Saturday, December 5, 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

My First Zen Story

I was surprised but sad.Everything around me from the gaint elephant to the tiny ant,had a shadow.But alas I had none.I had heard that in bad times even the shadows quit you.This was my bad time I thought.

Then I realized.....



I was the light !!!!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

ಯುದ್ಧ - A Violent Love Story

ಆಕೆ ಅಪರಾಧಿ. ಆಕೆ ಈತನ ಹೃದಯ ಕದ್ದಿದ್ದಳು . ಆಕೆ ಕಳ್ಳಿ . ಈತ ಕೋಪಗೊಂಡ. ಹುಸಿಗೋಪಗೊಂಡ. ಆಕೆ ಮತೊಮ್ಮೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಾಗ ಕಣ್ಣು ಹೊಡೆದ .ಆಕೆಗೆ ಆಘಾತವಾಯಿತು. ಕೂಡಲೇ ಚಪ್ಪಲಿಯಿಂದ ತಿರುಗೇಟು ನೀಡಿದಳು .

ಈತ ಸುಮ್ಮನಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ .ಸರಿಯಾದ ಸಮಯಕ್ಕೆ ಕಾದ.ಸಂದರ್ಭ ಬಂದೊಡನೆ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ಹೂಬಾಣದಿಂದ ದಾಳಿ ಮಾಡಿದ .ಗಾಯಗೊಂಡರೂ ಅವಳು ಅದೇ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯಿಂದ ಮಾಡಿದ ಬಲೆ ಬೀಸಿದಳು .ಆತ ಸೆರೆಯಾದ .ಕಪ್ಪ ಕಾಣಿಕೆಯಂತೆ ಆತ ಆಕೆಗೆ ಮುಳ್ಳಿಂದ ಕೂಡಿದ ಗುಲಾಬಿ ಹೂವು ನೀಡಿದ . ತಿಳಿಯದೆ ಅದನ್ನು ತೆಗೆದುಕೊಂಡ ಆಕೆಯ ಬೆರಳಿನಿಂದ ರಕ್ತ ಚಿಮ್ಮಿತು .ರಕ್ತ ದಾಹಿಯಾದ ಅವನು ಕೂಡಲೇ ಆಕೆಯ ರಕ್ತ ಹೀರಿದ .ಆಕೆಯ ಕೆನ್ನೆ ಕೆಂಡಮಂಡಲವಾಯಿತು .(ನಾಚಿಕೆಯಿಂದ ಕೆಂಪಾಯಿತು )

ಸಂಧಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಹಿರಿಯರು ಬಂದರು ಇಬ್ಬರನ್ನು ರಣರಂಗಕ್ಕೆ ತಂದರು .ಒಂದೇ ಕಡೆ ಕೂಡಿಸಿದರು .ಇಬ್ಬರ ನಡುವೆ ಬೆಂಕಿ ಉರಿಯುತಿತ್ತು .ಮಣಮಣನೆ ಮಂತ್ರ ಗೊಣಗುತಿದ್ದ ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಸಂಧಾನಕಾರನು ಅವರಿಬ್ಬರ ನಡುವೆ ಉರಿಯುತಿದ್ಧ ಬೆಂಕಿಗೆ ತುಪ್ಪ ಸುರಿಯುತಿದ್ಧ .ಅಗ್ನಿಯು ಆ ಚೌಕಟ್ಟಿನೆಲ್ಲೆಡೆ ಆವರಿಸಿತ್ತು .ಎಲ್ಲೆಲ್ಲು ಕುಂಕುಮ ತುಂಬಿ ಭೂಮಿ ಕೆಂಪಾಗಿತ್ತು .ಆತನ ಕಡೆಯವರು ಆಕೆಯ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಬತ್ತಿಯಿಟ್ಟರು (ಅಗರಬತ್ತಿ ). ಅದರಿಂದ ಬಂದ ಹೊಗೆ ಇಡೀ ರಣರಂಗವನ್ನೇ ಆವರಿಸಿತ್ತು.

