A Bit of this and a Bit of that

We go to a chaat shop to honour our rumbling tummies but as soon as we reach there, our taste buds establish its superiority. Choosing sev puri over bhel puri can be a complete injustice towards Bhel puri  We keep looking at the menu…Tadaa! Mixed chaat comes to our rescue… A bit of this and a bit of that! Sev Puri happy, bhel puri happy, tongue happy, tummy happy… Everybody happy 

So why this story… Nothing much.. just a justification for choosing this title!  It has been long since I posted (long when compared to my regular post intervals)… Meanwhile, whenever I find something interesting, I make a note in my mind to blog about. So what happened was that too many thoughts piled up and I was in a dilemma to make a choice! So now what you are about to get is a mixed chaat post 

Note: There will not be any link between the previous point and the next point. It is going to be some random order in which my brain pops out the thoughts… I am not sure whether it will follow First-In-First-Out or Last-In-First-out (I remember stack and queue concepts  ) or Middle-In-First-out (#PJ alert)… Bottomline: Its in some random order.

 Talking about out, me being a cricket buff, was reminded of the ‘Rajinikanth match’ that happened few days before. CSK vs RCB match in chennai, where we (CSK) had to take 2 runs of 1 ball. 2 runs was taken and we won with 1 ball to spare  Nothing but a Rajini movie… isn’t it? This was followed by a series of tweets, FB posts and trolls. Completely entertaining!

 IPL se Koi nahi bachega was so apt… All shops have started cashing in. IPL T-shirts, Dhoni bats, Sachin’s shoes, Dravid’s cap… Errr… ok… enough! So apart from these usual seasonal business promotions, I was surprised to see a vegetable shop making its share of IPL profit. This shop had different placards dividing its shop into a mini India. CSK placard had Dhoni and Raina poster and all the yellow vegetables and fruits were grouped here… So was with RCB, KKR and others. Gluncon D was placed in RCB and when I asked the owner he replied, “Gayle irukaru la ma… Avar dhan IPL oda glucose” (Gayle being the Glucon D of IPL ). Innovation at its best!

 Something that pissed me off in the recent times was the lack of bus etiquette. I understand everybody is very tired, having a beaten-to-death kind of energy… But still, it cannot become an excuse. I find people keeping their legs right royally on the seat which is in front of them irrespective of whether a person sits or not… If they are in the first seat they keep their legs right behind the driver’s seat. Its very irritating to see as well as to keep telling them that your leg is touching me. Some people ignore and let them keep, while others (like me) point it out and are greeted by a king-dethroned-expression. Sigh!

 Adding on to the above, judge a person and not their profession. I talk with almost all people whom I see daily… I travel in a bus for almost 4 hours everyday, how on earth can I be without talking to my driver anna… Same is the case with people working in  pantry, cafeteria, housekeeping… anywhere. When I talk to these people just like I talk to any other friend of mine, I find people giving me a look that says “Disgusting! How can you talk like this to these people?”. Telling a simple “Thanks anna” when a driver stops at my stop or when a pantry helper hands over the bottle of sauce is not going to demean me in any way!

 I found two people talking too loudly… Initially I thought they were arguing about something. But later I realised , they were discussing about which is a quality school to enroll their kids. I could very well see that they were neither from an affluent society nor had a literate background. Incredible India!

I had many other thoughts, but as of now nothing else is coming to my mind  This reminds me I should hereafter squeeze in sometime and blog as and when I get something to post about, owing to my poor memory! 

Make way for IT

“Incentives”…. This word stole the limelight  for the past 2 weeks… Pantry, bus, forums, newspapers … everywhere… ‘Incentive’ was always at the top among ‘Trending now’ topics in the world of IT. Ok ok… Am not reminding you about it… So this made me do a quick introspection about how I actually landed up in this IT world.

Flashback (bgm and spiral graphics to be added)

 Age 6 and below

During my kindergarten days and initial classes, me (as well as other kids) regarded the aunty (teachers were called aunty during kindergarten days to create a friendly atmosphere  ) who taught us rhymes as ‘The best’ and ‘The most knowledgeable’ in the world. Anything they say would be holy verses to us and we followed them like mice behind pied piper… If they put a star in my notebook, my day was made… So it was similar to impressing the royals at the courtyard and getting rewarded… I loved being the royal when I grow up… So ‘teacher’ was perfect!

 Age  7-10

‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ and this period was used to hunt the ‘silver lining’ in me. All competitions, sports, cultural events were tried…. Finally, elocution, extempore speeches, poetry recitation, on the spot writing… Anything to do with ‘writing and talking’ were discovered as my silver linings… No stage fear equals apt person for ‘welcome address’ and ‘vote of thanks’… I did the honours…Events were incomplete without me and I ended up as the ‘most popular kid’ in the junior set… Seeing me on stage, people (parents of other kids and teachers) remarked ‘She can make a good politician in the future’… I became ‘Indira Gandhi’ in the next fancy dress competition as well as in my future-Aish dream. I loved talking, writing and enjoyed having people with guns around me to protect.

