unhappy weekend :(

Last three days have been a test to my temperament and the experience left me in sad state. I normally try to be prepared to such unexpected situations but continuous failure left me in belligerent mood. I got an email forward this friday which quotes 'you can always manipulate your mind to react normally during bad situations' and one hint was to concentrate on breathing whenever you feel angry, breathing cycle is connected to the brain and whenever a person is angry their breathing becomes shallow as a result in outburst of anger. We were looking forward for this movie Quick Gun Murugan which is a spoof of old tamil movie for a while and Anand managed to book tickets for the movie 3 days earlier at Satyam. 

This weekend unlike any other was well planned. I had to finish my job early, workout in gym and enjoy the movie on Friday. Rest on Saturday and do a bit of shopping, gymming. Travel to trichy to attend Rams wedding on Sunday and return back the next day. 

On friday i did manage to finish the job on time and was amazed to see less traffic on my way back home. Reached home early and called Anand twice and no answer. Knowing him well i guessed it rite that this bum must be sleeping. So had to stop by his home to wake him up but he wanted to sleep. Went to gym alone was happy to see less crowd quickly finished my stretching and exercises and was rushing back home so that we could go have dinner outside and enjoy the movie. Guess my luck had changed at this point after my return from Gym. Quickly refreshed and went back to pick up Anand for the movie and saw him asleep. Was planning to have something good for dinner and  this time i got annoyed when he said the movie is at 10:30 what are we going to do starting at 9:00. It was a shocking statement usually he is the one who wants to explore places rather than going on planned visits. 

After a late start we went to this hotel in Saidapet named Mount Palace where the waiter fuelled my  temper by delaying not the dish we ordered but notifying us about the unavailability of the dish. He had the knack of posing so many questions as to how you would want to the food to be. And i eagerly wait for the dish to be prepared and he returns back after 5 mins just to say that the dish is not available. He repeated this thrice and i got totally pissed off and wanted to walk out. Anand convinced me that it would only delay our movie schedule so had to stay back without much hope as to when or whether we would receive our dishes. I had ordered chicken biriyani which is the most common dish and doesnt take much time as it is kept prepared. And for some reason it was delivered late too. 

After this short stint with the waiter we headed to Satyam annexe parking where we usually park we reached the spot by around 10:25 and to our surprise it was full. First time since the annexe was open we managed to see it full had to return to usual parking lot which is usually less effective. The guys have 3 gates but they let the traffic through one gate which causes bottleneck. I was suggesting Anand why cant they individual gates for each theatre so that they can avoid the bottleneck. There was a prompt reply from him 'That too will not solve the problem dude what if people enter in wrong gates' which kindled my anger even more as i wasnt expecting a deterring comment. Phew i just wanted to vent my frustrations and his comment left me in worse state. I managed to control my emotions and asked him to get the tickets so that by the time i get to park we will have the tickets ready. But for some reason he ignored that and i wasnt happy and was not in a mood to repeat it. 

Finally we got inside the theatre and Anand tried to convince me that there is no reason for me to be angry. That was totally out of line, i had to reply back strongly that there is all the reason for me to be angry and just want to express it freely. Sorry for that bro but your comments were sharp and wasnt helping me. After that he realised that i was indeed in a bad mood and tried to cheer me up through out the movie. Though i didnt like the movie few scenes in the movie were hilarious. Anand totally enjoyed the movie was laughing throughout the movie and was cheering me up. 

