Mandatory Update

Lots of things have happened since my last post two months ago. The most notable of them being Virtusa's volte face on my job offer :( Oh well, life goes on at Verizon, or so I would like to think. Interesting to see in what general direction my life will be headed...

Oh yeah, and just so that saved message in my cellphone outbox isn't wasted, here's a list of all the places I visited in the period from May 13th to May 28th (or roundabouts that time..) :

• Papanasam
• Kalladaikurichi
• Vallioor
• Tirunelveli
• Salem
• Kunnathur
• Trichy (aka Tiruchchirapalli)
• Thanjavur (aka Tanjore)
• Varagur
• Swamimalai
• Kumbakonam
• Veppathur
• Kidathalaimedu
• Pudukottai

Of all this, only Vallioor and Kidathalaimedu are worth mentioning.

Vallioor town itself is strictly okay. But the estate that we own [part of] is pretty amazing, to say the least. No, actually, it rocks :-) What with all the lack of 'amenities' like electricity and gas stoves, we had to eat stuff cooked in battered aluminium vessels over a wood fire. Food actually tastes better that way! The occasional hints of the existence of certain nocturnal wildlife were suitably hair-raising, as were the weird noises that would be heard at night outside the shack we were staying in. Noises that everyone would laugg about, but never go to investigate. I'm proud to say that I was the bravest one - I needed to pee and actually walked in the middle of the night to the ramshackle toilet hut thingy :-D

Kidathalaimedu [KTM] is worth mentioning simply for the fact that it has the audacity to call itself a village. Pudukottai is a village. KTM shouldn't have a name. It's all of one temple and four houses. That count exactly. What's amazing is that it even has it's own postal code!

The rest of my life has been pretty much the same - eating too much, getting abused by hijras on the train to Bombay, eating some more, sleeping, eating and reading blogs. And eating again. Which would explain why I weigh three-quarters of a century in kilogrammes :-(

Oh yes, one more thing, that I simply *have* to mention. I have a new person to totally adore the writing of [is that statement even correct? Oh well..] - Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta.

Thank you for bringing Bombay to me in Chennai!

Whoosh!

Is that because of the car passing by, or simply its fuel?

This sounds slightly Utopian, but freakin' cool! Fuel cells be damned!

With the incorporation of bi-energy (compressed air + fuel) the CAT Vehicles have increased their driving range to close to 2000 km with zero pollution in cities and considerably reduced pollution outside urban areas.

!!!

Know your multiplication tables

It's April 2005. And guess what? It's designated Math Awareness Month!

Few cooler things in the world...

Longest chemical name

Now there's an interesting title for a blog post. [Un]fortunately, it also happens to be quite appropriate for this link here.

Son of a....!

More Slashdot

Man, that site rocks! No, actually AlterSlash rox...

Check this out! Chance e illa!

This is nice!

http://www.hairykrishna.f2s.com/droplet.html

Techie, but nice!

Culled from a Slashdot post:

"When a drop of ethanol is dropped on a surface at low pressures (1/5 atmosphere or less), it makes no splash. Science offers a brief synopsis and fascinating pictures of the phenomenon. The results seem to confirm the (perhaps counterintuitive) prediction that more viscous liquids are more likely to splash, not less likely . Links to the researchers’ home page at U of Chicago (as of now, the site is timing out) and pdf version of the article on arxiv can be found on the Science page also."

Bliss

I went to Tirupati on Tuesday, the 15th day of March, 2005. I describe the date in so much detail because it has been the singularly most sublime experience of my life.

The Padmavathy temple at Tiruchanur [aka Alamelumangapuram, apaprently] was nice, but didn't have the same effect the hubby's shrine...

Cutting through all the bookkeeping details, we made it at last to the sanctum sanctorum, after grappling with a most unruly, rowdy bunch of so-called 'pilgrims' [One guy actually yelled "Yenna myra pudungara!" at me! While in line! Inside the temple!].

Ecstasy.

For the entire duration of the minute I was there.

No sounds audible. Nothing else visible. No thoughts. Nothing. But the idol and its aura. Unadulterated divinity. Unsullied by the rotten world. Untouched by the trials of time. Pure.

Unquestionably the most spiritually and physically overwhelming encounter in my life.

Even the variegated, unlimited lunch after the darshan couldn't do much to shake me out of this kind of trance state...

Indian Ocean...

...rule!

Doobke jaan tu kitna paani

But, undoubtedly, their best track (out of all the ones that I've heard, grand total of 5) must be something called "Torrent". It's the ultimate in vocal/guitar balance. And it's all humming! No lyrics to worry about! One of the few natural highs in music. (Another one being GNR's November Rain...oohh..goose pimples....)

Once again, they totally rock. I worship them.

Pompous Extortionist Jackass

This post, once again, should've come earlier, but for extreme laziness :(

Anyways, P.E.J is what the Ticket Collector guy on trains is. I know he's called TTE or some other bullshit, but frankly I just don't give a damn any more. After two completely miserable train journeys between Chennai and Mumbai, where the PEJs seemed to have it in for me. At least in terms of trying to line their pockets.

I formed the above term after I'd been asked to shell out dough for him 'allotting' me a seat. This in spite of me having a confirmed seat. i.e RAC at time of booking, but confirmed a day later. I concretized the term after having my confirmed seat allotted to some other cheap prick of a Marathi guy. Without the PEJ even bothering to examine my ticket. Travelling Ticket Examiner? My shiny hiney. I'm never travelling from intermediate stations any more. And hopefully, after a short while, I won't be travelling by train any more =]

Dragging feet

Okay, now I just feel obligated to update.

BSNL is one suck-ass, god-awful, low-down SCHMOZZELBURGEN of a company. I have no idea what that word means, but I hope it conveys what I think of the organization. And in case it doesn't, well, it plain sucks.

After *not* sending me a bill, disconnecting my phone line for not paying a bill I never received, and generally giving me a lecture for forgetting to bring along a pen to the Customer Service Centre, the dumbass female issues me a receipt for my latest bill, which I hadn't even bothered about. [Because it's last payment date is much later].

So after I tell her about this, she goes into another diatribe on how people rarely pay their phone bill on time, all the while completely oblivious to the fact that people are waiting to precisely that. Anyways, I get my proper receipt, go home and find out that my connection still hasn't returned by the next day. You know what comes next. Back to the same old center, same old counter, same old crank. Except, this time, she decides that simply sitting there and looking around is her definition of 'busy' and asks me to come later. Fortunately for me, I go away and don't come back. And mysteriously, my connection was also restored...go figure...