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During the hardware(electronics/communication) related lab in college, a guy who used to assist us with components, would always remain optimistic and say “maadi maadi, output barutte”. Without coming to our place, without checking the circuit (may be he had that much confidence on our rigging up of circuits), without biasing students, his reply remained same. His confidence, his optimism, his hope were more than that of us and was surprising.Even when we panic, he was always calm and composed in his reply. Never got angry or irritated, he always gave his standard reply with smile.

With no way out, I used to come back and check everything again, and sometimes need to correct something and sometimes output just used to come by itself. I always felt, I could have done this myself without first going to him asking for help.

I always recall this whenever/just before I need to seek help. Whenever I am disappointed and ready to give up, I recall this. “maadi maadi, output barutte”. That brings back optimism!

Ps:On a lighter vein, I got so used to the pattern, try-does not work-go to him-come back-it works, that many times I immediately at the beginning itself went to him and complained it does not work and then come and gave a honest try.

Ever since I went to Chennai, I constantly faced questions about my relocation - How is the place, how hot is the weather, how is the crowd, how am I able to manage the language problem, how are the people.

In the beginning, I was almost unable to give good answers. Then I made a habit of looking for these things so that I could answer better. So to some at least I could give interesting answers. But frankly, I wasn’t quite comfortable answering these questions. Because none of these bothered me in the first place.

Since I am also asked about my experiences in the city, let me club both in this post itself.

How is the place - I did not see anything that should have made me give a straight answer (talking of straight answers, I now realize this lack of ability to answer descriptively any question that does not have a straight answer, must have cost me marks in the exams. But it is surprising now that I can write a post on most silliest of events as if that event has been the best thing to have happened. May be I should have started blogging earlier - like in school days!).

However after making some specific observations, I noted these : Public transport buses were inexpensive but terribly crowded for short distances or during office hours. They were crowded in some cases even if they were frequent. The less said the better about the infamous auto-wallah’s pricing strategy or the bargaining power that is required to achieve a fair deal. The number of vehicles on road is not any less than expected for a metro, but thanks to the broad, well maintained roads, there is no great congestion at many places. However exceptions are there. Also, Chennai was blessed with some great forethought planning, otherwise how do I explain the construction of Grant Road which connects most of the city. Another notable example is that of the Gemini flyover which must have been constructed ages ago. Though the city is also connected with local trains, it is not that well connected and used as it is in Mumbai.(Or may be this is just my observation).

I noted that city has many restaurant chains - Saravana, Sangeetha, etc. The prices at middle-class (and above) were generally expensive. The service was below expectation/satisfaction at most of the places. Of these hotels Saravana was the most interesting. Its pricing strategy depends on its locations too. And the one near thousand lights will be dear to my memory as it had this extensive buffet for Rs120 - the very ideal one for treats. I with a visitor friend once spent close to 4 hours there just to use the A/c and to avoid the heat outside. Saravana Bhavan is present in international locations like Dubai, London etc. The number of outlets is equal to the number of years in service - 23. The price, though is higher than others, is not complained about because of the cleanliness and taste. I also noted that it is not present in Bangalore and how I wish I take up that franchise ;-). Among the other restaurants I ate at, Kumarkaum (again a chain) gave me some memorable moments. The food was tasty and got to eat in Kerala cuisine style. There were more options if I were non-veg. A passionate singer who sings melodious Malayalam-Hindi songs (over the karaoke music) adds to create an experience of an otherwise mundane eating event.

Among my other noted observations, people just throng the shopping outlets - mostly of dresses - in the weekends. During festival times sales, which is during most times, the shops in TNagar would be as crowded as a Mumbai suburban central railway compartment during peak hours. And even otherwise, it is only slightly better. The price and quality of cloth is marginally better than Bangalore (this is a very random personal observation/opinion made on a very small sample and also considering my vision for such issues). Rightly so, the advertisements during intervals in halls were mostly of only two things – one of sari, another r of jewelery – and both used the theme of marriages.
If the graph is drawn as to where my time was spent these would come in the order, roughly. Office, house, traveling (b/n SBC,MAS), hotels, movie halls.