ಸಂಧಾನಕಾರರು ಅವರಿಬ್ಬರ ಕೈ ಕೈ ಮಿಲಾಯಿಸಿದರು. ಅವರಿಬ್ಬರೂ ಯುದ್ಧ ಶುರು ಮಾಡಿದರು. ಅಗ್ನಿಯ ಸುತ್ತ ಎಚ್ಚರಿಕೆಯಿಂದ ತಿರುಗಿದರು. ವೀರ ಹೋರಾಟ ನೋಡಲು ನೂರಾರು ಜನ ಸೇರಿದ್ದರು .ವೀರ ಕಹಳೆ ಮೊಳಗಿತು. ಗಂಟೆ ನಗಾರಿಯ ಶಬ್ದ ಎಲ್ಲೆಡೆ ಕೇಳಿ ಬರುತಿತ್ತು .ಆತ ಕೂಡಲೇ ಆಕೆಯ ಕುತ್ತಿಗೆಗೆ ತಾಳಿ ಬಿಗಿದ. ಆದರೆ ಆಕೆ ಸೋಲೊಪ್ಪಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಮರುದಿನವೇ ಆತನ ಜುಟ್ಟು ತನ್ನ ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿರುವಂತೆ ನೋಡಿಕೊಂಡಳು .

ವರ್ಷಗಳೇ ಉರುಳಿತು .ಯುದ್ಧ ಮುಂದುವರಿಯುತಿತ್ತು. ಆಕೆಗೆ ಕಟ್ಟಿದ ತಾಳಿ ಸಿಡಿಲಗೊಳ್ಳಲಿಲ್ಲ .ಆಕೆ ಆತನ ಜುಟ್ಟು ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಕೊಟಿಲ್ಲ. ಯುದ್ಧ ಮುಂದುವರಿಯುತಿತ್ತು .ಆಕೆ ಲಟ್ಟಣಿಗೆಯಿಂದ ಪ್ರಹಾರ ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ಆತ ಶಿರಸ್ತ್ರಾಣ ಧರಿಸುತಿದ್ಧ .ಆತ ಕುಡಿದು ಬಂದು ತೊಂದರೆ ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ಆಕೆಗೆ ತವರು ಮನೆ ಆಸರೆಯಗುತಿತ್ತು .ಯುದ್ಧ ಮುಂದುವರಿಯುತಿತ್ತು .ಮುಂದುವರೆಯುತಿರುತ್ತದೆ ....ಇಬ್ಬರ ವೀರಮರಣದ ತನಕ.

"ಸಮರ" ಸವೇ ಜೀವನ .
"ವೀರ"ಸವೇ ಮರಣ .

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Different people different perceptions.

Last Friday I was testing one of our feature which I was developing with two other colleagues,Nagraj and Shruthi. I had to create a hostname in our software and instead of giving normal names such as hostname1 or testhost ,I thought of getting off-track and named it as Shurpanaka. A cool name to name a host machine I thought.
Everything was OK until another Christian colleague noticed this.Now not knowing the story of Ramayana ,she wondered what Shurpanaka meant.She asked me a couple of times but I thought I need not explain as it was so obvious.Also as an hint I jokingly said it was the person ( I meant her) among us. She did not give up.After thinking hard for 68565 milliseconds she reached upon a conclusion.

Can you guess what she concluded??

Well she felt it was a short form of 3 persons who developed the feature :
shur (Shruthi)+
pa(Praveen)+
na(Nagaraj)+
ka(belonging to {in Hindi})
=
Shruthi,Praveen,Nagaraj ka feature !!!!


Wow what an unbelievable matching !!!
No confusion ,Great combination !!

Afterall ,Different people different perceptions :-)

Friday, June 19, 2009

Patience,Anger and Innocence

Yesterday I had as amusing experience which I thought was worth sharing..
A person who was driving his brand new car had a minor accident and his car was standing with one tire over the footpath. He was accompanied by his wife and a very small daughter. No one was hurt and actually no one was interested to have a look at them also. I just happened to overhear their conversation and found it interesting enough to post it here.

Here it goes.

Hero:(introspecting on what went wrong)
Wife: (Angry) : I told you so....
Daughter :( Comparable to Dexter’s irritating sister in her screeching voice) : Papa papa aapko bola tha naa...

