The Power of excel

We have just started storing all our factory records electronically and to have some feeble sort of supply chain management system. I had started with evaluating SAP.. then came down to C++/Java with Access database... and now I am amazed at the power of Excel. With a tad programming I am able to automate our entire factory management system in an excel. It looks damn neat too! My father in law is impressed - that says something... doesn't it. Little things in life matter!

I am nursing a 3 month old baby at home and am unable to venture out for my weekly grocery shopping. Living in an IT city I believed I could have everything delivered at home. I have been surfing the net for the better part of the day and am unable to search a decent site to do my grocery shopping! eCityIndia is the closest that comes to the amazon WebVan. Unfortunately, they too shy away from grocery delivery at home.
An opportunity for me perhaps? :)

Vedant arrived today.

Back Home..

I am back home after a very long time. Yesterday morning when I stepped out of the plane the Kuantan musty sea smell hit me like a blast - sweet sweet home!

This time I am staying in mummy and papa's new house.. it is 2 doors away from the older one.. and though I miss my goldfish and the pond and my hammock I am not complaining.. this house has a full front view of the golf resort. To our complete joy, the golf course is now a jungle and every day creatures come tumbling out of it to our house. At breakfast there are friendly monkies who dangle their long arms in through the windows to coax my mom for over-ripe bananas. Then there are the birds... hundreds of them which flock to our veranda to gobble up the food grains which my mother leaves lovingly for them outside, complete with a mud bowl of cool water. And then, there are some new species! for me atleast! Yesterday my father introduced me to 2 families of "ghungaas".. they are super ugly brown colored blotches that live inside pristine white conch shells. Life is good here with them.

Also, the skies welcomed me with a double rainbow yesterday and streaming rains in the hot wet sun. Back home to Malaysia. :) :) :)

I have a thing against libraries. I always imagined that books are to be bought, wrapped in neat clear sheets, read diligently and then stacked high up in the home bookshelf for the next generation. You may disagree but there is a feminine fascination in owning stuff that is hard to deny. As a result, a large portion of my petty paycheck would be spent at Crosswords or Landmark monthly.... to an extent that it got fairly large. I also have a very bad habit of running through a book, as one would gobble up a piece of cake, so much that it takes me three to four days to devour a Salman Rushdie masterpiece.

A week ago I stumbled across a new age library - Just Books. I call it new age for a reason - it does not have issue cards, it does not smell of paper, it does not have books with yellow pages, it does not even have table and chairs to sit down and study and it certainly does not have a sixty year old librarian with a perpetual frown and hanging spectacles.

It does not house your science fiction and pulp classics. However, it does have the top of the charts flicks and the occasional Calvin and Tintin - so yes, it does serve the purpose! I am milking my Rs. 150 per month membership for all it is worth. I have already devored an Amitav Ghosh, a Tintin, a Dan Brown and a basics of accounting book.

Moonrakers

There are coastal cuisine restaurants and then there is Moonrakers!

Tucked in deep inside Mammallapuram, Moonrakers offers the most chilly, juicey, lip-smacking coastal cuisine. We went there a year back and we came out with charred tongues & satisfied souls. This year, I scheduled our annual vacation at Mahabs JUST SO THAT WE COULD GO AND EAT AT MOONRAKERS. And, eat we did! All meals for 2 whole days! And just when you are visualizing a varied cusine that will tantalize every taste bud that you possess hear this - they cook every dish in ONE DRAGON HOT RED CURRY!!

You can order squids, giant prawn, live lobster, snapper, mackerel, blue crab... just about anything.. You will get it smothered and fried in that same yummy brilliant red curry. And what a curry that is... Its sight is enough to get your stomach rumbling, fresh out of the frying pan as it splatters all around the table. You eat a morsel and you would be gulping down jugs of cold beer next (which they server in steel glasses since they do not have a alchocol license yet AND you need to hide the beer bottles under your chairs!). You would say out loud "Oh this is my last bite", licking those finger tips clean and then reach out for the snapper with it's eyes still embedded in it's sockets. An hour later you would be sweating and panting and thats when the waiter would come and ask "Ayoo Madam, Neutela pancake?".