So how can I not mention about my probably most missed thing about Chennai - Satyam theater. It was my favorite for many reasons. Firstly it was very close to my earlier location of the office and to my house. The tickets were not sold in black - so there was very good chance of getting one if planned properly. And since it was a multiplex, if preferred one was not available there was always possible to watch another good one. Then comes good sound effects, seating and snacks. And when it comes to innovation, Satyam are probably the front runners. They have a good website to book tickets online and initially (2 yrs ago itself) it just took a proof of credit card to get the tickets at the special counters meant for this. Seat selection (at a cost) was then introduced in the online ticket booking process followed by buying the snacks online too - snacks were served to our seats 10 min before the interval. Damn convenient. They also introduced their own rechargeable “fuel” card for those who do not have credit cards (Some concession for using these cards would have been a very good idea). On the lines of irctc, they then made it possible for the printing of tickets by overselves. Also was introduced a blind-date sort of show where audience will not know the movie before its start, screened on Thursday nights. (Of course, only good classics were screened but am not sure if it became a success or not).

One related experience that deserves a mention is that the city is quite safe I felt. I roamed around alone in the nights – 1am or 2am and not once did I fear getting robbed or anything like that.

Beach is a major attraction for me whenever I tour, but while I was in Chennai, I hardly visited. Only a couple of visits that too when I had visitors. Talking of visits, a visit to Parthasarathy temple stands out in the memory. Though it was very near I had reserved it for a special day and thus have made it memorable. The one reason I liked the place was because it was spacious.

About weather - the “hot” weather was not much of an issue to me at all. Because the day time in weekdays were spent in office and evenings were manageable with a fan. Summer weekends was only a bother and during that I was either in office or in Blore or at theaters. Also my house was not very hot.

Language. I was irritated many times when even the technical talk happened in the local language but I never had to face “problem” because of the language. I hardly went shopping, had my vehicle for commute, ordering in hotel was easy and thus I hardly interacted with local people - apart from those at office.

And people at office, apart from minor irritants, were very good. I had a cordial relationship with everyone because my professional interactions were only with US counterparts only, mostly.

One thing I regret very much was not having joined the Kannada Sangha which was quite near to my place. Joining would have given me more friends and some good activities for weekends.

Thanks to Kiruba, I attended a bloggers meet and a proto.in. I also saw few movies and Sudhish kamath in Chennai Film Fest.

That pretty much sums up my observation and about my experiences in the city. Some events like visiting a 24 hour coffee shop at midnight, several other night-out plans, weekend picnics to places like DakshinaChitra etc never worked out.

Overall, I liked my stay there and did not have any major complaints.

Using quotes for any occassion has become my favorite activity. So I wrote this for my last mail!

Hi,
Was wondering “Where is the good in goodbye? (Meredith Willson)” but found solace in the thought “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. (Carol Sobieski)” and looking forward to meet you again because “We only part to meet again. (John Gay)” .

As you know, today is my last day at office. It was wonderful working here and and more importantly knowing you all. Thank you for all the guidance and support. Would take away lot of lessons and happy memories. Wishing you all health, happiness, wealth and success in your life and career.

Would love to stay in touch.
My address:
Ph:

My send off coincided with the birthday party and we cut cake. Usually birthday parties have this ragging session, but in my case I duly accepted to sing a song! So the torture it was to them, not me I had gone prepared to sing “Tere bina zindagi se koi”
I had also thought of few points I wanted to say in my parting speech but suddenly I either turned emotional or got stage-fear and said something else. Some colleagues spoke about me - one observed I can become good manager rather than growing in technical lead. Though he meant it as a compliment, it was against what I had projected to become! Another said that I keep my calm under all circumstances and I am cool and my motto is to enjoy life. Felt good. My supervisor told I have determination and I have patience to allow others to complete their talk. Good listening power. There were few fellas who had worked very close with me, who were not present on occasion, that saved embarrassment for me

