.
You will now have to pay a Challan and pass on that information which you paid as self assessment tax as a part of your Challan ,back into your ITR -1.So let see how you can pay Challan online.

You will have to go the url https://onlineservices.tin.egov-nsdl.com/etaxnew/tdsnontds.jsp and select your option.Because i am just helping out a basic salaried employee here you will have to select the CHALLAN NO./ITNS 280

Once you select the challan no 280 you will be lead to the following page where you have to select the options- Tax applicable - 0021Income Tax Other than Companies and Type of Payment (300) Self Assessment Tax.

Once you have filled the required details ,it will lead you to your netbanking site where you can finish paying the challan .At the end your bank will give you a PDF or a document which will atleast give your the BSR Code ,the Challan no and the datetime of payment .You will need to pass this information within your TDS tab as shown below.

Thats it you are close to filing your taxes.All you now need to do is validate all the sheets and and click on Generate XML button on sheet on of your ITR -1.Once done a new worksheet will be present which you can confirm and hit the Save Xml button to help you generate a xml file,which you will now need to upload it back into the incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in.So login in again if your session is logged out and this time select the upload return option.Fill the necessary details and hit upload.Please note that if your ITR - 1 excel is not filled properly, you will get errors at this point.So kindly ensure that there are no mistakes in the excel.The income tax site will mail you a pdf which you need to take a printout of and mail it to the address mentioned in the mail/pdf. So there you have filed your taxes online ... enjoy.. :)

Bachelor’s Wife.. oops life!

There is never as exciting a time in life as bachelorhood because he has all the time in the world to pursue whatever he wishes and do whatever he wants at his own leisure.Well this statement is coming from a married guy(me) so I might be a bit biased.ITS OK.Because post the marital-phase your wifey’s wish is your command.So before you skips the next sections thinking I am the typical bloated mid-aged guy,let me move you to a different  location.
10-15 am IST.On a cloudy Saturday, I had to come down to diary circle as my wife had some work in her office.So to kill time I did what I knew best.Go to Forum Mall ,the happening mall in Koramangala.I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead, spend my morning at Landmark and read all the mags available there!I promptly entered Landmark at 10.30 –quite an early time to come to a Mall ,but nevertheless it was starting to wake up to activity and the college kids were slowly making their way into the mall.I walk pretty briskly than the usual mango ppl(or so I am told) ,I thought to myself –‘dude ,chill you are here to kill time’ and I consciously slowed down my pace.Got into the books section.That is when I noted two things.1)People still love books and 2)Computers books are not available! I realize there are lots of people who still love reading on floors sitting cross-legged as much as college kids skimming through the international mags that they can ill-afford.There are loads of sales and discounts going on each section.But even I picked one ,my thought process went like …”let me see ,how much will this cost on flipkart?”.This is what we do now isn't it? We are all looking for deals and comparing coupons and checking on the cheapest deals.So there goes my book buying options .I even saw the pick any for 99 offer also,which were available earlier only at select discount book houses stacked with non-sense novels or the once in a blue moon book festival.I still remember those days,how exciting it was to see so many story books in a book–fest at school ,all printed and packed and fresh with some bookish odor!
10.30 am IST.I looked around and saw kids making mayhem,  couples being lovey-dove,teens chatting away and middle-aged folks being busy on the smart-phones.Typical scenes everywhere.Never-the-less ,I have always wondered how is it that the worst guy in town gets the good-looking girl?(now where did this thought come from?)Well mind works in amazing ways when you don’t have anything in particular to do!So I thought lets do sociology and anthropology(though I never consciously thought abt these subjects).And as more “mouth-looking” I went, my beliefs were confirmed.The skinny – scrawny kid hanging on to his low waist jeans was ignorant of his bombshell of a gf!WTF! I mean, you should have been drooling all over her.Again all of ‘em had a common factor .THEY HAD MONEY TO THROW IT ON THE BITCH!(just adding a few swear words so that someone censors me and I get critically acclaimed)
11.00 am IST.Hovered to the CD section which also had loads of deals .There were deals on Blue ray also as well as DVD and CD’s.Well then how many times have geeks bought DVD’s and blue rays from these stores.Of late never would be the answer .In this age of Torrents and YouTube, you can pretty much watch anything at your own leisure and for free!Times are tough for these retailers in believe .Anyways I just lingered along in this section just to see how much cheap(discount), it will get ?There were DVD’s for just 49/- but still my developer mind said –“Never mind,chalo” I moved over to the toys section and kids were having a great time.Toys with remotes ,scrabble ,puzzles,action heroes,angry birds …the list goes endless.Kids are always on the lookout for new toys no matter how much they have.I wish I were a kid again !Finally I decided to check out of the store with some books (which is more of a impulsive buy ),but as I paid the bill with my CC, the system hanged and they had to write the customers,the old fashioned receipts.
11.30 am IST.I went back to doing what I did best in college days or rather teens,”staring”.I was starting to get frustrated with my waiting .Why do guys have to wait and girls get away with it with a smile(never happens vice-versa)??And then I thought let me get a breath of fresh air .So I went outside and sat just outside the Mall under some small tree.As I looked around, I could see that all my neighbours were couples and they were all staring at me, with a look that screamed “PERVERT”.Impervious ,I started to fiddle around with my smartphone and then I realised that its been a long time, that I had a chat with my friends.Hence I started to call the numbers.It was a good exercise and I had a nice time talking to college friends and fellow mates.All this while, I failed to notice that a couple of girls from the nearby beauty shop had come along and sat nearby.And there I was chatting and laughing away in the typical mallu style,and I think there were more mallus nearby than I had presumed,as they smiled along to my boisterous demeanor.Its later that I realised that among this whole crowd of couples and teens, I was the only odd man out.And it was not in the sense, that I didn’t have a girl beside me .I had two sales girls next to me!And they were giggling and laughing away to something as well.OMG !Even as I felt the ever rising urge to escape from the place, a couple of girls came along and passed that look which literally said “cheapo –is this all you could manage?!”
1.30 pm IST. I hurried to the food-court on the top floor in the mall as I realised my hunger pangs had got the better of me and I also need to use the bathroom.Thankfully as fate would have decided the bathroom was under repairs and I couldn’t use it.Anyways I grabbed some food from one of the non-veg counters and sat down trying to figure out, where my wife was.It would take another half an hour before she could come down.I thought let me wait for the next half an hour.I could see from inside that the clouds had ascended and it would sooner or later bestow its tears over namma urru.I slowly came down the top floor and quickly went to the opposite side of Forum Mall.I didn’t want a repeat of the pre-lunch event.I started my calls to friends again.And it felt good to catch up on old times,old events and talking of our new experiences.Friends were all doing good in their own lives and half a dozen of ‘em(I am not exaggerating on this one!) had managed to knock up their respective wifes.Phew time sure flies by,but the talk that we boys did mostly didn’t change much from out college days.Old jokes,whisky,cricket,football,tech,comments on babes….etc –though not necessarily in that order!
3.30 pm IST.Finally my wifey managed to get out of work and come down,though it took another half an hour to reach Forum Mall.It was a good wait and I could enjoy the Bangalore Fashionistas on display and ah that cool breeze when BLR is gonna rain!I wanted to check out the Manchester Club United Pub but it seems it is no longer in business.There will always be a next time, when I am left alone a bachelor!!

