Im posted in Chennai ( read CHengelpet), a lil over 45 kms from the city at a serene location with huge buildings and an amazing infrastructure that would have costed the company millions of dollars.But the reply for what my role there currently is still unclear,though i have a project code for this in the org BNCH (‘SHORT’ form  for Bench) .I go there daily and come back learn a bit ,travel a lot. So i thought let me revive  the habit of blogging and fotoing again..

Disclaimer :

All the posts from now on would be total non-sense and nothin more than that.So for those, who’s project codes are anything other than BNCH can skip reading them.

Hey folks,
it’s going to be a real long time since i made an entry. So to continue with where i left…I joined Infosys ,Mysore with dreams like every other Engineer passing out of an engineering college , dreams of making money and learning new stuff. I came to Mysore with all things packed up and i knew it was not going to be a cake walk , neither did i think that it wud be  tough..Hmmm 8th Sep’08 , the day when i first entered the campus as an employee , it was great n it took us so much time to settle down. those were golden days , those initial few days..Of course, who would’nt be happy if someone calls you “sir”, and cleans your room everyday as if you have booked a royal suite. Before i forget,the rooms.. imagine you go out of your home (get off your comfort zone!) for the first time in 20+ years and not staying with some 5-6 guys in a dorm,but in an air conditioned room with 32 inches LCD TV and the room’s fully furnished , what more would one expect?
The main reason for this silence is partly due to the work timings and partly cos i had lost the interest in everything…One thing about Infosys is that if you have to survive here,you should be ready to oblige to what they say initially. if 65 is the pass percentage , get it somehow and be safe. After that around November or so i was put in Mainframes stream and that happened to be interesting and a brand new thing (for me)  so learnt that but that was not a smooth sail again, i flunked in the compre exam and that was like a ” in or out” situation. So was going through a bad phase.After all this the recession has taken its toll, No projects and so no work for us and i don see any work for me in the near future. I have to learn, to sit idle from 9-5 everyday i guess.Let’s see what’s in store for me. My training’s expected to get over by March 15th but rumors widespread that we’ll be asked to ‘ (No) work-from-home’ for a couple of days..One good thing in all this is that i visited quite a few places and i’ve been waiting to share the experiences and i will soon put ‘em all here.

I know there’s no one to bother about why no entry has been posted here ….. Even then i would give a reason , Its simple I have started my work life .  MY joblessness was the soul reason to make me attend an interview and get into a ‘famous’ BPO ( herein referred to as call centre ) in Chennai . Last week me and a friend of mine went to attend the so called HR interview at Santhome and as never before in the history of interviews the HR was waiting for us cos as usual we went very late . The interviewer was so ‘kind’ and made us take up a telephonic interview with an AMERICAN lady who’s name was some gowry or somthing.I thought she never have spoken a word in Tamil all her life but she seemed to be one of those Maami types. That was the first instance which made me realise that with a telephone you can make an American think that his English is not as good as the one’s on the opther side.. I assume that is why Call center’s survive.. well After that i got selected in the not so tought interviews, and felt too good to have gotten placed for the second time in my career ( So far ,so good ) .

My first day at work( training rather) I was told to go to their learning centre and that is a small class room for 25 fully equipped with latest computers and high speed net ( I cannot check mails , no orkut , no blog , nothing that i would do at home on the internet ) so decided to install VLC media player to watch movies , though Pen drives and CD’s are restricted , sneaking them inside is not a problem at all ( the funny part  is that securities check the bags in and out but never have they checked my pockets) . The training consists of Presentaions ,  basic grammar , and later improved on the tricks of handling calls and the tricks involved in handling irate customers. The cafetria is good but the free lucnch provided is kind of horrible . Before i forget, the best part is that at 6.30 in the morning i get a phone call from a person who addresses me as “Sir ” which  has never happened before ha ha ha , He’s the cab driver and since i am not the punctual types and the office being close to my place i have been in cab only twice or thrice.

Well , you could have found the reason for my long silence in blogosphere and let me keep you all updated as to what’s around , until then bye.

P.S : I’m trained for the post of Technical support executive for DELL or in simple terms I’m gonna be one of those ‘call center agents’ . Fortunately I don need to hide my identity and Im Ashwin not ‘Anderson’

Well , I know it has been a real long time since i posted an entry. Thought i should at least post a recently taken pic, i liked the pic so much. Think you’ll enjoy this !

A slight shower after scorching heat would make anyone feel like sip a cuppa coffee and so me and my friend ended up in a hotel where a man in his fifties walked to us barefoot and handed over a leaflet (yes,the same old bit notice) . At the first sight i thought it was some ad for a local clinic which cures aids by just popping three pills , just crushed it into a paper ball and put it in my pocket without even glancing.. as my friend was busy messaging his gal friend(s) and the waiter was not in mood to take cheap orders like coffee so was left with no choice but to read through the leaflet. It seemed to have a logo of some temple and since it was printed in a font which stood in between unreadable and readable had a tough time reading it. It started like this …Bakthargale , (devotees) and it seemed to go on like a story thenceforth..