Aha! and that brings me to the second reason why we go to Moonrakers. To be quite honest that neutela pancake is nothing to boast about. But, when you have just devoured a platter of squids, followed by a giant whole fish the neutela pancake is nothing short of genius. To bring things in persective here is a 'Before' and 'After' pic at Moonrakers.

Arghhhhhhhhhh!! This sick business is really getting to me. I have been down and out for the past 4 days. The thermometer is refusing to come down below 100 and the doctor is refusing to let me go to work. I tried feebly to work from home today. I failed miserably. And that is not even what I am angry about. I am completely frustrated with the pharmaceutical industry. #$%^&@#**%%$!
I mean these guys can create wonder pills then why not one that tastes atleast like boiled brocolli? The least repulsive one that I have tasted recently reminded me of my first experiment with cooking.

'nuff said! Alright, I am a jobless person today. Here is how i spent the day:
1) 1 cup steaming hot coffee with extra spoonfull of milk powder
2) half a soggy vada that i had attempted for breakfast
3) searched for the betty crocker chocolate brownie cake mix i had stashed away last month
4) logged on to check emails. replied. period.
5) saw the movie 'rat race'. Ok, i need to say something here. I could have forgiven the director for hanging a cow by its leg from a hot air balloon and squeezing milk out of its udders into the villians face... but then he had to get 'feed the earth' org in the end to lap up the prize money... just sleezy guys!
6) tried to do steaming with eucalyptus oil. apparently it opens up the nose. well, i don't know about that but the oily black heads seem less!
7) tried to sing and then laughed at the pain it inflicted on my throat
8) switched on mtv since the voices were far better than mine
9) typed on the keyoard with mt ees closed.
10) took a nap
11) googled for the price of necker island
12) perfected (a little more) my secret language
13) drank water (the doc said to do so)
14) searched again for the chocolate brownie mix
15) made a list of shopping items
16) contemplated what to cook for dinner and was surprised at 6:35pm by a chicken biryani from my neighbour. mwah! they are really nice people.
17) was alerted by a wheezing sound in my chest and called my doctor to find out if I finally got the swine flu. he said to call back if it gets any worse. does it mean i have it? huh? doc?

So, necker is still way.............out of line. I think i will e-mail richard branson and claim i won't stop until he calls me and invites me for a private vacation on his island.

Sick!

I have never been this sick for a long, long time! I have caught up with all Star Plus soaps in the past few days. Facebooked every friend I have... Yes, even the ones you would have spent a lifetime avoiding!
Hot chocolate and dal/chawal are keeping me company all day through but I am sorely missing my C&H collection. :(

The butterfly effect

The butterfly effect is a concept that talks about how simple decisions create a chain reaction much later in life.
Yesterday, I was going through my facebook link and I noticed that all my friends who choose commerce in class 11 have atleast one kid by now.
None my friends from 11 science have a kid. Some not even married.
I never assumed the difference would be so stark!

Papa's retirement plans!

A couple of days ago I was having a heated discussion with my parents about retirement and coming back home to India. They are now eligible for senior citizen travel discounts back home and there is no reason why they should continue to work at Malaysia.

Today, I was looking through a family album and I found this -

This picture was taken on a lazy sunday morning at Chempadak beach close to our house. Thats when I realized, sitting at work and rushing through program milestones, that they are leading a retired life!

One of the nicer things taking up the web space - The Random Kitten Generator

Gangetic plains

It is the new year already. It does not seem so. At the stroke of mid-might this new year, I was chugging along in a train across the country to be with my family. There were no shouts of 'Happy New Year'... only condolences to be shared and tears to be wiped. It was a homecoming of sorts.. I do not imagine that all of us have been in the house together for more than a decade. The train journey also added to the nostalgia. Wind swept plains, bone racking bitter cold, countless cups of tea devoured to soothe an aching throat and 3 advertisements on the walls lining the railway tracks: sex consultants, underwear & plywood veneers.