Appangal embadum otteku chuttammayi…

It so happened as with hundreds of other Malayalees,  I too didn’t get a train ticket to Kerala.And then we land into the Mecca of bus transports to Kerala in Bangalore-Madivala.You can talk and walk and breathe Malayalam here and you can find many a man with lungi here .As fate would have it ,I needed one more ticket and I had to roam around for that all elusive ticket.So to people not familiar with the demographics of Madivala ,you can safely assume there are no less than 50 travels and concerns there in that 1 km stretch.So my hunt began in familiar territory of Kallada and KPN and others major travels .But many stared me down with the “how dare you ask” look.Funny man ,all I am asking you is a ticket! And then you should see these all ego non educated people who are there to handle customers .Most often they talk to you as if they are doing you a  favor instead of the other way around.If you come with the “customer is king” background –back off, this is not where you should show that kind of negotiation skills. There has long been this hedge attitude very akin to Kerala bound bus travels ,because of the apathy shown by the railway to Kerala.This is one route(BLR –Kerala) which has long been neglected primarily because  of the paybacks from bus lobby and cold shoulder given to  Kerala in rail budgets for decades.So the winner has always been buses who mint money and give shit treatment along with pathetic services.But the techie in Namma Bengaluru does hardly have a choice as he has to go home!

So there I land in front of some obscure travels with two people looking busy with their mobiles.And they have one of those stupid old CRT monitor in front and a dirty keyboard.I land in asking for my ticket.And the guy goes meditating with eyes closed and after 10 seconds tells , (you guessed it) “illa”(no in Malayalam).As I walked back I turned to see the board of his office.It mentioned getting pan card,driving license,visa attestation,legal writing were some other stuff that they do!I was thinking if they could get me a Padma Shri as getting govt recognition was very in!(as in prachiettan ).As I moved along I went to my bus stop where the melee was all the more.There were this buses lined up against each other and there was a tea shop next to it with a plastic sheet to cover the extra crowd.Did I mention that it was raining ? Well if not it was and there was a huge crowd in front of the shop.Just then another Volvo landed in and even as I stood watching ,a couple of guys suddenly took out the plastic cover leaving the people in front of the tea shop exposed to rain .And there I stood laughing as the people started to run and get drenched.No sooner had the smile gone from my face, when a dumb guy right in front of me opened his already drenched umbrella and lo, the water splashed on my face.I gave him the shit face and he nonchalantly turned around and went on his way.

I got into the last seat of the bus and since it was Volvo I was least bothered as they have pretty good shock absorbers for the bumps on the road.I had my snacks inside my bag as my eyes were treated to this pananoma of the various strata and conditions of humans.It was nearing 10 pm .A couple of beggars sleeping on the pavement with their rags of cloth as shield against the cold night,a pack of dogs chasing an old man with a sack,the odd IT guy walking back to the apartment,the police jeep doing its patrol,drunken laughter in front of various wine shops,people lazing around in dabbas and women with jasmine flowers looking for their hunter!.And amidst all this I saw  this one cool guy on a truck oblivious to all the worries around him .He was looking at some masala video on his Chinese made mob , while his friend was drove the truck He had his legs outside the side window and the cool wind was blowing his hair.And then I wondered at how simple life could be.

“Appangal embadum ....”(some crazy song in mal) blared suddenly and caught my attention to the video being shown in the bus.It was Ustad Hotel, a recent film featuring Mamooty’s son.And it grabbed my attention for the next half an hour ,there was this scene shown wherein the hero is introduced to a guy who turns philanthropist and guardian of the poor after he has this “turning point”.(Once when he was on his way back from office he saw a poor old man near the signal ,beside the sewage pipes eating his own shit out of hunger!) Well I glanced away momentarily to relate those scenes on the road .Undoubtedly there will be many homes where bread will not be broken and many, who don’t have a home to call as their own !Sad ,but the fact is if you see, the pleasures/desires  of all these men - they are very simple.Get some food,some water and a place to stay for the night .Done,was this life was all about?HELL NO, I had to build the next gen app ,someone had to build bridges,a dude had to get his next Merc and someone else wanted to rob millions ! But not this.Interesting to see how strange how circumstances define what you want out of life.While this myriad of thoughts were floating and finding their own places to map in my head….. scrrrrrrech!(the bus came to a halt).

As I got down at our customary break in TN for dinner,I went to the loo and horror of horrors on the urinals are huge red ants and dozens of em(someone is diabetic ).This was a first to me ..you know I have even managed to let go with a live wire hanging around the urinal…(well that’s another story!)

Sent Packing !

I don't know if its my never ending quest to end the pain of every lazy or loser like me,but i always want to cut corners as far as time,effort and money are concerned and not necessary in that order ! Ha ha I know we all wanna do that, but its easier said than done.After all no pain no gain and there are no shortcuts to success, are all idioms we grew up with.So the point is, whenever we are faced with the inevitable task of having to challenge ourselves and cut corners, instead of going through the tried and tested methods,we should perhaps give it a try :). OK allow me to give you guys a little illustration, though i take no responsibility of you trying and then falling flat with dire consequences.

Early this year as I had to travel to US I had to do with the usual stuff of packing myself with Indian food ,clothes warm wear and not to mention the myriad documents .Having this mammoth task in itself not a turnoff but having to prepare the list of items and then measure the weight and then repeat this ordeal is a little bit too much for most lazy bachelor bums like me! OK then so what do i do?I had as usual, bought most of the Indian stuff for survival on a masala free land like US and some snacks to boot(rice is no longer allowed in US customs, so beware) and loads of aata!And they all lay dumped somewhere as i eased into my bed and swearing to God I will definitely pack the next day morning.Well to inform you the flight is at around 7 pm and i leave at around 2.30 so that I can checking in at least 3 hours as is the norm for international flights.And I had booked the Meeru cab to pick me at 2pm, so that i can take some rest at the airport, instead of the last minute rush .So ,next morning i wake up at 10.30 am and still have loads of work to do including getting a haircut! As i finally finished my lunch at 1.30 and turn to my room ,I have before me 2 big baggage and nothing packed.And remember, all i have at hand is just 30 -45 min at hand.This is no exaggeration, just so that you have more fun while reading this blog ,but an eyeopener to the level of laziness that i am used to.After scratching my head and then my butt for a couple of minutes, i decided to use my learning for my previous travel to the States to better use.Most of us Indians love to have Indian stuff in US, which is very expensive and hence to cook would be a cheaper option.So food is what you have to stock ,in case you are going for a short visit and need to survive for a few weeks .So this is my proposal and will be the same for most other guys who usually travel this route.Pack one luggage with clothes and necessary accessories and the other luggage with food.So as you finish up the food, you will realize that you have one free luggage empty to load up on your return journey.

