The Moment of truth, then the reality

If you’ve watched “The Mask” there is little chance that you miss the dialogue by Jim Carrey when he slowly crawls with gun to save Cameron Diaz saying to himself “This is the moment of truth! The time when you get to show what you are made of” and right there, someone points a gun to his head and asks him to surrender.  Jim Carrey reacts by saying “Crap”  

How many times in life, it has happened.  Well, I can speak for myself and it is innumerable. 

Last week has been a lazy ordeal what with the scorching heat in Hyderabad that I dread to step out.  For the records, I dread heat and try and avoid going out as much in summer.  Reality though makes me go out more than often since a lot of work can happen only during the active day which means during the scorching heat

This week I lazied and tried to work from home as much as possible.  Then there is always the truck load of personal work pending.  The laundry list of things keeps growing ever and ever and L keeps reminding that unless I complete them I wouldn’t be able to move back to Chennai.  So after a bit of work yesterday I said to myself “This is the moment of truth” and “I am going to do some serious work outside and complete all the personal stuff”.  I got ready and went out only to find the Bank closed due to bandh! Face Palm!  I couldn’t help laughing to myself and got reminded of Jim Carrey’s dialogue in “The Mask”

But then I told myself that I would do something else and do some shopping given that I braved the heat and came out of the house.  I did end up doing couple of things, so some saving grace. 

Coming to the point of these epic failure moments.  While my heart says, it only happens to you HR, my brain says, its more a matter of doing the precursor i.e. calling up on phone and checking things before venturing out.  L keeps reminding me that this generation is communication generation and everything works on the phone.  But the matter of fact is that, I hate talking to these unknown faces and explaining what I am upto   I have had enough of talking to unknown faces owing to my recent assignments at work as well as the personal things I had to complete.  Every guy seems to be acting smart, busy and perennially held up with something that they talk as if we are the jobless guys.

But finally the moment of truth landed to my frontal lobes (part of brain that involves higher level thinking) that indeed if its your work, you better call up before venturing out to avoid Face palm

Free advice, stop reading my blog, not worth your time

Me visiting a clinic for myself, after long long time and experiences thereof

Want to revive this blog and what best to write than personal experiences.  I have been planning to visit a doctor to put a control on the dwindling timeframe I spend in front of mirror to comb.  After a bit of research and suggestion from discussion groups, colleagues zeroed in on a doctor/clinic.  Today, I braved the work and thought let me visit once.  I generally tend to avoid visiting doctor for any reason, mainly because, most of them give the same medicine branded in different packing and believe it or not, they just don’t work.  Your body has the best remedy and these medicines are just for your brain to think we are taking some action, particularly in the case of things like common cold.

Of late, there are multiple reasons I had to visit doctor.  But first thought I will check on this problem of getting brighter and brighter forehead

So, the clinic was in SR Nagar and after checking with a few folks, landed in the clinic.  As it would always happen I was on the wrong side of the road and had to do a big U-Turn at Maitrinivanam to reach the clinic.

There were a long list of patients waiting and given that appointments here are more of a formality I sat waiting and fiddling with phone.  I touched 90% in wordament (a game for windowsphone) and then checked Facebook 10 times to see no new notifications.  Finally they called me.

There were lot of people walking everywhere (as in the case you would experience in India).   There was a seemingly young girl wearing a white coat who was kind of coming in and out of the doctor room and I would assume she must be a junior.

Then one guy kept coming out and I thought he must be the doctor.  But from the name, it looked like a female so he must be her friend or an assistant.  When I went in the doctor was busy talking on the cell phone. 

The Doctor herself must be in her mid thirties and had a smiling face with a sense of satisfaction (must have made good money for the day ).

But sad part was, she was talkign on the phone for a long time and was suggesting some cream (medicinal) to someone and her second phone rang as well.  She completed both and then looked up and asked in Telugu “Mee Paeru Enti” which means “What’s your name”.  She probably didn’t hear me speak till then so must have assumed I am a Telugu guy.  Yes, I look a perfect South Indian from any angle.  As a matter of fact, I can understand and speak Telugu but once I speak a few lines, one can easily figure out that I am not a native.

Next she asked age and again her cell rang.  She asked for my age in Telugu as well, and I told her.