Wife: (Angry) : You drive so rashly..
Daughter:(excited) : papa papa aap bahut tez chalate ho
Hero :(sad) : Hmmm

Wife:(angry): You just don’t listen to me.
Daughter:(innocently) papa papa aap to sunte hi nahi ho..
Hero:(Counting 3,23387 and more..controlling his anger): Hmm

Don’t worry why the little girl was translating everything. C’mon she is just so small and very excited to see her car over the footpath,so she can say anything which is there in her mind :)

Wife:( Fuming) : How much might it cost for the repair..
Daughter: (still screeching) : papa papa agar footpath pe car hai to log kaise jaayenge???
[I told you naa she can say anything]
Hero:(amazingly patient) : Hmm around 6-7 thousand.

Wife:(Volcanic): &*$^#%$^@#%$^@%#
Daughter:(inquisitive) Papa papa hum ghar kaise jaayenge??
Hero:( With superb commonsense and imagination ): McDonalds or Pizza ??

Wife:(Surprised !!) Err..Hmmm ...McDonalds.
Daughter(on the seventh heaven!!) mujhe McAloo tikki aur French fries chahiye...
Hero: (Taking his wallet) : Take this Rs:500 and take munni to McDonalds and take a rick to home. I will get the car repaired and reach home...We'll continue shopping next week.

That’s it, he had hit the bull’s eye and then he lived happily ...that day.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

TIT FOR TAT

As I have done innumerable times before, I went to my terrace for strolling one morning. Everything seemed normal. Since ours is a 3 storied building, I could see the surroundings from considerable height. And yes the kites soaring above me were also a bit more closer than from the terrace of the surrounding houses. After some bird gazing ( both types of birds !!) when I decided to go back downstairs and walked towards the door, I felt a huge thud on my head. I was dazzled and wondered what had hit me only to realize that one of the kites had hit attacked me on my head. (I thought it was an eagle but one of my friends confirmed that it had to be a kite as eagles were bigger and had sharp claws and I would be seriously hurt if attacked by an eagle).The question was not whether it was an eagle or kite, the question was Why ?? I did not have any answer.


Several days passed and I did not get an opportunity to go to the terrace, but when I got I made sure I

took a small stick to defend myself. For some minutes I watched all the birds (crows, pigeons and kites were the only recognizable birds by me) and made special attempt to keep track of any kite eyeing on me. When no birds showed any interest in me, I thought that the earlier attack was just a one off event and so lowered my weapon. And guess what, within 30 seconds of laying my guard down; I felt that thud on my head again!!!!

And yes it was again the kite. Was it the same kite? I can’t tell. And why it attacked me twice is still a mystery. And to add to the mystery was that my other family members who still go to terrace or anyone in our building were not attacked. I asked God..Why me???

The closest thing I can relate to my encounter with the kite is that I was encouraged by the bird photography of my manager and just for the thrill of it ,I had taken the photo of this kite !!!


Birds are not the only ones to take revenge on me. During my stay in chikmagalur ,I used to chase monkeys from our terrace using a plastic water sprinkler(pichkaari) which is actually used to spray colored water duri

ng Holi.One fine day when I was in my balcony, I heard the gate sound. When I bent over to see who was there I got hit by some object on my head. Instinctively I looked upwards and found a monkey grinning at me. And I need not tell you that I was hit by the same pichkaari that I had lost some days back. Strange are the ways of nature.


Now that I have told you about the revenge taken by birds and animals, it would be unfair to not acknowledge the revenge taken by one of the most dangerous species in the world-The human being

During my college days we used to travel home to college by our college bus. Once while waiting for the bus, I had absentmindedly picked some blades of grass and kept it in my book. I had forgotten all about it until I was asked about it by my that day's seat-mate Madhava who was using my book for fanning himself and the grass blades fell on his lap. I realized that I had put it in my book for no reason but when I have got a ready made bakra why let go?

I acted paranoid for losing the all important blades of grass. I Informed him that the grass was some sort of American grass (?!) and that planting even one blade would cause the whole garden to fill with the grass and would look like a tennis court. It was of some rare species and I had got it from my (imaginary)friends uncle but now I was left with 2 blades of grass. But a large hearted being like me could not see him guilty so as a mark of my forgiveness I gave him one of my blades which he planted at his house and waited in vain to prosper.

