What would you do if, you are sitting jobless in your own company for months, and there comes one bay area internet company which is serious about design? What would you do if they make up an offer you cannot refuse, that too in chennai?

I do not know about you guys, but I grabbed it with both hands

The only hard part was moving away from good friends like Jazeem, Karthik, Monu and Risha. I never understood the concept of ‘Thozhil Reedhiyaana Natpu’. With me, it is either friends for ever or never. So I decided to move knowing fully well that I will be in touch with them anyway.

With a week at my disposal before joining the new company, I decided to take a break and travel to Madurai, my native place. It’s been sometime since I met any of my paternal relatives. I stayed in my uncle’s (Periyappa, appa’s cousin) place. I was offered sweets which was delicious and so unlike commerically made sweets. Only then I came to know some of my close relatives (mainly ladies) have taken to this business. They’ve taken a house on rent, hired some specialist aka ’Masters’, and fine-tuned their preparation methods. The primary idea seems to be to spend time in a useful way with something to take home at the end of the day. The quality is fabulous. They’ve named it as ‘Dhara sweets’.

All the stakeholders of ‘Dhara Sweets’, including my cousin who has invested and is trying to bring it up in a big way deserve a pat in their back.  SO long as they stick to their quality, I am sure their venture will go places. This was one of the few occasions when I admired my relatives  

kadalai, originally uploaded by expertdabbler.

BOET stands for beauty of everyday things.

I always had a fascination for closeups.
Primarily because i never had the reflexes necessary to capture candids. But i had loads of patience to tolerate and shoot inanimate everyday objects in closeups.

I also have to mention a thing or two about what I call ‘closeup paradox’. Things which look downright ugly in real life has the potential for very interesting subjects for closeup photography.
On the other hand, things beautiful to the naked eye (like the beautiful eyes of a beautiful girl) scare the daylights out of me in closeup.

This was shot today morning in Eliots beach.

Idhu yaaro nethiku potta kadalai (pun intended). I dont know about others but i liked this one.

Regulars to my blog would’ve read my short story Dei Kandha written in August 2006. But I got the shock of my life when I was reading Subramanya Raju vin Kadhaigal published by Kizhakku padhipaggam. The reason? His story Innoru Kanavu and mine was remarkably similar in content. His story had used dreams while I had used  voice hallucination. And I swear, I’ve never read Subramanya Raju before.

From here on, I guess I will think twice before blaming someone of lifting someone else’s works

I pray no one tells me there will be seven stories with the same content in the world

Those who have read that short story of SR’s, please let me know your views on this. I guess this is not plagiarism as my narration was quite different from his. But your 2 cents are more than welcome.

We have listened to people talking politics in tea kadais, clubs, buses, trains, etc. But ever heard of people talking politics at a crematorium?

A family friend’s grandma passed away on Sunday early morning in Coimbatore. Even when I saw her three weeks back, the 85 years old lady that she was, told she had no more desire to live and was waiting for her time though was doing alright then. She did not suffer much either. She was alive and present at 10 PM and gone by 12 mid night.

I was told the funeral would be around 3 PM on Sunday. So I took Kovai Express early in the morning and reach Coimbatore on time to catch a glimpse of her.

En route, I was told there was a change in plans and I was asked to come to the crematorium straight from the station. When I reached the crematorium, as suspected I was the first person to be there. Standing alone in a deserted crematorium in Chokkampudur, on a Sunday afternoon was not something anyone would relish. I was getting restless and kept calling friends I had not spoken to in the recent past – a way to kill time and also to keep in touch.

About ten minutes later, a fully loaded van came to the spot. A group of about 10 got down. This was not the group I was associated with. Most of them were middle-aged men and Coimbatore locals to boot. They had no body to cremate, guess they were here to get the asthi or something. The way they started in Kongu slang, I was more than eager to listen to that after all these years J. The topic, predictably turned to politics. One guy seemed to a die-hard DMK supporter, the other an Amma follower. Most of the junta were neutral (Sothu katchi).  The ADMK follower was making allegations about the frauds that is happening in the name of free color TV, gas stove, cycle, acres of free land schemes. His main charge was that people use this to their advantage and even those who get these from the government, promptly sell this to outsiders to make quick buck. He was quoting actual incidents. The DMK fanatic was vehemently denying all this and that idiots like the other person will never understand the heart of kalaignar. He said when Amma can give bicycle, why not kalaignar? He was also quick to point out that the Amma follower was a well to do person who does not need all this and that such people will never appreciate the plight of the poor blah blah.

When i think of it, talking like a politician is never easy.  First and foremost, it requires a special training to never answer to a question even while pretending to do precisely that. For eg. When someone says,” Ennaya unga thalaivaru, ipdi ellathayum free free na ellam makkal vari panam dhaney?” A person like me, would by default try to answer that question. Since I cannot counter that question with any valid facts I would quickly accept defeat. But a seasoned politican will never do that. Empty rhetoric is elevated to an art form in a politician’s tongue. All in all, they provided good entertainment for me till my friend came to the venue after 40 minutes. I have another aspect to write and discuss about which I’ll do later.

But before that, here’s one more airline to rely and travel in India - PARAMOUNT.

Please do not hesitate to take PARAMOUNT.

PHOTOBLOG

My nanban Ganesh has started his photoblog in the name of frozeninpixels.
He is a terrific photographer and am sure he’s gonna have a rocking time with his photoblog.

BOOK FAIR

This week i also went to the much talked about and blogged about Book Fair in Chennai.
The crowd on weekends was just incredible. The stall that impressed me the most was Badri Seshadri’s Kizhakku Padipaggam. It was a real crowd puller. I visited the fair thrice and felt their stall was brimming with people all the time. I liked their print and cover design quality. It was smart strategy to come up with current affairs titles like ‘Saddam’ in Tamil. What’s more they even had Audio books to listen to.
I bought the Infosys NRN book for my mom. It was priced at 60 bucks. Frankly, i was a bit let down by the content quality. My mom liked it, but i kinda felt it had nothing new. I had already read most of the stuff from online and other sources. Maybe I was not the target audience for that book.
I also purchased Subramanya Raju Kadhaigal(Kizhakku) and Ratham Orey Niram by Sujatha(Uyirmai Pathipagam). Yet to read them.

BLUBs and JavaSchools

Recently, i managed to read old articles by Paul Graham and Joel Spolsky, i just want to know what the techie readers of mine think of these articles

Nayagan style a sollunga ba, Paul Graham Nallavara? kettavara? :D.
Same goes for Joel too

This is probably the only music you wanna listen before starting your day.
Awesome!!!
via vatsan and shyamk

Language : Thanglish

He 1: Pretends to work in Office when his mobile rings.