Well its easier said than done, because for gals or guys who are at least a little fashionable, its almost impossible to pick out a few pairs of clothes and leave the rest! But trust me,there is no need to pile up on that front, as most of us will anyways land up buying loads of clothes on arrival.(unless u r a baniya with that extra need for US dollars!)Well then pick at least 5 pairs of formals and a few T'shirts and jeans.Thats all i picked!Well the jacket and stuff i got em in my hand, to reduce the weight.And the rest of the food stuff, since it goes into the other luggage, there I go,I made the target of packing flat out in 45 min.And please please don't carry all your mom's achars and homemade stuff only to realize that its leaking or gone stale .Because you don't want to face those barrage of question on the port of entry.Well nostalgia and homesickness comes with a price!Even as the Meeru cab guy gave me a missed call, I dumped all the docs into the cabin trolley and turned mains off my room .So there you go,ready to fly a few thousand miles :).But for those who are meticulous enough to do the packing early, kindly ignore the advice and enjoy your journey .Bon voyage!

Opportunity amidst opportunity

My first post in a Magazine in my previous company Caritor.Thought let me put it here, lest i lose it!

"When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and one represents opportunity."

- John F. Kennedy

The world has seen the scripts change in the annals of history too many times to stumped by even the worst trials and tribulations.God forbid we need not have a 9/11 or a tsunami or a IT crash or for that sake the Great Depression of America.But we have all emerged out of it;some more successful with just guts and grit by their side ,men who sensed something that the others missed -opportunity even when adversity towered against them.You don't need the sixth sense to grab a opportunity .Its right there up for grabs but you need to take it with a pinch of risk and let your skills handle the rest.

A retrospection into the past year and you will find all sorts of disasters ,the aftermath of the tsunami ,a series of storms in coastal America,the great deluge in Mumbai,earthquakes in Kashmir,in addition to all this the industry had its own sets of worries oil touching the $70 barrel mark,more taxes and the list goes on.But still the India grows at 6 to 8% with the sensex fast closing onto the historic 10K mark,the FDI's are steadily flowing in and the FAB's are all decided on choosing India as a desired location.Seldom has the country looked any brighter.So where does all the growth come from amidst all the calamities of life and our own speculations and worries?

We had NGO's ,organizations ,individuals(silent heroes) who woke up to task whenever a disaster occurred ,men who could absorb the shock and the awe of the challenges posed.We had businessmen,venture capitalists stockbrokers even students cashing in the moolah this year on the unprecedented run of the bull in the stock market.Billions of dollars that were washed away in the blink of an eye were being compensated for .Better villages and hospitals are coming in place of the older dilapidated ones both in quake hit as well as disaster hot zones.The opportunity of building a better tomorrow was being visualized and built .Even in Iraq and Afghanistan that lay devastated by the war,companies were competing with each other for contracts and they sensed the golden chance that lay hidden in the barren lands.Companies are moving away fro the traditional markets of America and Europe and going east as well as Africa when they understood that their their products no longer thrived the markets.

Each of us are facing a problem and await the all important solution,the challenges may be in various circumstances,scale,forms,regions or situations.At the end of the day we all hate risks,adversities,changes not necessarily in that order but we hate them all the same .But studies suggest that these factors play a major role in deciding the success rates.With the changing dynamics of economy ,the stature of men seldom matter it is the genuine opportunity seeking skills that each one sees and sees first,when the chips are down that we make the quantum leap from men to demi-god status.

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness.History always reminds us that civilizations were lost once it started to saturate or stagnate in its riches.Learn to make lemonade out of life's lemons by taking a step back to consider the bigger picture.You have two choices shape up or ship out. It builds those who are strong enough to withstand its fury and shrewd enough to learn from its repercussions - the Darwin Theory .The weak become diffident and lose focus which takes away his natural propensity to identify the big opportunity that lies hidden within the perils of the disaster.In short when such a person sees adversity, he loses many opportunities to redeem himself from the adverse situation, where as leaders of men would remain calm and composed and seizes the opportunities. They view every problem in life as a challenge or opportunity that one can benefit from.

So let us take refuge in a qoute from Disraeli -"What appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune."

Black Friday

I am always non-superstitious.But sometimes you just feel its not your day! One such day was my last day of my stay in Minneapolis.As I woke up ,as usual late ,I checked the baggage,it was strewn all around.By then it was already 9 am,and i had not even booked the taxi to the airport.Brushed my teeth in a jiffy and took a double quick bath and decided to keep my fast without breaking in the morn.After messing up twice with the taxi guys with respect to the pickup address,i decided to go to the office to drop off my stuff .I needed to say bye to a few folks there and then drop off my laptop and phone.And then i rushed back to my room to clear off all the remaining stuff from the room as was the norm .I was too preoccupied to note that i hadn't weighed my baggage yet.So i rushed down to the front desk of the service apartment to check for a weighing machine.Again none at the office even though it was a week day.As i decided to hang around and then i realized that i came down without the room keys.So i took the lift back and dragged both my bags down after locking my room and then finally found a chick in the front office.I checked the weight and was pleased with to know that i had lots of space for xtra stuff to dump.

After lots of more mishaps i finally found myself in the airport cab at 1.30 pm thought the flight was at 5 pm i thought i might as well as play safe.I reached well ahead in time all along having a healthy conversation with the taxi driver who happened to be from El Salvador.I checked myself in and then after that thought that i might as well take a look around.As i just put my hands into my pocket ,I realized i had the room keys with me.I had two options either to catch the Haiwatha rail back which comes every 20 minutes or so or take a usual taxi.But the problem  was I didn't know either of them where to catch! But i found the nearest taxi as i was fast running out of time .I reached LaSalle,and threw the keys at the front desk and hurried back,pretty sure that this would be last time at least that day that i would need to return back!But since i had already checked in and had the boarding passes till Bangaluru already in hand i was pretty confident.