After coming to know of being "bakrified" he vowed to take revenge on me and it was very easy.

In engineering we used to write our internal exams on what was called the blue book. And when the Engineering graphics internal came near I approached him to ask as to what to carry for the internals. He replied there was something called as "Blue sheets" for graphics internals. I spent the whole day searching all bookstores in chikmagalur in search of the blue sheets which never existed!!! Yes I too was bakrified...”


TIT FOR TAT indeed.


As I write this I remember that I have taken some pictures of bats too, have driven away many of the dogs sleeping in front of our gate and have taken panga with many animals from the species of homo-sapiens.



I wonder what is in store for me!!!!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

EVOLUTION

DISCLAIMER :The character and incidents portrayed and the names herein are factual and any similarity to the name, character and history of any person, living , is entirely incidental and portrayed for the sole reason of blowing his own trumpet


This is the picture story of how a budding genius has now become a blooming idiot :-)

Long long back there lived a young boy named Praveen (aptly named as the Proficient,expert ,skilled etc etc).




Well he was multi talented... and here are some examples.

He danced when he was very small...

and danced when he was little older


and danced when he was more older

and danced when he was still more older



and danced when he was still more older


and well he danced all his way to stage shows



There were many weird fans of him !!


He was good in sports too.....

He played cricket...



and scored many centuries !!


and was good in athletics too




and hey he had his share of acrobatics ..well a great team worker you know., who helped construct the eighth wonder of the world: The pyramid of Cordial school



Well thats not all ...

He sang too ....



His songs were such a rage that people listed to them regularly on their I-pod



Conducted quiz programs too ...



Which is why he won tons of awards :-))



and some of them are here....


He was on the verge of making it to the walk of fame....



Then the disaster struck !!!!!
He got selected to a software company....


and unfortunately he became an IT professional.....( why is he finding so hard to smile ??)




Managers started putting pressure on him using various methods...


The manager thinks he has 5 heads and 10 hands to work


The team mates are not co-operative :-(


Requests started pouring from onsite too :-(




He is now under lot of pressure with so much responsibility on his shoulders

His life as of now is virtually reduced to... !!!!



Boooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo


But inspite of all this, he enjoys the colours of life :-)



and knows he will be successful one day...


This ends the picture story of how a budding genius has now become a blooming idiot :-)

Monday, March 30, 2009

Summer of 99


Hey folks,
This is the school group photo of our SSLC batch (1999).I felt very nostalgic seeing this photo, so thought of dedicating a blog to my friends and teachers.After all its exactly 10 years since we wrote our final exams in SSLC .Here I try to jot down 1 fact which I remember as soon as I see the face.Please excuse and correct me if I get some facts wrong !!

Starting from top row ,left to right:
Harsha : Cricket we used to play in Saraswathinagar ground.
Satish : Very good in quiz, especially the sports quizzes.
V Kiran :
Prashanth Kasbekar : Eccentric !! Knew all questions and answers byheart (in order too !!) and could recite them even if you woke him @ midnight!! obviously one of the class toppers.
Manjunath (?!):
Chetan: Kabaddi ..what else ?
Ravindra:Used to visit his relatives near my house.
Girish:Took utmost care of his cycle,Was fastest runner among boys !!! I had tore his pants while playing kabaddi once :-)
Nityananda: Always being punished for one thing or other :-(
Avinash:We used to play cricket at his house.He was the one who introduced me to the world of TV video games.
S Kiran: Used to write beautiful ,concise essays !!
Nishanth:My closest competitor for best student award.Very popular and was very good @ quizzes.