Talking about office, I have left my mark - in the form of analog clock on the desktop I was very impressed with the clock that was just introduced with google desktop and since the whole app just for the clock was not too much, I downloaded Alwact clock (freeware) along with the skins. I spread it to few people and over the time it just got spread to each and every system in the office. I was about to become the similar reason for yet another app - OutlookOnDesktop. Also I pioneered the MondayMorningLalbaugh practice - I went to office afternoon on Mondays if I had come to Blore. This was soon followed by other Bloreans and they even went a step ahead - they went to Lalbagh on Fridays (leaving the office around noon) and returned in Monday lalbagh !!

Enjoyed those outings and eat-outs. And as usual at every place I have gone, I have met interesting people whom I am going to surely miss.

Life is like Sea. As vast as you can imagine; As deep as you can think. Don’t waste time measuring your life. You won’t succeed.
Instead, explore life. Reach for new harbours as you pass through different phases of life. Make friends on each destination. Enjoy your journey.

Something I wrote some time ago to the yahoo group to which I used to write my rants and reviews before I learned/started about blogging. The pat I received there was the only reason to fuel my continuation of writing the rants!

Today I would like to share a little happiness with you all. Because in a way, remotely, this group has a connection with it. Read on to know more.

Back in the days, in my early days at Mumbai, not only my Hindi was as bad as it could be but my knowledge about movies was also zero. I had heard of Hum Aapke Hain Koun but did not know what HAHK meant. Nor did I know the cast of it. And it was already running for 2 years or more in Liberty talkies in Mumbai. As an additional note, I did not even know the spelling of Kajol (who later became my one-n-only craze - in movies) and did not know the cast of DDLJ - which too I watched after 1 year of release !!

In the college, as usual with my life - the first friend I get at a new place will become good friend and will remain one at least till I remain there, I got acquainted with a Mallu guy -Arun Ganesh- who was a movie freak. Sometime later I realized that he was very close to being a walking encyclopedia of movies. Being a Mallu if you expected him to know less Hindi, you are wrong there. He came from Ahmedabad and knew better Hindi than the mixed Hindi some people speak in Mumbai. To me, speaking Hindi was not difficult but did not want to utter foolish stuff, he was my guru for my Hindi. Being in the Bollywood capital Mumbai, it is too rare to see someone not talking about movies or music. I clearly remember asking him what was the meaing of “pahad” and when he asked for context I quoted the song from Raja Hindustani “aaye ho zindagi mein tum pahad banke”. :))

Slowly I too started to watching movies more frequently. Bunked classes and watched movie. Skipped eating out and watched movies. Watched movies for the sake of watching. Sometimes with a group from college, sometimes with another group, sometimes with some other, sometimes alone. Good, bad, hit, flop I saw it all.

In parallel we started discussing movies. We had our own tastes but most of the times we shared the same opinion. In fact, I started viewing movies critically after taking first cues from him. He used to point out the mistakes (like the missing power chord from an electric guitar or the “readers dont digest” kind of stuff ). We used to analyse many scenes, how better things could have been or why something did make sense. The forthcoming movies, music (Arun is a big Rehman fan), the past hits - our discussion covered it all. To top it we had a French tuition teacher who was a film freak. She religiously read Filmfare and followed all gossips in filmdom. We used to fight for the filmfare when we used to go there for the class and we even dedicated additional 15 min for reading filmfare (not compensating for 1 hr class for which we were paying her!). She somedays used to get irritated that we read it and discuss it in the beginning itself, so she used to hide it till the end of the class!