 Age 11- 15

Now we had sub divisions in Science as general science and social science…  Subdivisions and specialization continued.. This period had made my dreams bigger and better… Debates made me feel like ‘I can be a lawyer’ I felt I can even convince Columbus to believe that America wasn’t discovered yet but I didn’t like the black coat costume though… Serving people… Mother Teresa… Yes… Option open…Next was ‘getting a nobel prize’ and featuring in my social science book  Now comes the serious finding… I loved reading about space, planets, ET, UFO… I started doing more groundwork and realised the field as ‘astronomy’ (I could hardly pronounce it at that time)… The breakthrough was at my family doc’s place when she asked me ‘what do you want to become when you grow up?’ I replied ‘Astronaut’ (with the thermometer in my mouth…I still ponder how did she decipher it)… She was stunned(so was my mom, as she didn’t know it till then) Doc quizzed me to find out whether I really know what I told her moments ago and I passed the test (lawyer in me showed up)  She remarked, ‘This kid is very very smart… I have seen more than 100 kids and everybody had a standard reply, ‘Doctor’ ,’Engineer’ , ‘scientist’,  ’teacher’… But your daughter was the only kid who was different… Mark my words, she’ll go places’ (‘She will go places’ lingered in my mind) From then on my cupboard was getting filled with Space books, cassettes, videos, article-cut outs, astronomy games ( thanks to my NRI relatives… Actually I made their jobs easier… They didn’t have to think much about my gifts… It was obvious  ) So finally now, it was an ‘Astronaut’ who is going to get a ‘nobel prize’ and end up in social science book.

 Age 16- 18

While I was gearing up to be the future ‘Kalpana Chawla’, I learnt that Physics and Maths were the heart and soul of ‘astronomy’… I was comfortable with the heart but the soul scared me to death… I tried finding out a way to check if heart without soul is possible (apart from vampires)… Result in vain! The astronaut in me still prevailed (prevails) but biology took a front seat now… Scientist/ Doctor + nobel prize… Dream revised!

 Age 19- 22

Board exam results declared! No more doctor dream (don’t ask me why … its self explanatory  ) I was offered BDS and I remarked Eeeeewwww Noooo and turned it down (mistake I might correct if I go to the past now) All this while, right from age 6, I always had a flair for english … Be it competitions or just attending English classes… I loved every moment… But I didn’t look at it as my separate field of interest… Now I gave it a thought ‘Why don’t I become a writer’… But I was told, ‘Get a professional degree, stabilize your life and then venture into your area of passion’. I found it convincing… Result : engineering… Again branch…I told, give me a stream that makes me to confront with my enemy(maths) who spoiled my dream less… ‘IT’ was the option! ( numerical paper was 1 sem less when compared to other streams)

3rd year end… Campus interview… So I realised, just cos I had all the above mentioned qualties ..Ability to talk and convince people about deadlines, writing skills when it comes to mails, ability to invent new things (defects and logics), teaching skills in case of presentations, helping without expecting rewards (remember my Mother Teresa dream)…. It made  me a perfect IT material 

Got selected in the first IT company that visited… And the rest is history!

PS: My little little dreams were ignored in an attempt to make the post shorter 

Touch to order- The Desi way

I read this article about Touch based menu implemented in a restaurant in New York. The visitors are allowed to choose their favourite food along with their choice of wine.

You know what my brain would have thought at that moment  Yes… Bringing it to India  As always, implementing as it is will not be addressing our needs… So first plan is to desify it here in our blog space and next is to locate its implementation in Our India 

The major task is to make the touch surface hard enough to withstand the angry water boy and his water glass banging fury, our junior horlicks kids who always stay naughty, the angry couples who bang their fist on the table at any given point of argument… Ultimately the touch table should be water proof, paan proof, chai proof, posters proof and political party logo proof 

Next is language… Menus should be available in English, hindi and the native language of the place where it is implemented… Does this sound like a Tata sky package?  Never mind… Business matters 

Apart from the regular menu, we must have a button called “extra” … This is very important for us, as we always want something extra….“extra” sambar, “extra” papad ,“extra” plate (to feed the kid who’ll refuse to eat even from that extra plate)… So all these “extra”s will be met by clicking our “Extra” button 

When we order, we always end up customizing the dishes according to our needs… For eg. when we order a masala dosa, we narrate “The making of Masala Dosa” in such a way that can make the people sitting in the neighbouring tables assume that the world’s leading chef is beside them  Right from the quantity of oil, the way it should be roasted…every minor details is explained to the waiter who barely shows interest…. But at last, end up eating what is served… In order to avoid this confusion, we implement the “comments” near the chosen menu… We can add comments like Deep fried, less butter, no sugar etc… but definitely it is limited to 100 characters… we don’t want the entire history, geography, physics, chemistry and biology about the dish 