Second row left to right :
Savita :
Sheeba:
Shwetha :
Divya S : Was a good dancer.I used to always tease her as "Annamman dance !!"
<>:
<>:
Madhushree:
Bina Bailey : Needle like creature.The only being the world to complement me for my dancing skills :-)
Gayatri Hegde: Very silent girl..
Ashwini:
<>:
Manju : Very very silent girl .. When ever we wanted to sit very quite we would say "Manju virus" and then would sit silently for around 15 min.
<>:
<>:

Third row left to right:

Praveen : The great me :-)
Mahesh M: Oily nose ;-) We used to play our pranks so silently that one of our madam named us : silent mischief makers.
Seema : When I joined the school in 6th standard,I was made to sit beside her.She had not allowed me to keep the bag on the bench as I had snatched her position of bench leader :-(
<>:
Sangeeta:
Divya M:
Prathibha: A good singer.There was a poem in our syllabus which she found very difficult to byheart (karunaalu baa ಬೆಳಕೆ) .In the next year,I was surprised she sang the same song and won the competition.I learnt 2 things then: a) There is some magic in music . b) when you like what you do, no task is difficult
Revathi:Once teachers caught us thinking that she was copying my paper but we were released(?!) as I was on first bench and she in the last bench in the exam hall.(FYI, I dont think I have ever allowed anyone to copy my papers :-(
<>:
Prathima:Used to shout with a loud screechy voice.Fastest runner among girls.
<>:
Vinodini :
T Raghavendra:Naughtiest boy in our class.
Vijay R:Was too proud of his gear cycle :-)

Teachers (left to right):
Jai Shankar : PT Sir : Intoduced some music which was played in taperecorder for going from assembly to the class ..
Narasaiah:Science teacher(physics): Was responsible for my interest in stars. ( well even now I have interest in ...err.... film stars :-)
Hemalatha : Maths teacher: When I joined the school in 6th standard, it was her class that I attended first.In SSLC, we used to practise dance @ her house.Ate delicious bread pakodas also..
Mary George : HM and Moral Science teacher:
Vijayalakshmi:Science teacher(biology): Strict and methodical.Made full use of black-board.She had the unique distinction of making everyone cry in the class.She doesn't know that she did not make me cry.( wierd but true )
Nagaveni: Kannada teacher : Would make us enact stories in class.
Subhashini: English teacher: Another strict teacher. I always messed up spellings of weather and whether and she would get mad everytime she saw the same mistake :-)
Sujaya :Social Science teacher: Well I got 96 in SS where everyone else hated the subject.She was a good singer too.
Ganapathi: Sanskrit teacher: Very soft spoken , kind hearted gentleman.
<>: kannada teacher :I did not attend 1st langauage kannada classes.So no idea..



Some teachers who are missing in the photo:

Subhadra : Science Teacher (chemistry),English : Was very friendly with students.
Sreejatha : Sanskrit Teacher: Who taught us अ आ इ ई of sanskrit.
Parvatamma : SUPW teacher: Well she taught us to make crafts !!


Some friends who are missing in the photo:
Raghunandan:
Archana :One of the class toppers.Very systematic. I liked her handwriting.Infact the way I write the letter "a" was copied from her :-)
Poornima: Next to my name in attendence. I used to hate standing next to her as I felt superiority complex due to my height.
Shreyas: This small stout fellow was very agile .
Naveen, Navya : Twins.
Brinda/vrunda : Classical singer ..
and many more...

UPDATE:
Since many are left out in that SSLC photo, I think it would be a good idea to upload our sixth standard photo too....




Friday, February 27, 2009

MIKE'S STRIKE

A greedy laborer Mike

Planned to buy a bike

To fulfill whatever his like

Decided to sit on hunger strike.

Day by day the tension grew

The employers called up the crew,

The reason for his strike no one did knew

More bonus was his idea thought a few.

Still there was no satisfaction

No reason for his passion

So they decided by tradition

They shall take no further action

He lay sat at hunger strike

Until the hunger really did strike

He remembered the food, forgot the bike.

Thus he gave up the hunger strike.

This is the story of poor old Mike

Who gave up the strike when hunger really did strike.

Thus he put an end to his greed,

And thought his salary was enough for himself to feed.


(Poem written long back when I was in school )

Friday, January 23, 2009

In the midst of Page-3 personalities

Wow , what a relief! I am just out of the cab and walking home.After a long time I had missed my 6:15 cab and had inevitably taken the next cab and boy, what a eyeopening,ear-shattering journey it was.