Finally when she hung up her phone, she asked something else for which I answered in English.  That’s when she realized and asked me “Oh you don’t speak Telugu”  I started “I can, but” and she immediately said “No problem” and then conversed in very good English. 

Hyderabad that way is sweet.  Even if you don’t know Telugu, they will immediately switch to Hindi and if that doesn’t work out, they will tell in Englishoo which is Telugu slanged English

Just like Tamil slanged Englishu you heard in “Why this Kolaveri” song.

The guy who was sitting must have felt left out, so he asked “where do you live, Kondapur is it?”  (It was brilliant that he immediately linked the following: non-telugu guy, must be in IT, should be living in Hitech City, earning more than the revenue of the hospital in a month and other clichéd IT myths)

Next she asked “where are you from” and I said “Tamil Nadu”.  She said “I guessed so much” and smiled.

After that, she did the routine check and gave a few medicines and gel and asked me to use it for 6 months.

Overall I felt, how nice it is to meet new people and how much humour and fun is hidden in simple day to day interactions with people around you.

Bottom line is, get out of your work place and go out and meet people more often, real life is out there, not in Facebook.

Cheers !!!

Myths and reality on clichéd Madarasis

Ok, of late I see a lot of Hindi movies and while the general quality of movies have increased to a great extent, there is one intriguing thing about making fun of South Indians and Madrasis in particular (for the records, Madras doesn’t mean south Indian, would explain in detailed below).  It all started with Chetan Bhagat’s 3 Idiots and the movie remake of it and then it almost continues in his novels as well as some movies lurking behind for similar success.

For the records, Madras was once a larger territory covering deep into Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka & Kerala to some extent and hence the term “Madarasi” refers the entire South Indian clan.  After division of states, Madras was restricted to one city and also further skewed into the larger Tamil Nadu.  So, the oldies in North India get from their ancestors, Madrasis means South Indians.  Youngsters, time to change .

So, for the sake of simpicity, I would take Tamilians (we love if you call it that way as its hard to pronounce the “zha” in Tamizh even for some of our own folks these days).

In most of the movies and novels I mentioned above, they refer to a Tamilian.  You will find one Tam Brahm (a shortie for Tamil Brahmin ) in every class of IIT, IIM or other Engineering colleges.   Tamilians are portrayed as boring, nerdy, geeky and someone who fumbles speaking proper Hindi.  Yes, if you are born and brought up in Tamil Nadu, there is a good chance you can skip Hindi and live your entire life, pass with the highest degrees and distinctions.  Here Hindi is a 3rd language.  Some CBSE schools and Kendriya schools keep Hindi as 2nd Language, but that is miniscule.  The Government schools and Corporation schools dont have Hindi at all.   The Matriculations struggle in between.  But, net net, you can live without knowing Hindi at all. 

It is very unlike Hyderabad or Bangalore where there is a heavy Urdu speaking Muslim population in the former and migrants from North India before sliced bread was invented, in the latter.  So, in these cities, you get a fair exposure to speaking in Hindi and its only natural you dont fumble much speaking Hindi.

But, if you see the case of Tamil Nadu, its very hard.  So, the first time you leave the state and cross the border, you feel very hard to cope up with the rest of the world.  Most of us learn Hindi only when we start living in other states.  Till then its “Ek Gaon Mein Ek Kisaan Rehtha Tha” for us (see video below )

Ek Gaon Mein

Secondly, Madrasis are termed as lungi wearing big moustache.  No, lungi comes from Kerala.  There is a heavy Kerala migrant population in Chennai and it must have influenced some of the Tamilians too.  But the culture of Tamilians is Dhoti.    Big moustache is common in interior villages.  But I think thats common in Northern villages like in the interiors of UP, Rajasthan.

Third, Tamilians are referred as idli eaters.  Yes, idly is a staple diet and in fact its very good for morning breakfast.  The less oily, more rich in protein (urad dal) and simple to make dish is probably best made in Tamil Nadu only.  Gobble 4-5 idlies and you wouldnt feel hungry atleast for 4-5 hours.

Tamilians are referred to as boring, nerdy and not so pleasant to have company.  This is a bit of exaggeration.  I think this character exists in all cities, all states and all countries.  You will find wonderfully humorous folks, good folks, not so good folks and great folks in Tamil Nadu.  Ahem! Ahem!