Next day we went to couple of cafe 36 degrees and Amethyst. It was my first time to both these places but my bad luck with the waiter continued. Had to repeat the order again and again as the waiter was leaving out one or couple of items whenever we order. At that moment i said to myself and to Anand & others that i am not going to order for now. Anand pitched in again trying to convince that i have to fight against this so-called fate. There was a kids bday party going on in 36 degrees and there were kids playing all around and fortunately that helped shape my mood. We left to Amethyst unplanned as soon as we enter there was a car standing in parking entrance, being our first time we thought the parking was full and parked my car outside on the road. When we returned to my frustration the car had left and the parking lot had enough space to accomodate atleast 10 cars. Went back again to get my car and park it inside the parking lot. Went inside with a bad mood quickly browsed through the menu and said i want to have Vanilla cappucino and left to the restroom. Came back and was eagerly waiting for the coffee and trying to admire the place. I have visited few countries outside India and have always felt there is no cafe or pub to match one that i have been to outside India. This cafe was totally different and it matched all my expectations. Before losing myself in awe i asked Anand 'so what did you guys order for yourself' and he replied back 'What! we are yet to order, we were waiting for you'. Phew! thats exactly when i had to give up. 

There were few other bad experiences on my way back home. Lets see if things get better when i go to Trichy tommorow.

Phew!!! what an bitter weekend so far...

Origin of SMS short forms

This is an interesting conversation i had with one of my close buddy who used to trouble me by sending SMS in short forms and i had trouble reading it and making sense out of it. She came up with a real good explanation about the origination of short forms in SMS today.

It all started back in their college days it seems where people used to SMS like crazy and all service providers were offering nice offers with free SMS. One fine day they decide to cut short on the free SMS for whatever reason and these ppl who have been SMS-ing for long went crazy & couldnt change their behavior as it had become their habit by now. Looks like if an SMS crosses certain characters will be regarded as second SMS (this was news for me). So they came up with all short forms to avoid the second SMS.

And another obvious reason would have been to make it easier to type messages since the phone doesnt come with QWERTY keyboard installed.

Kandasamy Review

I always wanted to watch first day first show of a movie and it has never happened so far. But i was able to make it to the first day last show of the movie Kandasamy. If i remember correctly this movie has been in the making close to 3 years and there has been lot of speculation & expectation about this movie. I was assuming that it will similar to the super hero movie of Hrithik Roshan 'Krish' and am glad it had no links with that movie. Its not even a super hero movie the film crew did a good job not revealing the story and it paid off well. On the overall it was a job well done. Each scene in the movie was well thought through and executed. The storyline is a blend of Anniyan & Sivaji where the hero fights against lies, deceit, corruption etc. trying to bridge the gap between the rich and poor. And they have nicely portrayed the need for helping the poor.

Vikram makes an move like rooster during his stunt with Mansur ali khan that was my favorite scene in the movie. It really shows how much effort this actor or the team has put in to observe the moves of a rooster and imitate it.

Back to my discussion with Mr.Anand about the movie. He too liked the movie and he prefered the second part better since there were too many parallel threads in the beginning. Any movie or story the first quarter will be character introduction followed by the plot and climax in the final quarter. That was my explanation for his parallel thread-phobia.As usual we were discussing about the movie and its after effects if someone like Kandasamy did exist in real life. There is a scene in the movie where Charlie wishes to have someone as beautiful as Aishwarya to dance & entertain his gang while he is boozing. And Kandasamy dressed like a lady and beats the hell out of them to arouse fear so that no one else will wish something like that again. This is exactly we think. One of the interesting topic during discussion was based exactly on this producing a spoof movie of Kandasamy based on crazy things people wish for starting with a man below poverty line who cannot fund his own needs writes to Kandasamy wishing for food & shelter and how he will wish for all the wants in his life. Man Kandasamy will make people in our country lazy what the heck is this less-communism. Probably people making movies like this should think about creating more jobs with in the country and motivating people to work more to earn more. Create more awareness about educating their child, learning to think on a long term etc.Thats the only things that going to help on a long term.

Lost in drift towards North Chennai

Everytime we drift it has been different experience different topics each time. Most often we stick to the same route and lose ourselves in the conversation. But last friday it was a bit different i drove towards north of chennai a route both of them were unfamiliar with. But Anand was too much in to explaining his business plan and myself on the wheel trying to focus on both the business plan as well as the route. Oflate i have been miserable in remembering numbers, landmarks, routes. And it was more difficult for me to multitask while driving through unfamiliar route and trying to keep up with the conversation.