At around 4 i went through the security check and patiently waited for an hour before the flight took off.Once i landed in Chicago,i waited only to see that an hour later the flight was cancelled.So there goes my itinerary for a  toss.I got the new tickets ,but then i lost 1 whole day,thanks to the cancellation.The cancellation had more to with less travelers than with the official reason of mechanical failure.So there i stay overnight at Chicago(atleast they gave me a hotel room),and next day i catch a flight to London,where i had to sleep overnight there too,this time at the airport.By the time i landed at London the only ones left at the busy Heathrow airport was  a Pakistani housekeeping guy and a Chinese sweeper.When i took the last connecting flight from London next day afternoon,i was pretty tired and then i didn't really care what time/day i reached as long i was i would be there.And did i tell you ,i hardly caught a nap in the London flight thanks to the kicks and screams of the kiddo behind.Well don't blame me for that header now,hmm..waise i am not superstitious u know…

America America!

Yeah by this time you would be knowing that i would be somewhere in US updating my blog(yeah here in Downtown MPLS).The following read is a kind of eye-opener for people as instructions not to do and what would happen if you try to do a joshy! So the moment i got my marching orders from my manager ,all the excitement within me died.Oh no..atleast most of the folks around me were more excited and giving me their purchase orders as to what to buy and as well as dire consequences in the eventuality of me not getting it.I don't know why i didn't have the excitement ,probably because i was not having my GF along (incase ur wondering who,this is just to spice up the blog!) , or because i would be missing my planet Kerala more or yeah there is this slight hitch of the temperatures being an average of –20 degree Celsius(coming from India where namma blr is close to +20 degree now).So once i got my visa date interview ,i just moved around as if i had nothing to worry.I got a pretty small flight to Chennai where i was supposed to have my visa interview.And i hate em as you have the feeling that you are riding in a Maruti 800 on Banarghatta road.But once i landed in Chennai i was amazed to see that the metro contruction was going on there too.So more jam to follow .After an hour in the traffic, i reached the hotel.I was made to wait another hour there and i took the liberty of having dinner in the mean time.So soon after i took bath(or did I?) and then snoozed off.I didn't arrange my papers not learn what lies to tell to the consulate officer! But to grace of the Almighty i got up somewhere around midnight and managed to arrange all that in an hour and slept off again.Morning i took a cab which was booked from the hotel itself and damn expensive.I knew why because there were a lot of rather hundreds of mosquitoes in the cab.So i reached the Consulate to see a queue at 7 am in the morning.So when my turn came i got in and came inside what looked like a examination hall.People with their certificates,documents anxious faces and suddenly out of the blue,the security guy asks me “kai ill unnum illalo alle?”.

No wonder where you go there is bound to a Malayali.When i passed the security check in BLR,the guy comes and asks “engotta?”.Then i realised there are many malayali’s hiding behind the skin of various characters unknown to mankind.As i waited my turn with bated breath,finally the officer comes in and starts taking the interviews,mine was 5th i presume and two were rejected already ahead of me.2/4 was not a bad ratio.Though i felt i might go the other half.So when i finally faced him,i mumbled my answers and then suddenly he looked at me!There he was like a school teacher and i felt as if i need i didnt do my homework .So more questions ensured that i was thoroughly meant for B1!And then finally it was all over and i literally ran our of the compound.

”Auto saarrrrrr”,these are the last things you want to hear after your anxious moments.The fun part in Chennai is ,the meter in autos there are kept to let you know that they are also high tech!Else you might fool the auto guy(gracious no..can i do this in this lifetime?).Anyways i managed to reach the hotel back using broken Tamil.So when i was to return from Chennai,i took the liberty of having lunch late and a small nap.All because the cabbie told me i would reach the airoport safely in 30 min.And so it turned ,that the traffic was even more pathetic than the previous day and it took the driver lots of skills and my praying skills to reach there just a few minutes before the last check-in call(and thanks to a few guys who let me ahead of them at check-in).And again as i lazed my life,and the date to travel finally came, i was still in my slumber until 24 hours before i realized i didn't have anything packed to face the brute winter there,absolutely nothing.So i took the previous afternoon half off,after i filled my tax,my timesheets ,sending mails ,taking printouts and lots more.As my flight was early morning at 7am next day, i thought i would sleep early.I came in home at 5.00pm and then went to big bazaar ,got my stuff  in a few hours and then came running back only to realise i had forgotten a few more!So after all this mess,i knew i was running on empty cylinders and took a break at the local Sagar nearby at 10.00pm.Finally when i started packing the bags it was already 11.00 and when i finished it was 2.00am in the morning and the cabbie would come to pick me up at around 3.45.So even as i slept the cab guy called me enquire about my point,and i lost couple of more minutes of sleep.So finally i got 45 minutes of sleep .And then i woke myself up and dumped myself and my luggage into the cab.When i finally reached the airport it was around 4.00 and i took 10 minutes to just get out of the car! Man i was already running out of sleep and after the immigration and the security check-in i dozed off till my flight came in.So finally when i caught my BA flight,i caught up on all the lost sleep,and even managed to watch a few films in between.

Finally i escaped India only to watch myself flying over Pakistan and Afghanistan !More sleep lost.But at least i was served hot breakfast on BA which was really refreshing.Finally before landing in Hearthrow,i lost another half an hour because of hectic schedules.As we finally hit terminal 5 ,it was good to feel the air outside.But the turbulence was really bad as you can judge from the pic above.And I had as my mate Amit,who was also travelling to MPLS.Since he was newly wed,he had this responsibility of calling his wifey and keeping her in sync.So we went in search of the Phone booth,and found that we need pounds in coins to call it.And my roaming Vodaphone was not working nor was there any free WIFI available.Finally he got into a internet booth and mailed her!I tried the Skype and for some reason it didn't work either.

So we took the connecting flight to Chicago and dully filled in our I-94 forms and i caught up on more sleep and wine!Finally i got to see snow in Chicago.The entire city was bubbling with energy from above.The immigration check was quick and the officer let me in without much ado and we caught our flight to the MPLS waiting for more than couple of hours and after moving around a few gates.But this time Amit managed to call his wifey after I begged for some quarters from some Mexican maids!I first went to a store where i bought gums, so that we can get change,but then she returned only 3 quarters and she would give us more change!We didn't want to argue and so i had to beg from those amazing ladies who were gracious enough to lend us a few quarters.Gracias Ladies!Anyways we got into the flight and within and hour reached Minneapolis and it was lovely to see the entire city in covered with snow.We took some time to get to the taxi as there was none to guide us at midnight.But soon enough we landed in front our hotel which cost us something like 40 bucks.But to talk to the African-American driver was a nightmare as he couldn't understand my British English! So i left my British English to the queen and starting to rap to make him understand.Finally he gave me the receipt and i gave him his tip and hit the bed as soon as possible.But not before i updated myself on the FB.I cant stop it can I?