Tamilians are referred to as Rajinikanth worshippers.  This is true to some extent.  Idol worshipping of film stars is a major setback in this state, although it is reducing over the past few years.  With the generation of Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan, this trend is declining and the fans of new generation stars are scattered everywhere (good for everyone).

Tamilians and in general Rajinikanth jokes start with “Enna Rascala” and then “Mind It”  I dont know the origin of this influence (I know this started in Om Shanti Om movie), but there was never a movie in which Rajinikanth spoke these.  And if at all, it should be “Enna da Rascal” .  There is no word/slang such as “Rascala”.

So, next time you refer to a person who speaks Tamil, refer him as a “Tamilian” and there is a very good chance, he is an excellent company.  He may not be able to speak in Hindi fluently, but he would be a wonderful companion.

Now some realities

Auto Guys in Chennai take you for a ride (literally) if you don’t speak local language and don’t know the prevailing rates

Chennai and Tamil Nadu for that matter is coastal area and its extremely humid during summer, winder and rainy season So yes, skin darkens quickly if you live there and there is nothing one can do about it.

Most of the people assume that you speak Tamil and first speak in that language (In Hyderabad, they look at you and immediately figure out and speak in Hindi, I loved the trait ) and if you don’t understand, they would try first in English.  If that doesn’t work out for you, then they will call one Hindi speaking person in the vicinity.  There were humorous instances where when I was standing in Chennai in a bus stand, people called me to explain something written in Hindi on phone, coz they assumed I would know I know, but I am not that fluent yet (Till 5 years back, I was pronouncing the “nnn” in “mera naam harish hain”

and finally there are wonderful things in Tamil Nadu that you would die for

• Marina Beach
• East Coast Road
• Mahabalipuram
• Ooty
• Kodaikanal
• The Hoggenakal Falls
• Kanyakumari

The above are just things that came to my mind, but there are innumerable such wonders that you would enjoy. 

This post is an intent to clarify a few myths and I hope it didn’t hurt any sentiments. 

Cheers !!!

 

Special Person’s Special Day Tomorrow!

Yes, am talking about L.  Feb 5th is her birthday.  For her, birthday is a very very special day.  For some reason, she has a lot of excitement, not that she expects gifts, but she feels it’s a special day her day.  I agree to some extent with that.   These are small things that will keep us energized in an otherwise mundane life. 

In the year I had met L, her birthday had already passed, so I actually got to wish her, only the next year.   By then, we had already known each other very well.  In fact, we had moved states due to work and started spending time talking, talking, talking….

By the next birthday, we were already married, but I would remember that Birthday for various reasons. 

I am Lazy and she came to realize that only after getting married   You can read my earlier post on this

So knowing me over the 3 months of wedlock, she almost decided I wouldn’t be doing anything special for her birthday except going to office.  The previous day night, I realized what birthday meant to girls, the true terror if you are the spouse and don’t plan anything for your wife’s birthday.   Thankfully, I did have a plan and even had got cake and a ring the previous night all set.  I even had invited her friend in the morning and he came on time.  When she came after a bath she was surprised to see the cake set up and also her friend at our house.  Clearly, she was taken aback, never in her dream thought lazy Harish would have taken an iota of effort to organize all of this

The next few years were ordinary, with regular cake cutting, jewelry.  Couple of years later, a birthday was a little special.  She had an old Nokia phone which was kind of antique considering the range of phones girls had started using then.  What was worst is I took the phone and put in my pocked and while driving a scooter, had dropped it somewhere so she was using a Nokia 3310 phone (the first phone she bought and gifted for me )

The HTC Touch Dual had just come in and it was a tad expensive.  At that time everyone in MS was using the HTC Touch.  The Dual was good in a way that you can use both the Touch interface and the keyboard.  I thought that would be the right thing to buy for her, given that she had enough nightmares with the Nokia 3310 (Believe me, the cab drivers had better phones than that).  I carefully had ordered the Dual and asked the guy to come and collect cash and deliver the phone, at office.

The previous day night I went out with a bag of clothes for ironing (the idea was to bring the cake in the bag discreetly).  But given the earlier instances, she figured out the lame trick  

Also, she must have had a gut feel that I had bought something for her.  She just ran, opened my laptop bag and took out the HTC Dual Box.  She couldn’t believe it and the expression I saw in her face was priceless.  It would remain in memory for my life. 

