Dusting

Wondering why the town is so dusty ?? Well...just decided to dust the blog off the shelf and put it back on lime lite!!

Brush with a star......

Never a movie buff ! Not a regular to the movie theaters and not a die hard fan of any in cine field. Was at the Bangalore Aero show 2009 on the 12th of Feb and I thought I saw a familiar face and yes it was Ajith - Tamil movie star . However there was no crowd mobbing him down, guess it is because he was in a lesser known territory - Karnataka. Walked upto him and asked if he was Ajith and he said he was and requested him that I take a snap with him and he was kind to agree without any fuss. No fuss of a movie star..he asked what I do for a living...and some small talk . -My first brush with a movie star.

Do u own the street in front of your house ??

Well...I have almost the same answer for this question...irrespective of the age group...an irresistible answer , pride possession outside the boundary walls of ones habitat...all say...why are you parking your car/bike on the side of my boundary walls!!! Absurd! Give me a break.

Mid Jan, I had to drop in a parcel for the underprivileged children at the World Vision office (NGO) in Kodambakkam and could not find a parking space on the same street and had to park the car in one of the by-lanes close to their office. I ensured that my car was not blocking the enterance to the house who's boundary wall I was literally kissing when parked to ensure that the street was not blocked. On my return back to the car after the visit to the office , I was suprised to see a lady studying the car with lot of disgust!

Oh My!! Well I was laughing inside and knew what was coming my way...she gave me a stare that could burn me down and said , "Is this your car" , I was calm and composed unlike my usual self for this particular senseless stake of tax payers property as self! and said yes, it is...and then hell broke loose...." How can you park your car in front my house!!" ...err....was it blocking the enterance to your house? NO!! All this for parking my car adjacent to her house boundary wall...hmmm....her arjument was , where will they park their car ? Ok...did the govt right off the parking space in u r favour ? If some one has occupied the space...find a free space.

This was not my first experience! I had a similar kind of experience with one of my neighbours , once when I had to go to the bank @ Valasaravakkam and parked in one of the by-lanes and once when I had been to Subam Hospital in Virugambakkam and parked outside the hospital compound wall in the space "reserved" for the doctor's car! fully loaded with a make shift shade!!

In all the above instance, my answer was the same. My car has a number plate! If you feel that I have encroached on u r land and parked lodge a complaint with the cops and I would pick it up from there.

TATA SKY....

Well we moved to a new house over the weekend, Courtesy the new house owner I get a room to myself! As per the wishes of the house owner , we get decided to get a TATA SKY connection.Off we set off (Me and Manish) to book a connection and we finally did take a connection at 17:30 PM on a saturday and was promised that the disk and the connection would be installed with in 4hrs.And indeed true to their words the connection was up and running in less than 3 hrs.The only issue being that their channel offerings are mostly in packages and one cannt choose individual channels.Not sure with regard to the other DTH service providers.

Got the connection 2 days ago so not realy sure how thier customer care service is if there is any issues.Having said that quite impressed with their turn around time for installation...just in time for me to watch the "Making of the Kingfisher calendar 2009"...no wild imagination...just enjoying the art of photography :D

Hope this helps ....http://www.kingfishercalendar.com/2009/

and the website of Tata sky is http://www.tatasky.com/

97!! and miles to go before I sleep

97!! and yes miles to go as well.......keep guessing!!

97

Medha Patkar.....Protest lady?

Medha Patkar....has been in the news for a very long time....Narmada Bachao was the first one that I started admiring her work for the people who are affected by the height of the dam.However was not very pleased with the other protest activities that she was involved with...the nandhigram episode..where in she was part of the protest for WB govt giving away farm lands for industrial developments. Now who is at loss? West Bengal Govt or the people of the state who lost a huge chunk of job ? Now from yesterday's newspaper I hear that she is now in chennai joining the protest against the govt of TN asking them to stop the airport expansion!!! Does she realise that airports are needed for a countries growth ? We speak about international airports...where as we expand existing shabby airports to accomodate the growth in passenger traffic and we have protestors for them as well ? Well, agreeded that this comes with cost of people losing land and houses and tons of sentiments with them....however I am sure that the govt would have compensated them. Protest should have some value and lot of thought needs to go behind it. Admired personalities need to think many a times before they join a protest and not just for the fame! Kerala is one example....anything and everything we have a protest and strike comes complementary , and this is one of the reason where we dont see much of economic growth in Kerala! And we talk about India being the economic super power!

2008.....the year that I can live with out

2008 closing on soon....took some time off on my aimless life to jolt down how my life has been for the last 355 days.....10 more days for the year end....

Things I can live with out....

• This year started with a bad note....made some enemies at work....my fault though.. readings were wrong...they were my good friends...and thought they knew me better.
• Fell sick and was hugging the bed for close to a month. Rather fell sick multiple times....
• Loser @ love life.Lady I love....
  
• Had a terrible fight with one of my close friends....but I think this brought us even closer - on the brighter note.
• On a horrible fight with a close friend....I think we would part ways....
  
• Career is not the way I wanted it to go....
• Not traveled much this year...

Things I am happy about...

• Two of my very close friends have started a new innings in life...
• I am in Chennai for 2 months.
• Had some great trips with buddies.
• Finished practitioners certification.
  

Things I want to do next year....loads of them actually..

• Shed a ton of weight...this has been pending for some years now..
  