The story goes like this.. There was a priest in a village 200 years ago and while coming out of the temple after his chores , was bitten / entrapped by a snake and then god came from the snake that was hurting him . WOW, God then explained the priest how unsatisfied he/she is with the people because no one turns up to temple/don offer feast to the poor….and then the god gave a solution to this and asks the fellow priest to print ( Did they really printed on paper 200 years ago ?? ) 1000 copies of leaflet with this story on it..It doesn’t end here.. Those who read this notice ( purposefully /accidentally ) must print another thousand copies and your wishes in life would come true , along with it was mentioned that those who fail to do so will be sabotaged.

Footnotes :

• A man named saravanan died cos he read one such thing and did not redistribute it.
  

• Someone who couldn’t print it lost 5 lakhs in business and later he distributed them to get 15 lakhs in return.

The last 2 lines consisted of names of the family members who are involved in ‘This Service’ to the society and the name of the Offset printers (with a huge logo).

Thank god the coffee came right on time to save my friend from getting abused. I just have a doubt here. Why can’t people make up better stories?? And all i wonder is this. Is this a sales pitch that the Offset printers have initiated ??? or is it the loss of the temple business that kindled  the whole theory for making the temple popular ?? what ever it is i wanted to appreciate the people involved in such a novel way of advertising a temple ( and the printers, of course) . If people wanted to do service to the community they can do some math to arrive at a fact that it will cost 50 paise per print and a thousand would cost 500 bucks which could be spent on something useful , say feed a poor for over a month ( or at least wish that guy buys himself a new pair of sandals ) . Why does all of us have to believe in shortcuts ?

N.B: Don’t ask me for the leaflet i tore it in bits n threw it away…

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I dunno if i have had Deja-Vu or it is the pace of science that amuses me. Have you ever thought of a technology or scientific invention when u were in your childhood that had become de facto later on? I have had this feeling a lot many times , for eg. i have always thought of having sensors to prevent accidents in car and today, there are parking sensors in every other car which is in the similar lines of what i had conceived. I’ve heard from many who have had such experiences. I wanted to share this after going through an article on BT (May 4th) which was about DETOXIFICATION of the liver and bladder. I have always wondered “why is that there is not a system by which u can flush away all the bad things that have gotten into your body??” and this article was totally about flushing off toxins from the system.

This idea proves to be helpful for those who travel a lot and for those who have irregular eating and sleeping habits. The therapy is a simple solution to regain the goodness of your body. This proves to be a shortcut to increase your life span and all you need to do is spend a week eating healthy + all the weird concoctions prescribed and the next week you can continue with your routine totally-junk food…wow… I wonder why i am not a scientist though i think of all this beforehand … anyway who knows, there might be a day when a tiny pill containing all the stuff you need to keep going would compensate a day’s meal..(or is there such thing invented even before i post this ).

Forwards are annoying and worthless but there are a few which are worth reading so i have posted one such here… Enjoy

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the
summer away.
Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or
shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Now , look at the Modern Indian Version

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant ‘ s a fool and laughs & dances & plays the
summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands
to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others
are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next
to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

The World stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor
Grasshopper allowed suffering so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant ‘ s house .

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that
Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for
not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the
Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support
as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for ‘Bharat Bandh’ in West
Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in
the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and
Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway
Trains, aptly named as the ‘ Grasshopper Rath ‘ .

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ‘ Prevention of Terrorism Against
Grasshoppers Act ‘ [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes ‘Special Reservation ‘ for Grasshoppers in Educational
Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant; fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to
pay his retroactive taxes; its home is confiscated by the Government and
handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ‘ A Triumph of Justice ‘ .

Lalu calls it ‘Socialistic Justice ‘ .

CPM calls it the ‘ Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden ‘

Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly..

Many years later

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar
company in Silicon Valley .

100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere
in India …

Because of losing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers,
India is still a developing country!!!

In spite of being funny , this one seems to convey a very powerful message to everyone and i believe that reservations are a main cause for the slow development of the nation. The alternatives could be reservation based on economic factors or alike. Though the implementation seems to be tough one in a overly populated country like ours , it is the only way to escape from reservation preventing the growth.

P.S : I hate RESERVATIONS… At least because i haven enjoyed it . lol

I happened to see a nice white car stickered with a something bold while i was riding and somehow it gotten into my mind so much that i thought of posting my view on it. It was “WORSHIP THE CREATOR NOT HIS CREATIONS” , I’m not an atheist or anything but i have always had this strong feeling against people who blindly follow others who supposedly call themselves god or messengers of the lord.I just wonder how a person can be the messenger of god?? is that because god has told him/her to take care of the world on his behalf ?( if so how? ) , if the person knows he’s not god and he should not be worshipped why is that he doesn’t come up and ask his DEVOTEES not to worship him and to worship the ultimate lord. If the person plans to serve the world and if thats all he wishes to do he can do it as well calling himself a devotee. This i believe is the main cause for many of us loosing faith on the Creator. So to conclude it short and crisp “Worship the creator and not his creations”.

