8 least known facts about me

Thanks to Sukumar for tagging me. I may be forgiven for missing the 8 hr deadline and also for not tagging 8 others :-D

Here are the 8 least known facts about me.

1. I started talking only when I was 40 months old. And my parents put me in school as soon as I started talking. So right from primary till college, I was the youngest in my class.

2. Though my dad was a state champion in aquatics and a swimming coach in IIT, I didnt learn swimming from him till I went to college. Later I learnt on my own. Even now I'm not a great swimmer but I wont drown :-)

3. Started my career in a small ad agency in Delhi, writing copy for some leading brands in audio, clothing and home appliances.

4. Had a pet named Caeser, a friendly dachshund, for 8 years. But after his death, I didnt have heart to have another pet.

5. Was an off-spinner in the Media cricket team in Delhi and played for Indian Airlines, Hindustan Times, Pioneer etc. All time best was 5 for 25 in 5 overs.

6. I am ardent lover of Carnatic music. Favourites are D K Jayaraman, Maharajapuram Santhanam, M L Vasanthakumari, Aruna Sayeeram. And in the new generation, O S Arun.

7. Thanks to my brother, who is is IAF, I got a chance to visit many of the remote places in India in all the 4 directions. Thanks to my job, I visited many countries in EMEA and APAC.

8. As the travelbug bit me, I became a shutterbug. Lately, I'm into serious photography.

Successful Marriage

Ever since I was tagged to this meme by Prem, I was wondering if there could be something like ‘commandment’ for a successful marriage. IMHO, this is a relation which has got immense and deeper meanings and cannot be bounded by a few commandments. I agree that they may help one to be cautious not to harm this eternal (yes - eternal - some may disagree, but this is my opinion) relation. I’m in a composite position where I feel I’m fully qualified to say this and totally unqualified - at the same time. All I can say is understanding, acceptance, accomodation and finally assimilation would be an ideal and successful relation. This may sound very philosophical, beyond the reach of our antennae and seemingly complex. Despite all these, making it a success is - not victory - but sheer joy which one can relish for ever.

Akkam Pakkam - Quo Vadis Minister? Quo Vadis Comman man?

On saturday I’d been to the S’pore airport to recieve my wife and daughter who are coming after a month’s stay at Chennai. One of the ministers from our Tamil Nadu cabinet was also in the same flight. A group of ‘chamchas’ were waiting at the arrival hall with garlands to recieve the ‘honourable’ minister. When he and his gang (around 10) came out with their luggages, this group went and garlanded him with those ‘long live’ slogans. It was a commotion. People from other parts of the world, who are not used to these kind of nonsenses (nuisance??) were taken aback at this sight. I was standing little close to the group and watching them. What happened after this was the ugliest. I dont know what went wrong, the minister slapped one of the members before the public. He folded his dhoti and started shouting at him, with the garland around his neck. Poor guy, seemed to be a gentleman, was looking around with shame. Everybody was watching the scene with shock.
We’ve seen our politicians with such appaling lack of manners both inside and outside the assembly. It doesn’t make much of a difference to us. But when the same happens in a foreign soil, that too before the public, I felt ashamed. Will these ministers ever change? I wouldn’t say its his fault. He is made like that. It is our fault to elect him and send him to the assembly. Every election, the voter turn-out is falling and it hits a maximum of 55%. The remaining 45% is us - the well educated, who can think rationally and act. But unfortunately, we dont. We only keep talking that India can never develop as long as this bunch of corrupt politicians are get rid of. But we dont take a step forward towards that. The first step would be to go cast our vote. What do you say?
But having had the experience at chennai in the recent local body elections and how the police machinery was a mere witness to what ever happened……it seems we are losing that opportunity too.

LOC - Malai

First, let me thank Archana for the invite. Though my name figured first in the invitees list, it took a bit long to send the story. Well…I confess….I was little preoccupied and I forgot that I should send the story. Yesterday it suddenly struck me that I need to send mine. Sorry for the delay Archana.
2006 April. It was quite hot and humid here at S’pore. We had scheduled a delivery for the client. It was a db Analyser tool for a database called jBase. We had spent more than 3 months on that. After UAT, it was scheduled for production release on a friday night. Immediately after the release, we had to run the tool. Our estimation was it would take around 20 hrs. After that we had to handover the system to operations who had to run the overnight batch which will take another 8 hrs. We thought safely we can complete everything by Saturday evening.
We were a 3 member team. So I had asked Malai to come for the first 8-9 hrs and Kandha can continue after that. I decided to stay thru as I wanted to see the thing go smoothly. As scheduled, Malai and myself were there at Friday midnight. After db backup and other usual procedures, the system was handed over to us and we started off. Things were going with no hiccups for the first session. Malai went home by around 9am and Kandha resumed. The analyser was running like a obedient boy and I asked Kandha to leave by around 6pm. I thought I can manage another 2 hours and I can go have a good sleep. But to my dismay, the performance dropped drastically and it was taking unusually long to analyse even smaller tables. The recalculated time showed it might take another 9-10 hrs !! With help from the networking guys and batch operators, I was trying to get things back on rail. Mhmmmm….nothing worked out. The head of the Ops was sitting on my head to get back the system on time. Else he said, he is going to restore the backup and start. I was not ready for it.
10pm. Situation was getting worse every minute. I had no choice but to stop it. I tried my hands with code. In offline mode it was doing well. But in auto mode, it was again showing up its bad face. Even if I could fix it, I cant get it to production. 11:30pm. I was too tired staying awake for more than 22 hrs. I decided to call up Malai and run the thing manually and complete the rest. I explained him the situation and he said he will come soon. I asked him to go to the head office in the city and call me from there. But after about an hour and a half, to my astonishment, he reached the office where I was sitting, with all his luggages. When I called him, poor guy was shopping in a mall in the city and he had to leave to India next morning for his marriage. (I thought he was leaving the next week.) He went to the city office but the security system didn’t allow him as it was past midnight. He took a cab to home, packed his luggages and came. I had no words to thank him. Sunday 1am. We started the manual process and managed to complete by around 6am. We handed over the system to the operations team. Then I went with him to the airport and sent him off. I had a good sleep after that.
I was amazed at Malai’s dedication and commitment. Without his assistance on that day, it would have been a disaster. One, we would have been forced to withdraw the production release. Second, we would have started all over again if we had stopped the process. For us, it was a major release which we didnt want to miss at any cost. It was a real challenge to build a tool with umpteen features for a ‘pick’ database. It is such gems like Malai in Cognizant who make it happen.
With this, I would like to invite
Balasubramaniam, Shyamala (https://ch1blogs.cognizant.com/blogs/149685/)
A, Prem (https://ch1blogs.cognizant.com/blogs/104888/)
Many of my friends dont blog