I know this landscape all too well. But, I have missed it sorely too. Endless sarson fields that paint the earth yellow! I wonder how they look from high up in the sky.. Human caricatures propped against gnarled tree stumps with the all too familiar (and grossly) painted matka for a face & ragged inners for clothes. The yellow fields seem to be making up for the sun's absence but only so. Here and there i can see the villagers wrapped up in warm woollen shawls and mufflers walking fast to finish their ablutions. They know that the day will end early and they dare not waste minutes of precious daylight. Cakes of cow dung have been stacked neatly besides the fields to be used for 'smokeless' heating during the night. The mist from the Ganga still shrouds the plains and brings life to a standstill as it did aeons ago.

But some things have changed. For the first time today I witnessed village boys playing volleyball on a barren patch in the field. The clothing too seems to have undergone a drastic change. While earlier it was common place to see farmers in their traditional white dhoti, banyan & a turban (to protect their head from the cold), today I can see them in pyjamas and even jeans. Brightly designed shirts and multicolored mufflers complete the ensemble. Bullock carts have been replaced by modern day machinery and the easy farmers' walk is replaced by a steady pace.

I wonder when will I come back next. The plains seem to be locked by time unto eternity at each sparsely spaced marriage or death visit in the family. I wonder whether I will still call it home years later when all whom I know there have perished?

Incomplete

It is 2 am in the night and I am unable to sleep. Knopfler is keeping me company with Shangri-La... There is something about this album that reminds me of mid-night drives in snow covered Milwaukee streets. That was a long time ago though.. Come to think of it I would really like to go back there for sometime.

It is also the 28th of december today. The year is zooming to an end! I will be 27 next year..Woah! It is hard to believe because somewhere in my mind I still think of myself as a 23-24 year old fresh college grad. A lot has changed though - Tonns of responsibilities that I never knew existed on this planet, additional pressure at work, expectations that need a million lifetimes to satisfy & dreams that seemed too easy back then but are much further now.

by day & by night

                                                                                                                  Lubeck, Germany

Ever wondered if someone could make a virtual copy of you? Apparently, a dozen hundreds of researchers working across the European union will be able to a few years from now. Aptly named, The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) aims at creating a virtual human model that can be adapted to YOU.

So what does it mean for me? Say, I have a blockage in one of my coronary artery and the doctor wants to plan a bypass surgery. I would search for a surgeon who is well past his prime, since we are looking for experience here, to plan a complicated surgery and hope that it is successfull. The surgeon might refer to your CT/PET/MR scans to visualize your heart and then plan the surgery. Now this is where most doctors complain - "What I see in your images does not help me plan my surgery". A powerfull statement. Isn't that what we are supposed to do anyways. And this is where the experience of the doctor counts. A 20 year experience guy will be able to interpret a scanned body organ better then a newbie. But then again comes the aspect of personalization. How a disease affects patient X might not affect patient Y in the same way. So all said and done, when the doctor opens my heart in the OT he is on his own to do the best that he can.

What if the doctor could create a virtual model of YOUR heart? What if he could plan the surgery on the virtual model? What if he could see the results of the surgery even before he has put a knife across your chest? Woah!!! Brilliant... right? That is what these bunch of the most distinguished researchers across the world are aiming for. They are creating a virtual heart at an organ, micro-vasculatur & cellular level. Then they will be able to personalize it based on your CT/PET/MR scans. The project will be funded by the european union and is pegged at 17million spead across 4 years.

So next time you want to say, "I can give my heart for you" to your sweetheart. You can. Really!

Tata Docomo works on a second basis rather than the usual minute basis! This is seriously new!!