Midnight Flight

 

Deepawali holiday trip to native proved pretty costly for me this time around ,as the return e-ticket turned elusive.There are probably more than a few crore people in Kerala and half of them you would find them on the Island express.And with people joining in from Covai,(as the train takes a detour via TN)the melee is seen to be believed(for all the doubting thomaskutties who think i am exaggerating).I was among  the lucky few who was dumb enough to think that my waiting listed e-ticket ,would finally convert ,and found myself rushing to buy a second class ticket.This second class ticket is genuinely third class.It would be a serious challenge to anyone with a meager sense or rather common sense to even fathom or have the audacity to enter it.One day we might have the Survivor series depicted on it.

Let me describe the coach,for people who are new to the world of railwaynomics! Like Laloo,the coach is also inhabited by his countrymen(literally country),who feel demeaning to enter this coach and be respectful to his/her brethren.The moment you step(or onto someone!) into the coach,the steps and the sideways of the entrance are occupied by people who are drunk enough,who senses are numb enough to enjoy the travel(i wish i were drunk too)!From here the push/pull mechanism starts,ie people who would want to get out vs people who would want to get it,neither would give the other an inch.So in the eventuality of you having to get down in between,you would have to start pushing yourself a couple of stations before.Even if you manage to get inside this famed coach,treat yourself to the Baskin Robbins, if you manage to get home in one piece.I think the stores in India can learn a lesson or two  in Planograms ,such is the way each square inch is utilised here.But like my earlier posts on rail travel,there is a sense of companionship here in this coach as each one has his story to tell and most often than not,all of these would be waiting list passengers.

So here i was onto this train again on a Diwali,with a second class ticket.In this myriad country,there a reservation seat for everyone, including the politician to the beggar.You could see everyone arguing and fighting for his qouta,from the local MLA  to the ex-armyman to the handicapped(i would soon fit here).As i tried bribing my way to a seat,i found to my dismay that none of the usual Ticket Checkers have come.This added to woes, as fate was slowly pushing me to the 2nd Class.Then i tried my luck in sleeper tiers and found even RAC’s were not getting cleared.As night closed in, i decided i would stay put in a sleeper this time instead of 2nd class(which is all the same).Stay put means, you would get to sit down near the loo(railway loos have eulogies written for em,and half of the male fantasies on their walls,authors would have posted their tele nos too!).I met a guy from Thrissur,who happened to work in BLR,as an accountant and he too was in the same basket of fate.As we contemplated on the next events in the eventually of a “Get Out” from the TT,a few more unreserved people from other coaches landed in.We knew we would all land in trouble sooner or later.As we had our had our dinner ,we decided to stay put,and as Gandhiji had shown in S.A to demand our rights(did he say ticketless??).Now to do this, would be to question the jurisdiction of the TT,who is as ignorant your pleas, as a teacher loving to hear your wails when he tweaks your ears.Finally we decided,that if we had to get down(or rather shoved out),we would drag on ,till Erode or Salem from where the journey to blr would be another 4-5 hours.But to our amazement the TT didn’t enter the coach, till the train chugged into Covai.Till that moment the compartment which was kind of peaceful,turned houseful.An entire set of family folks from thatha,aunty,father,mother,sister,cousin,baby,anna,akka,grandmother,grandfather and a lots more hopped in.Again we got pushed back.But here fate played a different card.One of the chaps,forgot to get his wife(i think it was on purpose) or rather his wife gave him a miss and her ticket was free!So voila,we made some dealings/auditions with the guy to play the role of his wife, to get her ticket.The deal was finalised,but the TT who got in from Covai,was so strict ,that we couldn’t even manage to get our asses in the compartment.

There would only be two options now,now to stay put or to hop out!We decided to go for the latter.So there after enduring the toilette fragrance for some lingering moments,we disembarked on our next plan at Erode at around 1.30am.I and my friend got down and caught the nearest available bus to Erode bus station.There we caught on a bus that was bound for Salem.The bus pulled on pretty slow and shook terribly and in between an old chap landed near the door! Amidst all this, i managed to catch some sleep for 1 hour as the bus took another extra one hour to reach Salem at 3.30 am.There we got down and made ourselves sure that we would get into some superr fast or express.So much to our confusion every other bus was a superfast or deluxe bus.Also we had to get into a queue ,at one end of the bus station to get into a bus.People were queued up and busses were being filled!As we hopped into another Deluxe bus,I managed to get some window seats .But sadly it was very near the door(now i know why they were empty!).As the bus slowly moved on,we asked the conductor to close the window above the door.I still remember the shock,that even as he pulled the entire frame came down,leaving the window half open,and us to the mercy of furious cold winds.I had by mistake taken my tested jacket along in the bag!I pulled it upto my ears and whipped out my bedsheet and wrapped myself like a newborn baby with just the eyes and the nose visible.

The bus pulled on and we tired souls dozed off more of fatigue than the comfort of our seats.I realised it was Krishnagiri ,only when i woke up at around 6 in the morning .Shit, i realised we were running late on a busy Monday morning,but had no options.In between it drizzled and thankfully the shutters on the windows worked for a change.As the morning winds blasted on us,I realised i was still in my mummy version.People who got in ,smiled at me as if i were Vadivelu’s cousin and sure i didn’t disappoint them!For all i cared was another couple of hours of sleep and my bengaluru to welcome me back.As the landscape slowly changed and tress gave way to concrete structures and IT parks ,Electronic City came up and as usual was buzzling in the morning traffic frenzy.It was at this point that i realised that my phone was switched off and i was more like a crusoe for the rest of the world.I landed at Madivala an hour later at 8.30 am,and bade farewell to my buddy and finally landed on two feet at Madivala market.Even as my world came back to me ,auto drivers started coming to me,”Auto saar,bari 120 rupees”……..

“Train No-6525 Bangalore Kanyakumari Express will be arriving shortly on platform no 2….”

