Tagged... twice!!
Thanks to Ajoy and Faiza I've been tagged twice :) It has been a long time since I've posted here. Ofcourse I have an excuse.. koncham athigam work.. nevertheless it is more because of laziness rather than anythingelse. I've seen 'tags' before but until I was tagged I never got to know what it was. Now that I am tagged let me give the eight unknown facts about me-

1. My Childhood dream- As I was a Car Paithiyam even in my school days, my dream was to be with cars all the time- and after lot of 'analysis' I decided that only one profession will make that dream come true-ie. to become a Driver :D
2. Driving- Entha nerathula driver agaunmnu asai pateno it has been years since I actually drove a car :(
3. Padam- Do u know the number of times I have been to a Cinema Theatre - less than 15 times in the whole of my life.
4. Bus Travel- My favorite place to travel in a Bus- Foot board :D
5. Cricket- This might be odd for someone from India - Enaku ozhunga cricket vilayada theriyaadu!!
6. Rehersal- Unintentionally or sometimes even intentionally I reherse before something important - that is I imagine doing something before actually doing it. Many times it so happens I see some questions even before the exams. (Unfortunately antha question mattum exam-la varathu!)
7. Superman!!! - Durind school days, once I dreamt of jumping from my home in first floor to the ground and for long I was of the belief that it was true. Infact I actually attempted to jump a few times but just before each attempt the sight of the ground would scare me and I would postpone the jump to another day.. luckily that day never came.
8. PETER- Even though I studied in DAV enaku peter vida theriadu.. arambathula tamil therinchavan kita tamizh-la thaan pesanumnu ninachu arambichen.. The first time I actually spoke in English (apart from small sentences with teachers where I didn't have any other go) was after my Engineering - when I was in Chennai my roommates were from different places and I was forced to speak in English. Ippa kooda tamil therunchu evenavathu karanam illama PETER viduratha paatha... ulla pathitu varum. Unfortunately Hitech company kulla poi antha velayathaan naanum panna vendi iruku..

OK... now it is my turn to Tag ppl-

Haddy
Jayamurugan
Ravi
Ramanathan
Shanpri

Uncle-ku Hi Sollu!!!!!!

This was one shock statement that I heard from a person to his child. For a long time I've been used to "Anna" and after some gap (somehow I didn't get into an intro situation with a kid for long) suddenly I've become "Uncle"!! Yenaku yevalavu vayasu agiduchunu appo thaan Yaaro mandaila adichu sonna maathiri irunthathu.

Intha Cinema maathiri oru 20 - 30 years ku Hero vendam... Uncle agavaathu iruka mudiyuma?? Yennaiku yaar enna Perusu-nu solla porangalo theriyala Bayama iruku :S !!

To be or not be...
I am not very good at literature but this particular phrase pretty much sums up my state with respect to my work. It has been a long time since I posted anything here and not without a reason.. Yaar kannu pattucho I had enough work to keep me busy all these days and add to that this 90Kms daily travel to and from office would make sure I don't have any time left for myself. When I had something to do I felt the lack of work was keeping me restless but after been busy for sometime I just don't understand what's wrong.. My satisfaction is pretty low about what I am doing. It's hard to express what's going on in my mind.. I've heard people getting burnt out at a later part of their career but this is not that either.. some big change is needed for sure.. the trouble is I just don't know what the change is..

Standard Motors
Every Morning when I travel to my office there are only two landmarks I anxiously look for – one is the huge Ford hoarding and slight glimpses of Fiestas in hundreds parked near Ford factory. The other is a sad sight of once an impressive carmaker The Standard Motors dying.
As a kid I knew standard motors as the only carmaker in TN and was dreaming of seeing it inside someday. That was partially fulfilled when I saw the factory in ‘Aboorva Sagodarargal’ song.
The past six months would probably be one of the most painful sights to see for a car enthu like me. It was during this time I’ve been noticing the erstwhile standard motors factory being stripped brick by brick giving way to a glossy IT park. There isn’t much left now and it is just a matter of time before even those skeletal remains get destroyed. Every time I see those remains it reminds me of how I failed to enter my dream field and came to IT. And the parallels don’t end there. It was in my 3rd/4th standard my interest about cars grew when I got hold of a full fledged Auto magazine and started reading even though I couldn’t understand anything in it. It was a Foreign Auta Mag .. (Australian if I am right!).. I don’t think there was any Indian Auto Magazine circulating at that time. I went through that magazine so many times that I still remember the car models covered in that edition.. that book was a treasure for me. After looking at those beautiful cars I could find only one model on road closest to what I saw in that book – the Rover derived Standard 2000, and thus it became my first dream car. It was around that time Standard Motors got into trouble failing to make much headway with the Standard 2000. Little did I realize then that, just as my first dream car died.. my dreams would die as well.