After a good stint of mignight marketing Docomo seems to be swamping the media. We caught a glimpse of it while driving back home late last night. "Docomo? That sounds Japanese??", Raghav has said. And you bet it is! Tata is collaborating with the Japanese company NTT Docomo to bring out this new pre & post paid service. Tatas are war heros here in India after the 26/11 attacks. If people are moved by their allegiance to the Tatas, Vodafone and Airtel are in for a big shock. It seems to have taken them by surprise too. Usually when a competitor is about to launch a new product they start lowering their prices, come up with great deals... but its zilch from them!

To top it off Docomo has beaten the Airtel catchy tune with their new jingle which seriously looks like a rip off from "Do re me fa...". It works though.. reminds me of junior school choir singing classes with Mrs. Madan. I was flipping through radio channels in the morning just to catch the tune!!

They have not even attempted to put up bling schemes. They don't have to. A pulse rate of 1 sec is going to work magic for them.

I am honestly tempted to leave my 4 year old vodafone connection now.

I watch television regularly. I am surprised that I have not come across my neighbour Mr. Gupta on it yet. No really! If you have been keeping a track of the number of reality shows being aired on television today then forget Mr. Gupta I should have seen my doodhwala on India's Got Talent, my advocate on Rakhi ka swayamvar, my childhood friend on MTV Roadies and my dog on Paris Hilton's BFF by now. (My husband tells me that BFF means Best Friend Forever...)

Let's see first there was (is) the Internet. As 12 year old kids we would dig our oily noses into the x486 computer screen to peer down the all-text world wide web. It was magic. I could type Illunga and get listings from all across the world. Heck! I would even get up at 3am in the night to avoid big bro & get the Internet all to myself. But that, like television, was one way traffic. Soon I got my first e-mail account on hotmail. I remember that summer explaining to Nani why I will not be sending her my monthly post-letters anymore because it was too slow and just too much work compared to an e-mail. Painstakingly I took her to the computer and showed her how to send an e-mail. She looked suitably impressed. Though even now, a decade later, she continues to walk to the local post office to send out her weekly correspondences. I have send her countless e-mails shot out in-between 5 mins class breaks in college and 2 mins before catching the bus to home from office. But they are not stacked neatly in between all my older letters at the back of her sari cupboard.

But lo and behold! E-mail was not where we were stopping. The next station was Orkut!! Oh, I cannot stop gushing over it! The first time I stumbled across it I felt powerfull. I could connect to all my friends, old classmates, long lost relatives. People I had spent a lifetime avoiding. And we could talk! Talk about the exact shade of stockings Paris Hilton wore last night, how shiny Shiny Ahuja's hair is, where in the world did Micheal Jackson broke his nose... But we veterans have given up on Orkut now. Not because we are too cool to be a part of the number game (I have 364 friends. How many do you have?), but because we have This! Blogspot! MySpace! LiveJournal!

No really! Did the world not know about me already? I feel compelled to pen (type) down every thought that flirts across my mind. I care enough to jazz up my page (or did you not notice?) so that people comment to my posts. Come back and check out how I am saving the world in ways you-would-never-understand. And oh I am going to reveal my dirtiest secret! I even had a link posted across my previous site on livejournal to track who was opening my website. I would get sadistic pleasure to see every morning that people across the world wanted to read what I had written! But now I am pulling the plug. I have stopped short of plastering Carmen Electra nude across my site to intice people. But the world does not seem to be stopping. Writing is passe! It is time to face the world in reality. YouTube started it and the channel gurus seems to have deciphered the workings of a teenage mind. And that is where the new generation of reality show yuppies comes forward! The same set of youngsters audition for these shows across channels. Or did you not notice? The mtv roadies winner dragged his twin to see how connected they were? An older episode runner up is trying her hands at becoming a diva. All aspiring models turned actors turned jobless guys are desperately trying to woo an item-number girl. And I am tweeting on twitter!

I should have stopped. I should have stopped before opening 123greetings to send a quick birthday card to Dad on his 50th birthday. I should have stopped short of tweeting that I will be going to the loo in 5 mins. I should have stopped before shooting out that last e-mail to Nani explaining why I won't be able to come to Jhansi to see my ailing grand-dad because I need to accomplish a really important milestone on my product.