Wonder why did I leave mathematics in the above mentioned list?It needs special mention here… Yes rates… We are very very particular about it. As I have already mentioned, we are a crowd that loves discounts and offers. So we must have a special tab that offers“combo deals” ,  “festive offers”, “Buy 5 get 1 free” (Buy 5 full meals and get a buttermilk free  ) But shhhh… we won’t disclose this now… We’ll add a simple star at the top and say‘terms and conditions’ apply  In the checkout page, we will have to show some irresistible offers that can be combined with the order…

In the beverages section, we must include the options like one by two (1/2), two by three (2/3)… Of course…We are good at fractions and also our teachers have taught us Shaaarrrriiing   

Once the order is decided and the checkout button is clicked, a copy of the order along with the table number will reach the billing section. Another copy will reach the cook.

Errr… here is a problem… Our cooks are accustomed to get only oral dictation from the servers that too in a specific tone and modulation… So we’ll have to convert the order to audio format… On pressing the button, the order will be called out to the cook along with the table number. Until he presses the button, a red light will be flashing to indicate the pending order 

If implemented, the biggest advantage will be to not ask the frustrated waiter to repeat the menu in the sing-song way again and again in his 10000x speed 

PS: Sponsors for the project are welcome… At your own risk 

My Clicks

I wouldn't call myself a photographer... But you know, sometimes miracles do happen ;)
I was going through few albums and there were few clicks that caught my attention :)
All these were either clicked through my HTC wildfire S or NIKON coolpix.

Kanchipuram, Orikkai

Lalbagh, Bangalore

Mysore Bird sanctuary

Bhavani sagar dam

Tanjore

Chilli parota @ Madurai

Yummy Breakfast

That's all for now... The next set of pics will be delivered shortly ;)

My Days...

The memory is still so fresh in my mind… A little girl came and stood near me…. leaning on me… She was so small, so delicate… she stood there with her arm around me… I understood, it was her first day here and she held me for support. No sooner, a small boy came running towards us and offered her a chocolate. She hesitantly took it and the little boy took her to other kids… The little girl now became a part of that naughty gang.

Everytime I see her running around me, sitting near me after a tiring play, she also prefers to sit away from her gang…. near me… if she is angry with them about something…I have been a part of all their games… There were 4 tall naughty boys… They were taller, elder and much stronger than this little girl. They were bullying her and her little friend, when she showed no fear… they grabbed her favourite white stuff dog and threw it… They threw it in such a way it got struck high above… I tried my best to sway and throw it down… But these dirty branches! They made it tough…

Sigh! I saw tears building in that little eyes and I felt bad… very bad… guilty… I was helpless… I saw her come with a chair… She lifted the chair which was taller and heavier than her… I couldn’t stop smiling… She climbed the chair and slowly the parapet near… She lept to get hold of her toy… I wish I could hold her, I was scared she might trip… I bent as much as I could so that she could reach me… Finally, she did  Her smile made my day 

She grew up…. She used to wait for her van to pick her up… She used to keep her school bag and lunch bag near me… Maaan! Her school bag used to be so heavy… Don’t know how the little girl managed to carry it.

During autumn, when my fruits and leaves drop down, her friend and she have a game “PACHHAKS game” they call it… Funny kids  The one who squeezes most of the fruits with their feet is the winner… They love the way fruit burst out giving way to the seed when they stamp with their tiny feet. Shhh… secret… she still does this “PACHHAK” when nobody is around… Don’t tell her that I told you this 

There was a cyclone, she and her friend were amazed to see the way I was swaying… They have never seen me so restless… It was a terrible evening for me… The wind pushed and pulled me in all possible ways… I was hoping that I can stand strong… The little kids neared me… I somehow wanted to push them away as the wind was too strong… When they came closer, I saw a wire hanging free on the road from the lampost. The kids were so lost in seeing the way I swayed that they completely missed the wire…I wanted to shout out or pull the kids away… At that time, a lightening struck me, breaking my branch… I swayed and made the branch to fall on the wire. This made sparks to appear from the open ended wire which scared the kids away… Uffff! It was a scary night!

Days passed… Even when she lost her key or her door was locked, I never let her down… I was there always for her and kept her comfortable under my shade 

She grew up…I remained the same… Today I see her rush to her bus for her work in the morning and wait for her to return late in the evening…. She doesn’t have time to stand near me like before….But I don’t complain…To me, she is still the small little girl, who came and stood next to me, seeking my support, the first day 

Yours affectionately,

Neem tree near Aishu’s house