Gods on streets.

Quite similar to the Alaghar (float) festival in Madurai, where the god Alaghar is carried through the streets of Madurai City, there was a festival in our streets in Bangalore.

However, here the Gods and Goddesses from all the temples in the locality were carried onto the streets in decorated chariots. Though the glamour, crowd, noise, excitement, crackers and the story like episode of the Madurai festival was missing, it was nice to see a mini-version of that happening in Bangalore. Here are some of the snaps that I clicked.

I will probably try to get the snaps taken during the Alaghar festival in Madurai last time. I guess I would not be able to make it to the festival this time around.

Comical Gangster or a Blockbuster?

Check out the interactive website cum trailer of the film Pudhupettai. Some of the transcripts are funny but a nice initiative on interactive trailers for Tamil films. The interactive trailer suggests of a common story line about an innocent turining into a gangster; that's a pretty ordinary story line for a regular tamil film viewer. Wouldn't want to watch another movie with the usual and oblivious story line. Selvaragavan would be the key to make the difference. Will he deliver this time around?

18 Till I Die?

How many times when you were young (I mean really young - during school days) did you boast around like an older fella than your actual age? It's a common phenomenon that we are quite eager to get to18 and then quickly get onto 21. And then when we hit 30, we tend to apply the brakes!

My brother sent me these tips to combat the feeling of becoming "Suddenly Senior". I thought of sharing these simple concepts that might help us to stay 18 till we die, with each one of you. And do read Six Steps to Happiness, a blog by one of my friends.

தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு வாழ்த்துக்கள்!

Wishing you all a very happy Tamil new year. It's a second chance for us to hope for a better year ahead. So why to miss it. Let's take it!

It was a pity to see the hooglianism at Bangalore surrounding Dr.Rajkumar's death. I wish and pray that we don't loose any more lives in such acts of insanity. It was also a pity that this incident added another negative feather to Bangalore's Metropolitan Hat.

Oh Humanity, Heal the world.
Make it a better place, for you and for me.

The art of receiving

I am sitting on the Razor edge as my wife presented me a Motorola Razr V3 phone last week; just like that, without any reason in particular. When asked, she revealed that she had planned to surprise me with a surprise gift.

With our first anniversary approaching, am I being influenced and being set levels for gifting? Huh! No, I did not take it that way. She was so excited in the whole process. I should have been magnanimous enough to accept it with a big smile. Even though I accepted it, I was cribbing about wasting money towards something which was not really necessary at that point in time.

It took me some time to realize the whole thing. It was late by the time that I realized that I did not make her happy in the whole process. And that is when I though I should build on a skill … the art of receiving. It was her joy to give and I was taking away her happiness if I was not receiving the gift. I did receive it, but I guess, I was not gracious enough to accept it graciously.

The mini vacation.

I was off to Salem over the last weekend along with my wife. One of my wife’s pals lives there and it was a long due that we decided to visit her place on the occasion of her birthday.

I went and picked my wife at her office and headed to KPN Travels by auto. It was not surprising that the auto driver’s son worked for HCL and that his other son was just passing out of an engineering college. It was also not surprising that he quickly identified my badge and went onto ask what domain was I into. In fact, this guy was probably the fourth or fifth such guy I am coming across, who had a good education and well educated offspring. Bad roads coupled with such revelations, made me feel at home - at Bangalore, even though we were en route to Salem.

We were picked up at Salem by my wife’s friend and her cousin. In the brief travel from the bus stand to their house, I could notice that the place was quite similar to Madurai. But I thought, it was cleaner one. We were greeted and taken inside their home. Wow! What a piece of architecture or should I say design? It was a simple design of a rectangular structure with rooms in the corners and enough elevations for air and light to get into the house. Liked it and got a few inspiring leads for my second house that I would probably build in the times to come.

Aunty and uncle were so nice and down to earth and made us feel very comfortable. I got to interact with them and understood how they had come a long way in building a successful business. That was another inspiration. It is always nice to hear success stories coupled with facts that could inspire you.

The next day we greeted the birthday mam and hit the road to SkandAshramam along with couple of her friends who had traversed all the way from Bangalore in a 500 cc biking machine. The temple had unique Idols of god. I liked the way the Pujari did his preachings. I thought he should have been a good trainer some time back as he related all the concepts that he was preaching with modern day activities and slang.

On Sunday, we went to Arcaud. It was nice to take a break and venture out. And finally the Vacation trip that my wife wanted desperately came to life!

Photo Collage...
Salem, Arcaud SkandAshramam

And isn't it ironic?

Have you ever heard to Ironic, the song by Alanis Morissette.

I was reminded of this song, when I was attending the induction program today. Do not think that I have joined some other company. I am attending my induction program (a series of training session for over two weeks) after spending more than a year in the company. I was pulled off the training due to project pressure in the initial phases after joining the company.

And isn't it ironic? Don't you think? But... Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you and life has a funny, funny way, of helping you out.

And BTW, the song goes like this.

An old man, turned 98
He won the lottery, and died the next day
It's a black fly in your chardonnay
It's a death row pardon, two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic?
Don't you think?

It's like rain, on your wedding day
It's a free ride, when you've already paid
It's the good advice, that you just didn't take
And who would've thought? It figures

Mr. Play-It-Safe, was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase, and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life, to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought, "Well isn't this nice"?
And isn't it ironic?
Don't you think?

It's like rain, on your wedding day
It's a free ride, when you've already paid
It's the good advice, that you just didn't take
And who would've thought? It figures

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out
When you think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up in your face

A traffic jam, when you're already late
A no smoking sign, on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons, when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic?
Don't you think?
A little too ironic?
Yeah I really do think

It's like rain, on your wedding day
It's a free ride, when you've already paid
It's the good advice, that you just didn't take
And who would've thought?
It figures

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
And life has a funny, funny way, of helping you out.