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As i write with my ass half numb,thumb toe bruised and back aching like hell.. i recall some of the interesting events that happened post this announcement.As usual the Changanacherry Railway station is full as expected ,since its Easter(and Record Liquor sales too!) revelry was getting over.I lazed my way to the ticket counter and got myself a 2nd class ticket.I had no reservation,finally after hours of futile efforts.Ok so be it,I think there would have been others also who would share my grief,as there are many who suffer because of the lack of a double track from Ernakulam to Kayamkulam.The bus vendors were making a killing this summer and they wanted it that way(no double track) as it would kill their business.Also because of the weirdness of Indian Politics,no Railway Ministry in his right mind would focus on any other state other than his!(we losers are yet to have our Rail Mantri).So even as i contemplated my entry into the pre-historic(i will tell you why)general class,i saw my friend,Lijo standing there and chatting away i with another pal,Anish.So here we are discussing everything and anything under guys world-which hardly goes beyond gals,liquor and code,and our wait for “The Train” starts.So what if the train pulls in and hour late,we still have a train,thanks Mam B,i mean Mamata Banerjee!

As we devoured topics from the friends to foe to marriages to liquor(ok it always comes back here…),an old lady tried to sell her merchandise of unniappam,to us three with her histrionics.I had already given the lady 10 bucks as she was in need of money more than anything else,but Lijo still went ahead and bought a packet.As crowds started getting frustrated,we waited with sweats pouring down our backs and water down our throats.The train pulls in a full hour later and as i rummaged through the coaches to check with any familiar Ticket Checker so that i can buy myself a ticket.But to my bad luck,it was very much crowded and the only TTR that i could see was busy shouting at a guy for entering a reserved compartment.So finally i enter the much fancied General coach.Wait a minute,did i say enter….i am sorry,try to enter was what i meant.There are people sitting on the steps,bathroom,upper lower berths and twice that number of people standing and twice that number of luggage,in fact there were more luggage that people!So as my mind started analyzing and my right foot(its auspicious) searching for a foothold,i knew this would be a tough ride ahead.But i just managed to get in the “Wave”.This is a phenomenon that occurs when you stand in the path of a motley crowd trying to find its way in/out.In this case i found myself 10 cm inside and it required a Wave to achieve it,so you can guess the number of people inside the general compartment.There were nearly 130 people in that compartment.(note how i purposefully missed that exclamation mark there).Well this is the common scene in a average popular train in India.This compartment used to be for the middle class,often called the 2nd class,but now that the social fabric has changed and Indian middle class no longer remain so(they travel in AC coaches),the unreserved and the poor go through this suffering coach.As I just stood inside on one foot,a guy got a call on his cell asking if “he got a seat”.Well he replied yes,in fact he replied he was in air! People stood there immobile for hours and twitching only to get a breath of some fresh sweaty air.Hmm..well it was not as bad as it sounds.Its just that you will have some gals shawl.hair on your face and at the same time someone poking your nose and some *** stamping his authority on your foot,while someone is pricking your ass and yeah you have a heady mix of sweat ,fart and burps thrown in as freebies.At this moment some guy started playing “Saari umr hum ,mar mar ke jee liye,ek pal to ab hame je lene do”.Happy hour folks!But i saw your adjust karo attitude of the Indian public even in this misery.A gentleman with this hands both busy was fast losing his grip on his mundu,so he coolly asks the guy beside him to tie it for him.Team work,bravo lots to learn here.

Then as i managed to get a breather and managed to get in from the Nataraja posture that i was in for the past half an hour,the train pulled to Kottayam.Well to add to the 130 inside there were 50 waiting to join inside.Well whoever said the phrase the more the merrier would never have ventured out here!So as a few people hopped out,i grabbed the chance,and pushed myself ahead and eyed for any remote chances of a seat.Its then that i saw a guy just like myself sitting on the side seat all by himself!How dare he??having greeted him with ”swalpa adjust”,which is the equivalent of hello in this context,i managed cover half my ass.Well rest as they say is history.The guy next to me left at EKM,leaving me extra space!From there on the crowd grew and only after Palakkad did we manage to get some stale air again.As i pondered on my dinner ,i saw that people here had the distinct advantage that no TTR would ever venture here!But one thing amidst all this mayhem was that people connected pretty soon.And shared stuff and displayed some rare bonhomie to strangers.People became friends just with a smile,a snack,a tea or gossip.Even as the compartment became louder and louder with lots of young aspiring nursing gals and guys trying to impress,i started my own chat show with guys sharing our seats.Later we even shared food,now that’s a first!But such was the power of this new found togetherness that people just laughed away the current situation.Well people just cracked jokes and discussed current affairs as if they knew each other since childhood.I had now been seated for long ,and i sympathized with some of the guys who were trying to catch a quick nap while standing.So we came up with the idea of sharing our seats on a rotation basis ,so that each one can get some rest.So while this was an option of the few,the others soon took out their newspapers and settled on the floor.Some guys rearranged the luggage thrown on Upper berths and sat there!While some others shyly went on noting things that were going on ,as their pride was at stake!hmm..come the twelfth hour and all pride vanished to thin air.People were drowsy and they had to sit,so people had to adjust and sit while some like us took to the rotation policy game!There was this one girl who wanted none of this and tried to put up a fight with Goddess “Nidradevi”.Well after an hour she was noted sleeping on a guys lap,just as if they were a couple!Hah..the wonders of sleep!

Well people understood one another better in this adversity,and adjusted very well.I don't know where this famous Mallu spirit goes off once ,we walk out?After reaching Covai in TN,people locked themselves in the compartment as there was no more space for people to enter. We bought ourselves tea at 2.00 am and began to contemplate on sleep.But this was not to be,i didn't get sleep and started a standup meeting a guy impromptu and allowed another mate to sit in my place and sleep. As the train pulled itself into Bangarpet in early morn at 4.30,i got my seat back and then dozed away to glory!All along people pulled chains and the train got halted at a couple of places.Ohh the Indian railway,as i woke myself up to the stink of the garbage on the tracks and the sight of people relieving themselves(that reminded me that Visu is near…hmm Visu kani..),i thought this might well be my railway morning ragaa!

Tujhe Dekha To Ye Jana Sanam

           I must start saying that people who want to leave via the Volvo from Manyata should avoid the 6.30 to 7.30 period as no busses come that way.Having said that the following story is nowhere related to the above statement. As Nish and myself hopped on the Volvo bus after an hour long wait on the outer ring road just outside the Manyata Tech Park,we realized that we had some pretty faces for company.Since one of them were already occupied with her boyfriend we were pretty much involved with the second!We had hardly paid for our tickets, when we noticed the female sitting ahead of us,and she was pretty(am i overusing this word..ok she was not that great!..case of sour grapes..you will soon know why).We were discussing some office stuff as usual when Nish noticed that she was smiling @us.Boy did we get excited!Ok then he turned to me and said “I think she is smiling @you”.I said “No ways”,i know what i am good at and looking good is definitely not an attribute you can ass sociate(the space is left intentional) with me.And by the way this is why you should always do your SWOT analysis.Its come in handy in these situations.But then Nish got anxious.Was she looking at him?!Ohh please no way.Even as we were discussing the pros and cons of who should be the rightful heir to her smile,the couple in front of us left us.