Nokia N70
Buying something out of first salary is always special. But it took me 7 months after joining to spend on something (apart from my day to day expenses). Hyderabad-la iruntha varai nammala Mumbai anupurennu company-la solrathu oru weekly ritual. So I wanted to have something that would be a good time pass there and what better time pass is there than listening to music! So I zeroed in on Nokia N70 Music Edition. N70 romba nalla model thaan – it does everything it is supposed to do and lives upto all the expectations.. as far as the functionality goes I am pleased… so gr8 buy illaya?? Hmmm not exactly.. buying a mobile phone for 15.4k is one thing but keeping it safe wherever u travel is another. Yenga ponalum periodically I would check if it is with me or yevanaathu sutotanaanu. Phone kizha vizhuntha I’ll have my heart in my mouth. Even if I slip somewhere I’ll first worry about the phone falling down. Similarly every small scratch would be painful as if I was hurt!! If it rains the first worry? Phone would get wet!! Inga naane ninayuren !
Gone are those days when I had a max of 60 Rupees in my pocket and happily traveled even on footboard worrying about nothing. At that time I would bring that 60 Rs back home safely as the only thing I had to buy was bus ticket. Mazhai, veiyil… yentha kavalayum illa. Now I have a decent savings account and with it comes a debit card and a ‘lifetime free’ credit card. Ithungala vera paathukaakanum athuvum Chennai maathiri crowded city-la. As you acquire more assets they start controlling you and steal ur happiness but inspite of knowing that u r not prepared to leave them either- catch 22?

My first major buy has taught me an important lesson. Not to spend heavily on something unless necessary. But I have a bad habit of repeating mistakes. It would be a real big test for me when I go shopping for a car in the future. The car enthusiast in me has to be tamed – a huge task!

“ India Shining ”

A forward mail about India’s progress which I received from more than one person reads..

”Whatever may be the feelings of common man and middle class in India and also leftists and socialists ,what with rising price of essential food items, power shortages, crowded roads, high cost of housing ,water shortages etc… Business leaders all over the world are mulling over their 'India Strategy'..”

Then the forward jumps to some amazing stats.

• 9.3% growth
• 3rd Largest economy by 2050
• Youngest productive populationReal estate to be $50bn by 2o10
• .....
• ...

And all these stats/projections are from some the biggest names in the globe - Gold man sachs, PWC, Merryl Lynch.

The forward goes on to say that India is fast becoming a powerhouse in the world economy.

So??

So… “Should we not cheer up and forget our day to day problems ?”

You are right Mr Anonymous whoever you are!!

You forgot one thing though… what is the use of all these giant projections if the common man on the streets does not get anything out of it? You may be a high flying executive going places and you may proudly say that ur country is doing gr8 but so what? If the common man cannot be given his basic necessities why would he be happy? Neenga nilluna nikkanum.. utkaaru na urkaaranuma? Silar luxury car-la ula vantha athuku mathavan santhoshapadanuma? Namaku kidachathu palaruku illa nu puriyaada?

The beauty of statistics is that u can play with them as u like. Whatever may be the objective, numbers can be used to prove whatever you want by carefully selecting them. You have done a good job by projecting your feel good factor. Now let me try to do the same to prove my point-

So how is the economy growing? Scorching pace – 9.3% WOW!! Post liberalization things have changed dramatically after all!! Till now service sector and more precisely IT has played it’s part. How do you expect the economy for a country like India to depend only on Services to grow? Yes Manufacturing has grown and your manufacturing prowess is beginning to show but don’t u see that these high numbers have been coming only periodically from the manufacturing sector? Please look into the split of your merchandise exports – Why is commodities (ores and minerals) and oil (refined from crude imports) increasing so fast if it was your manufacturing that has delivered on the export front? Is this not because of mere increase in global demand for raw materials from us rather than a structural shift? Your IT growth is still based on cost arbitrage brought about by certain endowments in your favor and you need to do a lot of to sustain it and it is practically impossible for IT alone to help growth.