Before you start getting curious let me tell you what happened.I sat beside the driver and the cab (other than me and the driver) was filled with aliens from venus i.e creatures from the female species.And as usual ,they started gossiping.I was not surprised by this as I had been tormented like this from the aliens before*.So knowing that nothing useful will come out of this I took out my ear saviour:- The mobile earphones ,and started listening to music.The driver must have felt the same as he too switched the radio on.As time went by,the decibel levels from the aliens started to increase.That I was travelling through the notoriously traffic infected airport road did not help either.And with that much volume,it was impossible NOT to listen to what the girls were talking.Surround sound effect!!! So I lent my unfortunate ear to listen to them.And this is when I was led through various planets within 40 min.

It started with the planet selling chudidars.I found out that the light parrot green-white combination is the common favourite among them and most of them liked light-purple-yellow combination (Nokia-siemens colours !!) .And that CENTRAL mall on MG road has a mindblowing discount on some dress material (which was immaterial to me).

The cab driver shared a glace with me gave me a this-is-your-first-time-but-I-bear-it-everyday look.

My next destination was a planet of microwave ovens.Yes, one of the "girl" was married and was giving a handover session on how to cook using a oven.What temperature,how much time,the utensils to keep etc was explained in meticulous detail.Then came the problems of single moms followed by expert reviews on RNBDJ and Ghajini followed by faithfulness of dogs and nakhras of cats and of-course make-up.(I remembered that once my sister had pointed out that Deepika Padukone's mascara costs Rs:40000 but I had not bought her atleast a Rs:40 wala .I avoided sharing this important piece of information for the fear of having to continue on topics I have least knowledge).

By now my ears had started bleeding .There was more gyaan given in that 40 minutes which details I will spare.It was like the matrix fight where I was dodging the sound waves hurled at me simultaneously by 5 ruthless extra-terrestrials.

As I reached my much sought destination (place where I get down), the last part of the session was on questions asked by "innocent" children.Questions like why should we pray,is god male or female? etc.At that point of time I too had some "innocent" questions like "Is there a power called GOD? and if yes, then why is he not helping me to break free from the clutches of these aliens.
I got the answer.There is "God" because my stop had come and I could get down leaving back the poor soul (driver) to wage a lone battle .But since he is accustomed to this,I knew he would be fine.

But wait a second !!

One of the alien Radhika (Name changed to save my job as she in an HR) too got down there and we started to walk together.Now that she did not have anyone to share her chatar-patar, I was the soft target.We started talking about our work,timings,team and other general things. When she mentioned that she was pissed off by city traffic, I replied that it should not be a problem for an girl-majority cab and since she was an HR as well she would enjoy talking much more to which she shot back saying " Hey, I don't like gossipping or all that crap which we were discussing in our cab .It was only that I did not have an other work that I was forced to talk .Else I am a very silent person.And please do not generalize that all HR are talkative."

Seizing the opportunity, I told her how much I was irritated by their conversations.She said I was lucky as yesterday it was much worse.They had discussed about different types of foam used for bed,the better sweeper between Broom and vacuum cleaner etc...Yeah there is really a GOD who saved me again then,,and most probably he must be a male to understand my problem !!

Just another revelation, I thought, and reached home safely.

Now you may have a question as to what happens during the 6:15 cab.Here male-female ratio is almost 1:1 and topics are more general and most of the time its silence that does most of the talking.Yet,there are two Keralites who sometimes talk in some encrypted language named Malayalam and decrypting that I had found once that they were discussing about baby girl dresses.Not surprising though,considering that one is the mother of a baby girl and other one just adores girl children and dreams of dressing them like princess ....

Thus ended my enlightening trip to home that day.
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*This is the explanation as to where I had encountered these type of aliens before (mentioned in second paragraph).It was in my previous company where a kitty party group would come to canteen daily (again one of them was an HR) and co-incidentally (?!) our tables would always be next to each other.We called them Page-3 personalities as it was fun to watch their extra animated actions as they spoke.The extra frills, the accent and the topics made them more funny.They would talk about how she was late for office as she had to feed her pet,how yoga classes helped to maintain her figure,how to get rid of dark circles etc..

But I have to admit that sometimes it is these kind of conversations that take the pressure off you and lighten your mood ...
By now the page-3 girls might be sneering ,"Ha ha ha..veeeeeeeery funny :-( "

So Great Going page-3 girls !!! Keep up the chatar-patar and keep finding new victims.