Talking of analysis, we almost at the same time, hit upon Khalid Mohammed who used to write for Times of India. His language, his sharp merciless remarks as well as his knowledge about movie making as well as references to various other movies impressed us no end. Monday morning talking most compulsorily started with our take on his reviews that used to appear on Sunday Times. Even though initially we worshipped him and made his every opinion ours (shamelessly), slowly we started noticing our difference of opinions from him. Be it what it is, I still regard him the one to look upto.

Then I moved to Bangalore and Arun to Sangamner for studies. Occasionally when we mailed each other, it was mostly about movies. The movie watching also reduced somewhat when we were in Engg. The communication too reduced/stopped, due to various other reasons. It was DCH, the cult classic of our age, that moved me so much that I wrote about it to him and few of our close buddies. Though it was not written as a review at all but just as a salute to the times we had spent and to Farhan Akthar, I received good (unexpected) encouraging words and thus begun my experimentation with writing reviews. DCH, still one of the closest movies to my heart, had each of us (we were 3, like in the movie, in gang other than girls) in ample amount. As a tribute, I visited Mumbai and watched the movie with the group

Impressed by that feedback, I started noting down my thoughts after most of the movies I watched. I used to share with that select group of friends (and with the group I mentioned). After joining job our communication improved (thanks to always-on office email) and we started exchanging mails regularly. This was the time this group was also most important part of my life. My so called reviews got very good feedback and appreciation that I can never forget in my life. And hence review writing became a must for me after every movie.

Now reviews too became a part of mails with Arun. Partly motivated/encouraged by my acts, he too started responding by reviews. There was even few times, we fought who would review the movie. Or skip reviewing a movie so that other can do. Sometimes we decided not to read each other’s reviews but wrote one each (Lakshya, Black were such). And during somewhat that time I feel now that I had peaked (bcoz these days I am not happy with my writing). But he kept on improving.

Those were days before blogging and blogging opened a new world for us. I created a blog and soon followed it up with our combined site on movie reviews.He was so glad. In fact I started the review blog only to make sure he gets some recognition and fame, and by which I knew he would keep doing it! As far as me, I was losing the grip and as well was getting not too affected by the feedback. The hits came coming and I left no opportunity to publicize our site. The hits came, the comments came and we were feeling good. He sent his black review to filmfare and it got published in readers review section.

Things did not remain all good all the time. The work started eating our time. Weeks used to go by and the reviews did not happen. In fact we did not get time to watch movies. Sometimes I used to get busy that time he used to fill up. And sometimes otherwise. But sometimes both of us got so busy and felt bad for our pet - our site. Yet we kept hung to it. We approached few friends to fill in during our absence. Some of them agreed and filled up (fill up even now) and we are glad to be a part of creative circle. And we knew that many times, we watched movies only to write reviews, we wrote reviews only to keep our site updated!!

While about reviews let me capture another funny event. There was a guy (lets say X) in Arun’s organisation who was observing the fame Arun was getting for writing reviews. So X too started sending his reviews to a girl (Y) whom he was trying to impress. Y was in Aruns list of pals receiving movie review updates and X was a TL to Y. Y sent X’s reviews to Arun asking us to have a look and publish it on our site. X’s reviews were very difficult to understand and we withheld before posting. It so happened that, Arun investigated on the reviews and found they were all from a rottentomatoes. X had intelligently(?) clubbed many reviews and hence there was no continuity nor any sense and it was all too tough to follow. A clear copy paste. Arun exposed this and sent out a mail to all his buddies including Y. Not to mention they broke up soon and everyone was staring at him funnily after that incident!!

If you ever have a pet, you understand my feeling towards my site. Its a cute thing to own and to show to the world. But the rare updates is always a problem.

Thankfully he has moved to a different organisation where supposedly the work load is less and has moved out of city. So like me, all he has to pass time, is to watch movies.

