Thank God "It's a boy"

When the baby starts its journey from a dark place hoping to see light, it is greeted by the people to a place where the darkness in the form of ignorance is spread far and wide. The mom waits in desperation to check the baby's fate. She waits for the three words that could make or break her little one's life.
#Scene 1
Result: "It's a boy!"
Jubilation! The new father is greeted by all. Look of pride on the father's face.The new mom heaves a sigh of relief!

#Scene 2
Result: "It's a girl!"
The new mother is abused for her inability to give birth to a male heir. The baby is taken away without even a second look.The newborn girl is made to bid farewell within few minutes of her arrival and is sent back to the permanent darkness from where she came.

When a girl is born she is seen as the curse to the family as the family feels a girl is a burden. She is seen as an 'unavoidable expenditure'. Thanks to the dowry system (though we boast that it's completely eradicated). She is seen as a harmful piece of flesh that can bring miseries to the family as it develops. She is considered as a black mark. If at all the girl survives this ordeal, the society continues to see her as a piece of flesh, torments her and makes her feel insecure every moment . Her tears are ridiculed and her feelings are massacred.

The three most deadliest words in the world, "It's a girl" ! These three words can make a human turn into a beast. Evan Grae Davis points out the 'gendercide' that's prevalent in India as well as throughout the world and shares the video of a woman from rural Tamil Nadu who admits killing her daughters by strangling to death as soon as they were born. Hearts go heavy when we hear him share few incidents that take place in China and Cambodia.

Can you ever think of the world without girls? The day is not far if this situation continues. As per the video 200 million women are missing in the world due to the 'gendercide'. There is a gender imbalance observed throughout.

We say education and bringing awareness can make the situation better. Even I believed in this till I read this news that a Chief Judicial magistrate of Gurgaon has allegedly murdered his wife. Reason being she couldn't give the Garg's family a son. It's just a speculation, but still even a slightest doubt of this sort on a person who holds a respectable position in the society makes us feel "Are we really civilised?". Link to the news here.

But what do we do? We read this news, scold the society and move on to the next news. There are N number of videos, news articles, campaigns, statistics that are time and again showed but what do we do about it? We appreciate the move, shower many awards, talk about it for a while and then? As it is rightly said in the video "When we say 'Save the Girl Child', whom are we addressing to? " Instead the change can happen only when each one of us turn the mirror and take this owe of saving the girl child. We'll have to be the change that we wish to see in the world.

A girl is a special creation. She has been bestowed with the power to create a life. She goes through all hurdles just to see her loved ones smile. She is an epitome of selfless love, sacrifice and patience. When a girl child is killed, along with her, the share of love, care and affection that the society would have got had she survived is also killed.

I write this post with deep sorrow, regret, agony and rage. While I write this post, somewhere deep down I still hope there will be a change soon.

Link to the video of Evan Grae Davis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=42i1sIZ-9kQ

Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.

Stick no Bills?

Few days back when I was walking to a nearby shop, I saw a bright white compound wall with bold black words shouting “STICK NO BILLS”. During my return from the shop, I took the same route but I couldn’t trace this bright white compound wall. I looked around to check whether I took the wrong road, only to find a guy at the fag end of the road busy completing the assigned task. Yes! Sticking posters. He neither bothered about what was written nor about the wall getting spoilt. All that mattered to him was to finish sticking all the posters given to him in any possible space that was seen.

A foreigner started taking pics of him and requested him to pose for his Nikon. His joy knew no bounds  He, in fact gave a live demo of how a poster is stuck and the foreigner was happy to learn the art quickly. He too did a big favour and stuck a newly released tamil poster and showed a thumbs-up as a sign of his victory 

Our inclination to stick posters was clearly visible when I found “Happy Birthday Rocky” stuck everywhere along the roads of Adyar and Guindy. Birthday wishes through posters and banners might be common but this was weird. Rocky was a dog  The irony was that an old woman dressed in rags who must have been starving for days together was seen sitting near that “Happy Birthday Rocky” poster. But still, what to do… We (a major section of society) still prefer spending money for printing and sticking birthday wishes for Rocky rather than for feeding the needy.

Another set of posters that irritated me are the small hoardings that are placed on the OMR road depicting disgusting accidents. It makes us feel sick to see that early in the morning… A man who’s head is crushed etc etc… I understand its a measure taken to make people stick to traffic rules to avoid such mishaps. But still, early in the morning, seeing such pics depresses me to the core. So, my friend has a note of all the locations of the posters and ensures that I don’t turn that side   Such posters are uncalled for… As people who break rules will continue to break them in spite of such warnings. It only affects the others who travel by that way especially there are many kids who take that route. I wish something is immediately done about such posters.

There are many accidents that are caused due to these hoardings. There are cases where the hoardings have fallen on the vehicles, hence causing accidents.

Sigh! But why do we actually stick posters? Initially, it was the most popular way of advertising when the exposure to media was less. But now, that’s not the case. Social networking sites, online reviews, forums, print media, TV, etc. give a lot of attention and the publicity is phenomenol. But still we stick posters just for cows to eat them (I learnt not only donkeys but even cows eat paper unlike described in my 2nd class science book).

Its our city, our responsibility. We cannot litter on the road and then complain that my city is unclean. Reforms should start from each one of us. Avoid sticking posters and spread the same to your friends. Lets make our city a better place to live!

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 ;)