            There are several ways to come around this strange issue,but definitely reading my previous blog will not help you.But she one thing became clear to us all,she was smiling @us.Now we started validating our looks and hair.Man even the street dog has a better fur on it tail that the locks of hair on my head! Then we started checking the zippers(you know where) and shoes.They were all right,but still she smiled on to embarrass us more.All this while we were aware that atleast rest of the bus were also giving here her due attention .Now that we were confident that the girl was fully impressed with us ,in comes the stop at belandur and Miss X walks out.Behind her comes this guy and they together walk out smiling.That guy was seated right behind me!!I think i need not explain more as to why the girl was smiling and to whom.But we were not ashamed not because we are thick skinned,but …………….we went on the next topic was the guy his brother or BF?..well that makes for another blog!!

Thou $hall Negotiate!

How many times have we felt that,if we had that probably held on for a little longer or if we had such and such info then we could have very well converted the circumstances in our favour.Most often than not it happens when we meet our regular sales rep,the HR of the company,our argumentative neighbours ,our so called -IN LAWS(who gave them a degree?),the sabjeewala and on...Yes the particular topic hit me,when i read the bestseller named "You can negotiate anything" by Herb Cohen.His simple tenets made me think,and think from the point of the winner of the negotiation.Why is it that we send in specialists when we need to tackle an imbroglio like a hijack situation or handling a tough diplomat or for that matter getting an approval for an agreement.
There is often a misconception, that we often bargain harder only with people we do business with.But we are unknowingly doing so at home and everywhere else also.I am doing so when i say to my nephew "A choco after you have your breakfast,completely".So also when i turn up and tell my dad,"I need the latest gadget,as i topped the exam!",even if the timing is wrong and the world is in a recession!What i would like to scrutinize is why we end up on the wrong side of a negotiation.Primarily we lose because we are lazy by birth.Lackadaisical am I?Didn't anyone tell you that it was my birthright?How many of us would actually love to go through the entire Form16 and its various other sections so that we can file the tax online ourselves?(I hardly do.).We would rather give the tax consultant,his due money every year,rather than spend that extra time to go through the document.Aah alas ignorance is bliss!But at who's expense?So also in many metro's we would rather not go to the vegetable market and get fresh stuff @ cheaper rates and bargain our way to glory like most middle class housewife's would(Oh..their skills are awesome and would even put the best salesman to shame with their bargaining skills).We would rather hop into one of those food bazaars or food malls and get whatever at whatever rates.After all time is money time and yes we all love time!
We also have a nonchalance approach, which leads to less homework done on the topic at hand.So in the end, we have very less war material with which we can bargain.Also we give the opposite guy, more that subtle hints,that we are totally lost and you please guide us!How often do we quote,, that we can take the shopkeeper to consumer court in case the goods are faulty?(hardly any)How often does the auto/Taxi guy take you for a jolly ride in case you don't know the shortest or at best the route to our destination?Now that we didn't know,we can still make it our day,but we still give him hints that we are new to this part of the town,when we inadvertently make calls or receive calls.Mind you,he is hearing you all the while,even though he might seem distracted or disinterested.We also lose out on a lot of deals,because we are less persistent ,and are too much hurt,when our desired Master Plan A doesn't work.When i was travelling by train,last week there was this Hare Krishna guy who wanted to sell off his Bhagawat Gita books to people.And there was this NRI too.But the customer said a straight NO,the first time.The seller left off and came again a second round and this time the NRI said a No after having a look at the book .Then again he came a 3rd and a 4th time and finally the guy bought the book which was in Malayalam,which infact was a language, he didn't know!Also whenever we enter a negotiation of any kind, we shouldn't lose our purpose or aim of that negotiation.And we shouldn't enter any negotiation just because we can make a killing!How many times have we gone to malls and ended up buying stuff we know we would hardly wear??(please...i got it dirt cheap!)
Negotiation is a game and the one who holds the aces should use them only as a winning point.And in case we don't have any we can still bluff our way to glory Also it makes sense to evaluate the person who is on the other side of the equation.He might be totally lost and drowning,but is he giving that expression away?In which case how do we take advantage of the situation?Many a time we make a mistake by underestimating the fellow and reveal our aces pretty soon.So if the person on the other side of the table is also an equal competitor,he would probably try to go beyond the ordinary,scoff at you,sneer at you,praise you loud,give myriad excuses.But we we fall prey to any of these ,we are dead meat.How often we give way to loud boisterous people?How often do we keep quiet at such people who repeated get away ? But that is a different Blog altogether!Finally something to chew on..
"Never get angry,never make a threat.Reason with People-Don Corleone(The Godfather)"

ThomasKutty Vittoda!

It is a popular line, from a Malyalam movie called "In Harihar Nagar".Well for all the GenX guys ,who missed the 90's cinema's, well they got a taste of it recently, in the second part of movie.Well my nephew was no exception(he is just three) and could just go on the whole day just repeating it wherever he went, Sometimes to the embarrass us all and sometimes it would have more disastrous consequences.Recently when he came home for a visit,and started blaring out,when Mr Thomaskutty our neighbour shouted back"Erada athu?eh?".Well needless to say the little fella got shocked and kept quiet for sometime!Another incident happened at my in-laws place when he started off again just as a guy had entered home.Needless to say the guy would have got flustered,as to why the kid wants me out, the moment he entered!Well to round it off,when we were reciting our evening prayers,and when the time came to go around and say praise be to Jesus Christ,the little fella went off again.I dont think dad was much pleased with his demeanor.
Well the next day when we went visiting our latest addition to the family Mr Jason,he started off again before the baby,"Thomaskutty vitoda"!I don't know whats with this catchy phrases and kids ,but i do realise that once it get stuck on to them, they don't let go of it that easily.And all along this time they make sure,that the rest of the family have a tough time!Well i am reminded of this story that dad told me sometime back.There was a guy, who caught this phrase "poda auve"(slang in Malayalam for "get lost").He used to throw it at all and sundry.And once when his dad said something,he replied the same.Needless to say ,the fella got a piece of his mind!
I know that we have a difficult time,with children especially when they are in their mood!I must close off, borrowing a snippet from Salman Rushdie's "Midnights Children".The little gujju children in the galli's screaming to a catchy one "Su che?,saru che. danda leke maru che".Bogus and dangerous but catchy all the same!
*Note(Thomaskutty Vittoda means "off you go Thomas" in malayalam)