Then recently icing on the cake happened. Much anticipated fame arrived. It started with KANK. He had his ticket booked for first day. He had read up Taran Adarsh’s review. I also had planned for a second day show. I could not do much due to work load and jotted down few thoughts on KANK but Arun, declining to read my views before he jotted down his (like the earlier days!) detailed review. Incidentally rediff announced a contest asking for reviews from readers. Arun sent his entry (and asked me to do, but I let it go. I felt my review was incomplete and was also pressed for time. Also had no belief in my effort). Now KANK is every movie reviewer’s delight and many responses must have come. Nevertheless his review was one of the best 10 reviews and he got to be a part of rediff reviewers group. What an achievement ! I hadn’t been many times as happy as this recognition. I know its his review but I shall take some claim and happiness for that fame His achievement is mine and his fame is mine :))

His organisation had an all employee movie watching event and they saw KANK. (No this has nothing to do with his review…his review appeared on rediff much later). Then he sent his reviews and its being published on rediff to his colleagues. Not to mention appreciation and wishes followed. It took few days before he got back to normal self If plagiarism is flattery, he got that too - someone even plagiarized his review!

Being in rediff critic group, Arun got to review Don for rediff. And when it appeared on rediff main page, not to mention that Arun was on cloud nine for few days :))

It is an interesting parallel we have shared with Farhan Akthar - that first movie of Farhan Akthar (DCH) had started me on writing reviews and for the second we both competed to write and each one wrote one and for the third one Arun’s review got published in a leading online news site.

And thus ends my intention of sharing my happiness with you all. Without your encouragement and feedback I would not have attempted to write and without me he would not have continued to write. So in a sense, this happiness finds its root in you, in this group (and the blog readers/commenters ). Thank you friends.

All the above talked about reviews could be found at 70mm

This is a game I never knew of before my PU. But in PU(SYJC) along with A,K,V,A we started playing this in the PG(patli galli) after college or when we bunked the college. I was clearly an underdog there in terms of the signs or the awareness of film names. As a sidenote I am average in any game I play in terms of talent, but I make it up in terms of intelligence and quick learning. For example, in case of this game, though the knowledge (awareness) of film names were not that much I made some intelligent guesses. We used to play the game so much that after a certain point of time we ran out of all names and we almost predicted the way the other person would enact given a particular name.

Then, during the North India tour and during other encounters which happened quite frequently over few years, I enjoyed (introducing and) playing this with my brother and cousins -A,M. During the above, it was mostly English and Hindi film names, but with my brother and cousins it was Kannada or Hindi names. By coincidence or otherwise(rigging), I and M turned out to be the partners everytime. We hit off to be a great pair in terms of understanding. Though we were strong we got stiff competation everytime and A and my brother managed some gem of unimaginable acting coupled with great humour to level the scores. I and M were sort of so unmistakably familiar with eath others actions that the fun part slowly faded out but their acting kept up the spirits and joy. The game used to go out of sync if anyone else joined us.

Despite this rich experiences, when I saw college level competations, I figured, in comparision, my game was gully cricket as compared to international one dayers. But I was good enough to pull out surprises in informal gatherings like college picnics and was completely noticed during Goa tour. But again, I could only rely on abilities of acting and imagination rather than the awareness of the names.

That fear always kept me away from competation (of any level), and thus I shied away from the office competation too.
On Diwali eve, this game was held and 10 groups participated. I just remained a spectator. 4 rounds (Film names, Books-Authors, Idioms/Phrases, A mixture of all) were conducted.

I should say I was familiar with 8 out of 10 names! When passed to audience I could grab two prizes for guessing these:

1) Child is the father of man.
I didn’t phrase this exactly but I was close to it.
2) The chain is as strong as its weakest link.
Well, the credit for this goes to KVN Sir who had mentioned this during analog communications class.

What helped me in knowing many answers are:
Of late I frequent to book shops (even though I do not read as much), I am aware of quite a few authors and books’ names. Secondly, the GM quotes have helped me much.

I felt very bad for myself that I did not participate in the competation, but was happy that remaining in the audience itself I had won 2 boxes of crackers/sparklers.

Some of you wanted to see my pic here…how do I look ?!

good pose! 

hmm!