Akkam Pakkam - The Taxi driver

Met an interesting guy today. I took a cab from Little India to my home. The driver was a Chinese but I saw a small metal Ganesha vigraham on the dashboard and some flowers around. Normally, in Singapore, the taxi companies lend the cars to more than one driver. So I thought the other driver could be an Indian or Malaysian. I picked up a conversation with him as usual.
When we were waiting in a traffic signal, to my surprise, I heard the driver chanting “Om Shri Maha Ganapathaye Namah”. He was reading it from a small piece of paper. I asked him about that. He said one of his friend (who is also a chinese) had visited India some years back and on his return he had given this vigraham, and has taught this driver about chanting this. From what he described, I guess his friend must have visited Pillayarpatti. This driver was so passionate about this vigraham and was very proud that the vigraham is with Ganesha on both sides. He knew nothing much about Ganesha but he was blindly beleiving that the ‘mantra’ has done him lot many good things. Whenever he has faced any problem, he has chanted the mantra and prayed to Ganesh. He said everytime he has got help from Ganesha - when he wanted to get the traffic cleared, when he felt the car in next lane is going to hit him, when he lost his wallet in a tea shop, when he contracted SARS, when he had a problem with his wife….everytime he has prayed wholeheartedly and he believes that Ganesha has helped him overcome the problem. I was amazed by his strong belief. He is actually a Chinese christian, but later he started following Buddhism. But since last few years, Ganesha is everything to him. He regularly goes to a Murugan temple every morning and wears vibhuthi. He doesn’t know much about hinduism or hindu gods, but he says he feels good to visit the temple.
That reminded me of the two forms of devotion to god in hinduism. Maha periyavar has written eloborately about this in his book ‘Deivathin Kural’. One is ‘marajara kichoram’ and another is ‘markata kichoram’. Marjaram is cat. Cats carry their kittens in their mouth wherever they go. Some people believe strongly that god will look after them always and they just need to do their duty. Whereas markata kichoram is monkey like. The baby monkies cling to their mothers stomach and never leave them. Likewise, for some whatever they have, think, do…everything is god. To me, this driver seemed to belong to the second category.

Akkam Pakkam

'Akkam Pakkam’ in tamil means ’nearby’ or ‘around’. I just wanted to record what I see, hear, read, listen………

The Eight fold path

To an extent, in my opinion, Buddhism seems to have come up on the premises of “Adwaitham”. Why I say to an extent is because, buddhism does not talk about GOD anywhere. What we call the “paramathma” may be “buddha”. Coz, a paramathman can view the universe as one (the ‘viswaroopam’ post by Archana explains this). All yins & yangs in this universe can do no harm to him. Both hinduism and buddhism emphasise on “knowing yourself”.
Buddhism has a practical and definite ‘guide’ to become a buddha. The eight fold path is what buddhism teaches as the ‘way of life’. In fact, every religion teaches the same thing. Be good. Do good. Just imagine. How a buddhistic world would be…if only every individual could become a buddha. This would be an utopian thought. But this universe is balanced by yin and yang. (btw…for those who may not be aware….yin and yang are the two sides life…light and dark, good and bad….) It is upto the individuals to choose the path. Neither buddhism nor hinduism (any religion for that matter) do not ‘impose’ anything on any of its followers. But it is unfortunate that people have not understood this basic thing and society is being ruined in the name of religion. But then, on the contrary, how will the world move if every body is a buddha? [ Any takers on this point? ]
Listed below is the eight fold path advocated by Siddhartha. Which religion does not preach these? Every other religion keeps telling this in so many different words directly or indirectly.
Right views & right thoughts - related to wisdomRight speech, right action and right livelihood - related to ethical conduct and behavioursRight effort, right midfulness and right concentration - related to intellectual development
Seemingly simple but difficult to follow. It needs a lot of determination to practice these. Or is it the otherway?
Let us think over…..