Cast : Vijay ,Trisha ,Suman, Vivek.

Director : ‘masala’ Dharani

My Score : 2/10

Kuruvi is one movie (of many) which i accidentally happened to see on the big screen recently with a couple of my friends. So why not give a gist of the whole movie for those waiting to see , here it goes.. I’m not a hardcore fan of any specific actor or actress to tell u all honestly and so my words would be Credible I guess. First of all, the expectation that the movie had was way more than what it happened to deliver to the audience. Luck favored me on that day and i happened to just spend 60 bucks for the movie instead of some 100 bucks or so in some other theatre. For those who want to make a quick decision on whether to go for this movie or not my suggestion would be a big NO unless u have all the time in the world and few headache tablets with you. The Movie had an opening just like any other masala movie would have had with a comedy sequence by vivek and then the entry of our ‘Ilaya Thalapathi’ (Roughly translated as ‘Young Captain’) Vijay as a car racer who happened to enter the track just a minute before the race commences. The Car which the HERO drives is a modified Skoda which looked like it has never been used in 10 years (That look was given to make the audience feel that our hero can win any race irrespective of the car and its condition) .The most funny part of the whole movie comes now when the race starts and the competitor who has a fully equipped higher end model car loses the race and the twist in the race was when the rusty age old Skoda’s accelerator cable is cut and our hero takes the cable with his teeth (Don ask me how) and pulls it to VROOOOOMM… Oh my god i got the feeling of watching some cartoon series directed specially for kids below 5. I remember having seen Malavika in the whole sequence (only in that part though).

I believe this whole sequence was directed for some other movie cos nowhere in the movie was his racing ability shown on screen. The story of the movie goes like this — Vetrivel (Vijay) and Ops (vivek) are thick friends who are totally jobless and Vetrivel’s father Manivannan (Singamathu) was missing leaving behind the burden of a very big family to his son Vetrivel. The family seems to have not worried an ounce about the missing of the head man of family and all of a sudden a financier comes and empties the house informing that Singamuthu has mortgaged the house for a 50 grand or so and our hero requests (He Orders actually!) the financier to give some more time and that is when Vetrivel along with Ops Flies to Malaysia (Everyone accepts that it was shot in Malaysia but why the hell do they need to show PETRONAS tower in every frame) as Kuruvi’s ( Couriers- who transport local electronics and other similar goods).Vetrivel comes to know that a person named Kochha (Suman) owes more than fifty lakhs to his father and he clubs the trip to Vasool the money from Koccha who happens to be the DON of Malaysia. Vijay enters a club and fights every other bouncer there to gain entry to see Kochha in vain. He gains entry into the Don’s house and somehow of all gets caught by Devi (Trisha) who is the sister of the terrific Koccha. As we all can predict they fall in love in the later stage and Vetrivel Steals a precious diamond from the villain with such an ease that pick pocketing seems to be so tough. Since Devi has seen the person who saved her from death only with a mask she finds it hard to identify Vetrivel as her Dream Hero. They come to chennai and Vetrivel leaves his diamond in her bag and Vetrivel along with Ops tries to recover it before which the villain comes to town and the sequence goes on with such a drag that i found counting the number of rows in theatre exciting.

In the second half, Vetrivel comes to know that his father and a set of people are in captivity and are ill-treated in a Quarry, from which extremely expensive mineral is extracted (of course, government doesn’t give a damn) and the rest of the movie is about how he rescues them all single handedly and how he ends up marrying the heroine. The most interesting of all would be the scene where Vetrivel with all his strength blows down the villain and the villain’s wife being a very nice lady witnesses the event and reports to the doctor as hit by a train. I can accept heroism, cinematic stunts and anything of that sort but comparing Vijay’s hunk to that of a train is ridiculous. This movie was directed by Dharani who happens to be the king of ‘Masala movies’. It was produced by Udhaya Nidhi Stalin who’s the grandson of our Chief Minister Dr.Karunanidhi. I think he has no interest in politics and I pray to lord that he doesn’t make such movies ever after. Kuruvi – A FLOP SHOW. A better option to Kuruvi would be ‘Arasangam’ which at least spared me from the head ache. Please Leave your opinions and score in the comments section.

I have been thinking of starting a new and functional blog for almost half an year now.. now that i’m in the transition phase from a student to an employee which is accompanied by a lot of spendable time i am starting it now. i expect to post at least once a week on almost anything that i hear , see , smell , feel , think. I’m open to corrections-logically , language wise, in whatever sense it may be.Keep commenting! So without further ado i wind up the intro.