Papa is celebrating his 60th birthday this december. I already have the best calvin and hobbes design cut out to draw for his birthday card. Raksha bandhan is coming up. This time along with my annual rakhi to my kid brother in Jhansi, a beautifully hand written letter will be enclosed to Nani. I hope it finds its way back inside her Sari cupboard.

Could use some Dilbert today.

We love President Obama. We - read as the Incredible Indians. President Obama - read as the saviour of Kenya & the rest of the world. Infact we love anyone who is nice to us. We loved Clinton when he said "Tandoori kebabs should rule the world", we loved Bush when he carried India through the civilian nuclear deal... Heck! We even loved Danny Boyle when he won accolades for showcasing Indian slums.

But, we love Obama for much more: He cut war funding to Pakistan, he had a potrait of Mahatma Gandhi in his senate office & he proclaimed that New Delhi is Washington's natural strategic partner! .. and last time we heard there were rumours floating around that he has a Ganesh idol and has read the Ramayan! Nice Mr. Obama! You could not have done it better. The funny thing is that a lot of us do not even agree with the Gandhian ideologies and definitly none of us has ever bothered about the war in Talibstan. Yet, we followed him as he stumbled through his oath to presidency, we listened to him through the night as he took the weight of the whole world on his shoulders & we watched him dance coyly with the first lady thereafter. And everyone noticed that! Our political parties for one. Rumour has it that one of them even has a huge poster up in the city of mug-shots of their goons with Obama in the center. HA!! and you thought we could just copy-paste your films!! And your software... and your designs... your patents... toilet paper... erm.. okay fine, you knew we would get to Obama someday too!

The interesting part is that with all the Obama hoopla going around no Indian party is exploiting his "We want change" brand for the upcoming elections. Now, these elections are super-duper important for us. For me atleast. I am 26 years old. I will be voting for the first time in these elections. Yes, I did not exploit my right for the last 8 years. At 18 I was going mad preparing for IIT and could not bother much about the guys making the reservation rules, at 20 I was studying in South India (and discovering for the first time that the south of India does not comprise only of Madrasis!), at 24 I was way too much in love with my first job and slogged past mid-night for months until I realised no one gives a damn and that night-balcony-Bangalore-weather is right up there above gallons of chocolate chip ice cream. Or with it! So what has changed now? Have I been influenced by the Jago-Re campaign? Or is it because they came to our office and made us sit down like 2 year olds and fill in our forms and then submitted it also for us? I guess the latter. We like it when people do things for us. We also like them when they are nice to us. But what do I do now? Do I vote for either of the two leading parties - One who is losing ground and the Other who can't protect women against violence? Or do I vote for the third - which comprises of people from all flavours of India. People with no clear leader. And while trillions of rupees are being siphoned off for this election I wonder - What about the war in Pakistan? How long can the people of that country hold guard against Taliban? How long before they get access to nuclear power? What about the infiltration of refugees from surrounding countries? What about the recession and the people who are losing their job today? Where do our leader stand on these issues?

Recently, I have started following the 2009 election debates. Sessions where party spokesperson come and play the blame game. "Sir, can you give me assurance you will not go and join Party X again?". "In that year when you did X my party protested and we were right". "Sir, you were not with this party at that time". "Maybe not, I still supported the ideologies".
What crap! I do not care what you did in year X with party Y for reason Z. Tell me what you will do over the next 4 years. Tell me where you stand on global issues. And for heaven's sake send your leader to speak.. not some polished yappy speaker. If you care about positioning my country at an advantage in these times. If you care about providing me a good life. If you have people around you who have the competency to deliver this then showcase them to me. I will follow you as speak. I will follow you through your oath. I will follow you as you stumble across your first decisions as the leader of this country. I will follow you because you care.

Our Wedding

Anushree & Raghavendra

21st December 2008

Charans Club & Resort, Lucknow

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