B-DotNet Bangalore TechEd 2009

Its been some time that the actual event has been over.But there were a few topics that remain fresh in the mind.Some like Windows 7,Azure and Cloud Computing have been in the news for some time now,so it was natural that these topics be discussed in BDot-Net 2009.So on Saturday 20th when I woke up,(actually nish woke me up..I was still enjoying my sat morn sleep)I awaited with bated excitement about the topics that were going to be discussed in the community meet.As i awaited Nish to pick me up that morning ,i checked out the place and found it to be RV Dental College,JP Nagar.Landing at the gate i saw the organizers removing the BdotNet poster from the gate, and we got to know that the event was on. As we entered the auditorium, we were worried if we would get the right seats.But once we registered ourselves,we found the hall to be relatively empty, a stark contrast to the anticipation as the tickets for the event were sold out pretty early.
As I sat in the 4th row from the front, I saw a tall lanky guy going around with a lap top.Only later did i realise that the guy was Mr Ramkumar, our first speaker.He gave us an intro into Cloud and he technologies surrounding itAlso about how companies were building up their data centers in Iceland so that they could have natural cooling and save energy.He also touched upon how companies were using their own power plants near to their data centers as this would lead to lesser wastage of energy,which would otherwise occur if the data center and the power plants to power them were away.But the way did i say that it started half an hour late?Ok anyways poor Mr Ramkumar had to wind up by 10,thats half an hour less .But the next topic Windows 7 by Vijay and Vic had us up in our seats in eagerness.After all it was supposedly the saviour of OS for MS having badly screwed up Vista.Though Vic said that he liked Vista,i had no doubts what so ever that very few in crowd would have given it even a ** rating,provided they would have given us a Survey, like the many they bombarded us with(I don't know whats with sponsors and surveys)!There were more than a couple of surveys which we had nothing to do with.Vijay and Vic gave a quick intro into how useful the new OS was.While Vijay gave a quick intro into Kernel Enhancements, Vic showed us a live demo on Location Sensors .Though Vic said that Windows 7 were a lot better that Vista,we wouldnt believe him until he said that he could run it on 700 Mhz CPUs.Thats a cool number given that the resources(read Memory,Hard disk space as well as Processing speeds)required to run an MS OS goes up exponentially whenever they release a new one.Well they had enough features to come up with a new OS!
Next on cards,Chaitra started the talk on ASP.Net 4.0.Though the features were nice,I was looking forward to tea that would be served next!But Chaitra made sure that we worked hard for it, as she went through all the features in the Gen Next of ASP.NET(you would have guessed it by now that i am not a ASP developer by now!).After a long time i got the break and nish and myself grabbed some .We rushed back again into the hall after 10 min, though we would be first to come back .So much so for thinking we would be late!!After some 15 min the talk on BizTalk started.Now this was unknown territory to me,but Kashi(speaker) was prety much a la Saurav Ganguly,in the sense that he would take his own time in explaining everything(thats so uncommon and so non techie!) that he made it a childs play.But i could already feel people getting fidgety(I think my stomach also gave raised the concern about food having given breakfast a miss) .So finaly we had some good lunch from some caterer's ,and yeah it was free.I should admit these Bdotnet(well i am missing.BitPro guys were also involved in the event.Kalyan,the founder would be really angry) guys really spent some effort into that.Thanks guys.
After lunch we had "Birds of the same feather - BizTalk Server and WCF" by Meena.I thought the speaker would be pretty young or atleast in their mid thirties,but here was Meena who would be IMHO in her forties or more and teaching us a thing or two about being a techie!But the session was mighty interesting about how the two technologies would overcome each others limitations.Hats off Meena.After that we had a Session on Silverlight too before we could wind up.Vic was always there for another entertaining session.Well he showed us how easy presentation layer could be now,we all were dazzled by graphics as well as UI of Silverlight.Meanwhile vijay and co made sure all the speakers had their share of limelight by clicking away at them with an SLR (i presume which was Vic's).Also there were goodies to be given away for guys who raised questions,basically any question.(why am i here?!!)But one fella from the front always had his hands up and for no reason he would always be handed over the mike and at the end of the day he had enough goodies to setup his own shop!I didnt understand why they wouldnt give everyone a chance,But only later did i realize that guys who helped them organise were some college fellas, who had no idea about event mgmt.We had a great mgmt talk from Sampath who instilled some confidence in us showing us some great videos and som great slides which all talked about how we can get our act together and go ahead bang on!(i wish i sould bring some of my office mates here!)
Anyways, day one over and i was mightly pleased that one more saturday of my life didnt go waste!Next day we were early again,so we went across the RV play ground and had a nice cuppa and watched the young kids playing cricket with their coaches in toe.Once we landed back,Janakiram and Niraj, showed us the power of Microsoft Azure.They showed us a demo on how we could actually deploy our app in the Cloud!!Wow ,this was bloody good technology for all new entrepreneurs ,who couldnt afford all the infrastructure needed for office. Having held us in rapt attention for an hour Gayatri gave us a session on Building custom activities in WF.I must admit i was new to WF and was aready ready to doze off ,had it not been for the tea which woke me up till lunch.But after tea we had a lovely session in Beyond Relational SQL Server 2008: Managing unstructured and semi structured Data by Praveen who taught us how we could manage unstructured data and as well as gave us an insight into spacial datatypes and hierarchy ids.After lunch it was "Introduction to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010" from M.Ismail.Though i must say i am pretty much naiveto admin talks like these,he showed me precisely why we shouldn't as admin could very much filter what we received via mail.It was followed up by Windows Server 2008 R2 Overview by Kalyan and Ravikanth who showed us the power of blade servers(courtesy Dell) and why not!He showed us the features of Server 2008 R2 which we could lay our hands on ,only to realise later that it would run only only on 64bit processors. Finally before tea they gave us a session on Virtualization 360 - Technical Overview by praveen,I would say he was awesome so much as the session was.
To wind it up we had a demo on Infragistics by Vic on the new controls that they had developed.
I have always been a fan of their controls having used them a couple of years back,they are cool guys and trust me they offer you a lot more features than anybody out there.No wonder they are the leaders in the market in their space(Click here to know more).Finally we had the speakers to thank everyone and a dumb quiz just to check if we were still awake!But the event came to an end as we awaited our cd's ,which we were told we would get only at the end of it all ,we got to know that the cd's for Win 7 were over.We back with our Win Server 2008 rc2 cd's hoping we would get some day a 64bit processor to deploy.But great effort from the Bdotnet guys.Cheers!!
Here are some links that i picked up from the event
Bdotnet Downloads
http://bdotnet.in/files/
teched2009
http://www.microsoft.com/india/teched2009/
Live Services
http://dev.live.com/