Back to blogging (again)

After another long break, I'm back!!! Me had gone to Goa for the weekend, and the reason was to enjoy the Goan monsoons... Thankfully, the rains made their presence felt; at the same time, giving me enough time to hang out with friends :-)

One of my friends from Pune had come down to Goa the same weekend. We had a great, fun-filled time on Sunday: a scrumptious Konkani lunch, which included visvonn (kingfish) and soongtaan (prawns), followed by huge cone sundaes at Baskin Robbins. Have a look!







The evening was spent paying visits to the north Goan beaches of Morjim, Arambol and Mandrem. I got the chance to try my first hand at real-life photography (after what I call "creative experiments") with my digicam. See below...







We had a new roomie day before yesterday: one of our batchmates, fondly called "Bhatto". He's done his MBA from the Goa Institute of Management, and is presently working in ICICI Bank here in Bangalore. Looks like we finally have our own in-house investment expert ;-)

My obsession with autobiographies

Everyone asks me why I like reading autobiographies. It's not that I have any objections to that... I like reading autobiographies! No more questions, please...

The first autobiography that I read was Wings of Fire by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. It was a gift from my cousin brother on my birthday (many years back, maybe when I was in higher secondary; I don't exactly remember). I must admit it has left a lasting impression on my life. In fact, I liked it so much that I also read its Marathi translation, aptly titled Agnipankh.

I have recently started reading The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed. It's not an autobiography (and I cannot explain why it happens to find a place here). From the reviews, it looks like an absorbing book till its very end. I have heard that it does a fantastic job of plotting the meteoric rise of Google from "being nowhere to being everywhere" ;-)

Last month, I finished reading Just for Fun by Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux operating system kernel. Since Linus, Linux and Just for Fun have found a mention in many of my previous posts, I won't bother you with all the gory stuff (see, not even the links are there!). Just for the record, Linux happens to be the largest collaborative project in the world. Three cheers for Linux!!!

I am yet to read the story of another collaborative co-operative movement, the largest of its kind. This one is called I too had a dream, and it is the autobiography of Dr Verghese Kurien, "India's milkman" (as he is fondly called), the "architect of Operation Flood" and the "father of the White Revolution". He is the one behind Amul, now a household name all over India...

I plan to read The Google Story and I too had a dream in parallel (pipelining, as one of my friends puts it!). That's it for the moment... Let's see which interesting autobiography comes my way next... Don't worry, I'll keep you posted on that!

Fun @ Onsite

The term onsite (being or working in your client location, overseas) is something like heaven to IT professionals. Many engineers and managers nourish the dream of going onsite at some point in their professional life. Those who have been there speak volumes about it, to the poor people who have never been given an onsite opportunity.

One of my friends, Savio, is in UK on a long-term onsite opportunity for a firm called Caritor. Once in a while, we receive a mail from him on our college batch mailing list. In the mail, he explains in luscious detail his fun experiences (outside office, of course!) and how he is enjoying himself. He has been to most of Europe on his frequent outings. Last weekend, he had the privilege of watching the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit. He's an F1 fan to the core... Boy, must have he been blessed! ;-)

Last weekend, I had gone to meet one of my friends who has just returned from Germany. He has recently joined SAP, and was in Germany for almost a month for training (which, strictly speaking, is not onsite). We feasted on the wonderful chocolates which he had got for us (I admit I didn't have dinner that day!) while he was narrating his experiences. He's got a T-Shirt as a World Cup 2006 memoir, which he was wearing that day....

Most of my batchmates and office colleagues seem to be talking about visas these days... "H1", "L1" are hot buzzwords.

Looks like the onsite craze is surely catching on....

Movies of late...

A few days back, I happened to see Fanaa, a Yash Raj movie, produced by Aditya Chopra and directed by Kunal Kohli. The film starrs "perfectionist" Aamir Khan and "spontaneous" Kajol (Devgan). Incidentally, this is their first film as the lead pair.

The movie had built a lot of expectations, mainly because of the Aamir-Kajol cast. This film also happens to be Jatin-Lalit's last movie as a music composer pair (it seems they have parted ways). The film also attracted a lot of attention (its screening was banned in Gujarat) over Aamir's open support for the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA).

If you ask me, the movie didn't quite live up to the expectations... Music by Jatin-Lalit was also a damper, leaving aside the melodious two: "Hona Hai Tujh Mein Fanaa" and "Mere Haath Mein".

The much-awaited movie The Da Vinci Code was released on the same day as Fanaa, and seems to be attracting crowds all over the world (that is, in places where it is not banned!). Directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, the movie promises to be the perfect complement to Dan Brown's thriller fiction bestseller by the same name. Am yet to watch it, though, so I cannot comment...

Mahesh Bhatt seems to be producing a lot of movies these days... Almost all his films have "serial kisser" Emraan Hashmi as one of the lead roles, and a film starring him will almost certainly never be complete without one or more of his (infamous) smooching scenes!

One thing I feel after watching his latest production Gangster is that his movie itself is getting much more stronger than the message behind the movie. What I mean to say is -- the aesthetic beauty in his movies is fast disappearing; the sex-and-violence-aspect of his films has become sort of glaring... From renderings like Arth, I must say he has come a long way! ;-)

OK then... Me signing off now!

Marriages are made in heaven: Part I

As most of you may be knowing, it's marriage season! Four of my teammates from my previous project team have got married this year, and many are on the lookout for prospective brides. In fact, one of my friends is headed to his native place this weekend for "match-fixing" ;-)

Our current project's team lead got married today. The upanayanam was in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere around 5:30 am, followed by the muhurtham (the main ceremony) at around 8:00 am, followed by the breakfast and (a rather heavy, but scrumptious) lunch in the afternoon. The nischithartham (engagement) was yesterday afternoon, followed by lunch, and a reception and dinner buffet yesterday night. Doesn't that sound like a perfect wedding? You bet it is! :-)

I was witness to a curious and rather unusual custom (if we can call it that!) today afternoon... The bride's relatives and the groom's relatives were breaking papads over one another's heads! Go figure...

I hope some day "breaking papads over one's head" (or another's head, for that matter!) gets its rightful place in the Oxford Dictionary... Meanwhile, you can take a crash course on papads here.

Come to think of it, if someone were to take snaps of the "event" and send them to Lijjat, they would have stopped the production of papads forever. On second thought, though, they could do with a publicity campaign. Ohhh... How I wish I had my digicam! :-S

If you have noticed, my post is named "marriages are made in heaven: Part I". That means there is still more to come on marriages, especially Indian marriages (I am currently doing a survey on the same). Stay tuned for some interesting findings and observations!

Back to blogging

A few days of silence, and I'm back!!! Not even a week has gone by, and I'm already getting a lot of mails asking me why I have not published even a single post all these days... Oh well, my first wave of popularity ;-)

The reason I couldn't find time for my blogs was that I had a full 3-day training session on VxWorks for my next project...

Last Friday, we had a "kick-off" (read: team dinner, for the team members who are still there) for my previous project. You may ask, a kick-off for my previous project? My answer: this is the other kind of "kick" (not as in kick-off; kick as in kick butt). I have clicked some snaps of the dinner meeting with my new digital camera, which I will upload to Flickr soon...

Looks like my next project work is going to move into full throttle soon... If you are an avid blog reader (and my fan at that), you may witness intolerable delays on my part to publish my blog posts on time. Inconvenience caused, if any, is sincerely regretted :-)