We were driving after watching 'Love aaj kal' not a great movie. I didnt understand why there wanted to show two parallel love stories happening during different times probably a decade after another. It even doesnt make sense when the old Rishi Kapoor looks like Saif during his early age when they literally have nothing in common. Anyways no one can predict on what basis a movie hits box office.

The trail started of from Satyam cinemas through nungambakkam, kellys, aynavaram perambur, icf and thats were we lost trail. There was a junction in perambur and we were exploring 3 of 4 roads in each direction and we got lost exploring the road in the 4th direction. From there it was all new hope it was mostly perambur, otteri, vyasarpadi all new places were we havent been. Luckily for us we had few passers by and we came across 2 police checkpost where we stopped by for directions and finally were able to make it to the same junction. At that moment i was dreaming about owning a GPS or atleast a phone that has a phone that has GPS in it. And Anand said dude all you would need is a magnetic compass and we can always track our way back. It sounded like a cheaper solution.

So i was googling about magnetic compasses the next day i was too deep into an article and realised after finishing it that it was explaining more about navigation during older days and the invent of magnetic compass rather than 'how to' use it to navigate. Guess staying awake during nites is making my mind cloudy.

Neighbors Envy Owners Pride

July 31 2009

Anand & Myself were planning to go for this movie 'Luck' starring Shruti Hasan for almost a week. But for some reason we end up watching some other movie or going on long drive. July 31st was one such day we planned to do a few things after i came back from office (for those who are wondering what Anand is doing, he is an serial-entrepreuner looking forward to make his mark in business) 

1) Visit lifestyle and buy one Wallet - Anand's request

2) Watch Luck

3) Return IT-return forms to its auditor

and it was raining heavily when i got this reminder SMS from one of my friend about Raeesa's First Birthday. This event totally slipped my mind so we had to alter our plans. Anand went to visit his auditor and submit the IT-returns and i went on to attend the bday party so that we can still make it to the movie.

But it turned out differently the party was overflowing with kids and two of my friends hosted the party with fun events. Had to spend time at the party more than expected. Returned back from party around 10:15 pm. Was too late for the  movie with one task pending we had to visit one of Anand's Friend's house related to IT returns and back on track for our drift nite. We are talking about which trail we should probably take and decided on a usual route when we passed Velachery almost at the same time we thought of exploring Velachery. So it was an exploration of a new trail passing through Velachery, passing 2 tolls in OMR and a 3rd one to connect ECR toward Mahabalipuram. 1 stop in the connecting road from Kelambakkam to Kovalam to watch the lightning connect the sky & the earth. The connecting road was surrounded by back waters from sea for collecting Salt deposits. With no building near by the place was calm, peaceful and we had to stay in the car as it was still raining watching lightning strike earth. We were blaming ourselves for not bringing the Camera. If you are in Chennai and if its raining this is one good view of Mother Nature you dont want to miss.

Another surprise was collecting new 10Re Coin as change in the 2nd toll. They have newly introduced this 10Re coin  and many of them dont even know that it exists. Now we are proud owner of 10Re coin. Visit Anand's blog to geta glimpse of 10Re coin (www.anananataraj.com).

And then we drove ahead towards Mahabs this is not the first time am visiting this place. Its my mother's home town so i go there for every annual leave during my school days. It was even my first school trip in 5th std and this guy was my classmate, friend since then. This place is known for its heritage stone carvings, shore temple, light house. It lies in the coast of Bay of Bengal and was an established sea port of the Pallava dynasty (http://www.mahabalipuram.co.in/). I have visited this place all through my childhood and have seen it modernize with the civilization. Though they have spent effort & money to  preserve stone carvings, temples it looks brand new to me. I no more get the feeling of visiting an heritage when i visit Mahabalipuram. Probably am expecting the world to be the same so i could relish my childhood memories.

Total cost of the trip = 2 return tolls on OMR 60Rs + 45 on ECR