You were talking about “young population” weren’t you? Please go back and see ur employment data more carefully. Rate of unemployment of the same young population is disproportionately high and you haven’t utilized them. Why is self-employment increasing so rapidly (don’t tell me it is because of sudden spurt in entrepreneurship). The rate of growth of employment post liberalization has reduced especially in the rural areas and agriculture isn’t keeping pace. Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data shows a decrease in the already low organized manufacturing labour in absolute size.

Why is agricultural output not growing inspite of the fact that a major part of our population is dependent on it? If you tell me that the dependent population on Agri is reducing that is because of your neglect which has made it unattractive for those people to continue. Why would anyone come to the city to live in slums anyway? And do u think u can take such huge number of people out of agri even in the future?

You would argue that poverty has been reduced. Why don’t you look into the poverty details – officially you take 1973-74 as base and include price index which leads to… a whopping Rs 328 per month for a person to meet his daily expenses on goods and services!! Imagine urself getting that amount and then try to be happy about India Shining!!!

And for God’s sake don’t link patriotism with “India Shining” myth.. this happened when I had a heated argument about this sometime back. A person may disagree with the claims made but still be patriotic. And let’s face it how do you expect a person who does not get his food to even think of all this?

I am not an economist. Nor am I great at this kind of analysis. I have merely reproduced some stats from well known economists I’ve read over time. I would have been happy had I remembered rest of the numbers I’ve seen as well… try googling and please look beyond popular media.

Idiots travel on footboard

And I was one of them some time back…
Chidambara Vilas, Sri Krishna, Thangam, Velankanni PP... all these names will be familiar to anyone commuting in the Trichy-Thanjavur route. For a few like me these are parts of a wonderful past that would never come back. Studying in one of those self-financing engineering colleges u cannot expect all the staff to be knowledgeable ….Niraya per book-la irukuratha vanthu re-telecast pannuvanga.. atha naanga directa book-la irunthe padika matoma? So u need an external motivation to attend college and I had one very strong motivation - the half an hour travel from training center to college on foot board (mind u I am not kidding!! I had one of the highest attendances in my dept every semester :D ). I was not alone, lot many college goers would enjoy that travel. Among them was my set of friends. Couple of my friends (read kiku and pavikutti) would have already boarded in Trichy and will be sitting in the last row waiting for us. Velankanni PP was our favorite bus in the morning as it would be reasonably crowded compared to other buses and we can comfortably travel in it (athavathu vasadia footboard la nikkalaam!! mathathula thothanum... romba strain u see!!). Antha bus conductor-um namma friend thaan so no issues at all. Foot-board la kaathu vangitu friends oda kathai pesite pona… the day will have a gr8 start.
For someone who has always traveled to school two streets away the 30 KM travel to college looked very difficult in first year. As ever I started with a ‘safety clause’ from my parents in the early days – College bus la mattum thaan poganumnu. Traveling in college bus can sometimes be the worst experience with all the faculties traveling with us.. free-a irukaathu. And our Thatha driver will be using the Brake pedal more than the accelerator to make sure that it takes atleast twice the time to reach the destination. Aiya was traveling by this bus for sometime but athuku mela thaangala. So I shifted to mofussil buses. Arambathula I took bus pass and traveled in select buses that allow passes but later I realized that the trouble of traveling in them is not worth the money and thus I shifted to other buses. Initially I’ll travel on foot-board only if there was no other go but found it to be so enjoyable that I started to travel on it regularly. Add to that KKPs comedy on board. We’ll have elaborate discussions about everything there.. as if we had no other place.
Looking back it all looks a little stupid to take such risks but I cannot deny that I enjoyed every bit of it.
After completing BE it was 3 long years before I actually traveled on foot board (this time it was out of need :) )– that was once in Hyderabad – it evoked all those fond memories but it wasn’t as enjoyable as it used to be without my friends, without those discussions about KKPs adventures (or should I say misadventures! ), without those gossips, those last minute revision before exams.. the list would never end.. and all this in just a span of 30 minutes everyday.