• Complete the next level of certifications.
• ......still thinking....marriage is not in the plan yet ....
  

6 couples and a Bachelor...trip to Mangalore

Though have been there couple of times I decided to join in a bunch of couples - here after referred as Oldies. for a trip to Mangalore on the 14th and 15th of November. Arrived at the hotel and after a long complementary B'fast - (A mistake that the hotel did to offer us complementary B'fast : Guess they realised that we have not seen food in ages ) ,we hit the roads. We stopped at a Summersand's resort (The beach here is horribly maintained with sewage mixing into the sea close by) en route to Bekal fort - Kasargode Kerala.Spend some time there and after a game of Volley ball and ring, we headed for the fort with a stop over for lunch in Kasargode - Mallu food.

The fort is one of my fav spot and any number of times would not make me bored. Wish it was the rainy season to relish the monsoon and the lush greenery of the vegetation in the fort. For the first time I tried a different angle of photography with my friends hovering over me. After lazing around in there till late evening we left for Mangalore with a stop over for tea and Pazampori ( Ripe plaintain coated with batter and deep fried). The day ended with a good dinner.

Sunday , we headed to St. Mary's Island. My first visit to this place as the last attempt with my parents , we were unable to make it as the boat was operated only when it is full - and there were just about 5 people including us for about an hour and had to cancel the plan. The island is big enough to be a private island and has some beautiful rock formations as if some one has chiseled it . Spend time lazing around and exploring the island and staging some shells for snaps. As we were waiting for the boat we were tempted to try out fresh fish fry and must admit I would have loved to have one more.

En route to Mangalore we stopped at Udupi for a gourmet lunch and a quick visit to the famous Krishna temple made the day. I thought Udupi to Mangalore was a memorable journey with a round of anthakshri , however I was wrong - the best part of the trip was many rounds of UNO that we played - Oh! I had never laughed so much in the last couple of months of hardship @ work. This trip was a definite stress buster. Hoping that we could make many more of these.

The only common cribbing that I heard from the couples was that the bed was separate with a table in between and not joined in each room :D

Bon South - for NRI southies

Had great expectations when advised by my friend Anu and Chells when I had met them late morning @ forum. En route from Times now music festival we dropped in for dinner . Liked the ambiance , however the restaurant did not live up beyond it. The menu had a page dedicated to each state - Tamil Nadu , Kerala , Karnataka and Andra Pradesh , however the choices were limited. There were just 2 choices for the veggies and multiple for the Non-Veggies . The food was good and nothing great to comment about. The dishes are expensive - 2 appams cost about 75 rupees .

Anu has jotted about her good experience on a visit there , however we were not the lucky ones I guess - No saplings :(

This place is good for bringing foreigners who wants to taste some Indian food and yes also if you are on a company lunch treat. They enquired immediately what was wrong when one of us had complained in the feed back form - which I have never seen in other places. I liked this gesture.

Onam Sadhya!!

I should be ashamed to tell this as a Malayalee that today was the first time in 27 years that I got to have a Onam Sadhya. Sadhya consists of 21 dishes servered on a plaintain leaf! I guess it is the different style and tradition that is followed in different parts of Kerala, I am from North Kerala - Kannur to be precise. The traditional Sadhya in north Kerala consist of a non-veg lunch..mostly Biriyani. !!

I have been pulling my mom's leg telling that she never made a sadhya for Onam!! We were mostly in chennai for Onam and missed out of the fanfare and different traditions.

Mr & Mrs Biju - Thank you! The lunch was great! You guys made history in my life!!

Leaving you with some of the other snaps!

NOKIA Care - Care LESS

Butter fingers and being a proud owner of a Nokia E61i dont go hand in hand. Excellent mobile with great features until it slipped from my hand and tested the G shock on the floor. The Screen refused to work...and the mobile was kind enough to let me receive calls - though I had no idea who was calling!!!

Took it to the Nokia care center in Bangalore : Koramangala - and after a wait of an hour the verdict was that the screen has gone for a toss, no amount of trying to make it work helped....and needs to be replaced. An hour later they get my mobile back from the so called - dust free zone with a new screen , however with loads of scratches on it....and I got my old screen back as they wanted to prove that they had replaced it with a new one. The design of the screen is simple, there is just a single connector cable from the screen which has a tiny jack similar to RJ45 to be plugged into the board. When I refused to take the "new replaced screen" with scratches , I was made to wait for about 30 mins and they said that this is the only one they have and if I want I take it else they will replace it with the old one, and this is the best they can repair it ...in a rude, unprofessional way. A damaged screen was not worth 26oo I had paid so I asked for the old screen to be put back. They got this done in 5 mins and when I popped in the battery, my screen started working!!! Guess the issue was that the connector would have popped out and just needs to be replaced.

Questions:

• How many people would they have cheated like this ? I was lucky that I had asked my old screen to be put back, else I would have been cheated.
• To replace the screen took an hour , to put back the old one 5 mins ??
  
• A complaint was logged with Nokia customer care - what action was taken against the dealer? - I got a call back from Nokia that they would work on the " feedback "..do they know the difference between a feedback and complaint ?
  

This was not the only bad experience that I had...once I had taken the same mobile to the Nokia care in Chennai - Valasaravakkam for an another fall and the speaker volume was low , they said that they have corrected the issue, however when I wanted to know what was corrected I got conflicting answers from the technicians there , for a price of 650 ruppes!!