There haven’t been any special birthdays after that.  Also, the past couple of years, focus has been on Sai, so not much time to celebrate

Here’s wishing you a Happy Birthday!  I haven’t had a friend with whom I can discuss so many things and when I realize that this friend of mine is also my life partner, I can’t help but say, for once in life, I had taken a right decision

Cheers !!!

“The Immortals of Meluha” and “The Secret of the Nagas”

Just finished reading both the books “The Immortals of Melhua” and “The Secret of the Nagas”.   I am a Enid Blyton book reader since days I remember Thereafter switched to Tinkle (Shikari Shambu & Suppandi, being my favorites) and then to Famous Five, Tintin and R.K.Narayan Novels.

Somewhere in the mid, I lost touch and spent almost a decade without reading books.  Thankfully, Jeffrey Archer’s “Only Time will Tell” revived my reading and thereafter have been reading quite a bit of books.  I am not a eBook reader (call me old).  May be once I have a kindle or some other gadget, would get accustomed to it.  Till then, I am a print and publish book fan and don’t mind shelling a few bucks for buying books, if they are good.

One of the books I found interesting and picked recently was “The Immortals of Meluha” and its sequel “The Secret of the Nagas”.  There is a lot of word of mouth about these books and I almost saw 2-3 of random folks in train carrying this book.

Hence, I started it last week and in 2 days finished off both the books.   This book is a mythical fiction narrated on the 1900 B.C. and takes a modern view on what we call, the Indus Valley Civilization.   If you are a staunch follower and can get offended on different opinions about God, you should avoid this book.

What I liked in the books

Both of them carried a simplicity in approach and kept a page turning experience on what next

The way the known characters were introduced in different scenarios was very interesting

It neither dismisses, nor talks much about super natural powers and rather takes a very realistic approach of even the Gods

At least this way, the youth of today would read upon our culture and heritage

What I didn’t like

Many of the sequences were clichéd and also predictable in terms of the outcome.

Too many characters introduced that some point there is difficulty in following who is what.

Having said that, it’s a good entertainer and definitely worth reading at least for the different thought process!

Cheers !!

The problem of Last Name, please, puhleeze, don’t enforce

If you are a Tamilian (South Indian is too generic a term and different states have different styles of naming) and don’t use your caste as your last name, you pretty much understand the problem in first place.

In Tamil Nadu, we follow the “Initial” to identify a person’s clan (in fact, “having no initial” is a bad term equivalent to the highest degree of vulgarity) and hence almost people get offended if you write their name without initials.  The initials are typically the first letter form the father’s name.  Example if someone is Saravanan and his father’s name is Sivakumar, typically it would be S.Saravanan.  They enforce this in Birth Certificate, S.S.L.C (10th) certificate and thereafter everywhere Government issues a document.

Passport is a unique and probably the most important document in one’s life.  And in Passport, to keep it in sync with North India and Western Countries, there is the column “SurName”  This typically means the family name, clan or caste name in some cases (ex.- Rohit “Sharma” or Rohit “Iyer”).  In North India, people do have this SurName concept.  It would be typically Sharma, Mishra, Yadav, Kohli and innumerable such clan names.  They don’t bother about the Father’s name since the clan anyway identifies which is your origin.

So in Passport, these people have no problems as they can put Given Name as “Rohit” and SurName as “Sharma”.  This typically means in Western countries and in call centers these days, they address you by “Sharma”  i.e. your last name. 

Flying down to South oops, Tamil Nadu

There is a necessity in the typo above.  In Andhra, the names are typically lennnnnngthy ex.- Venkat Murthy Malola Krishna Kothapalli.  So they will somehow have to figure on dividing this para into Given Name, Middle Name and SurName.  So, if you are lucky, you will have the right name being addressed to you. 

In Kerala, typically the names are Name + HouseName or Area Name ex.- Sudhish Naduvath or Jitin Parapparappil.  So again, they have all they need

I am not much aware of Karnataka, hence would skip.

In Tamil Nadu, if you have a single name and your father’s name is also a single name.  You are pretty much Ok.  Example, S.Saravanan would have First Name Saravanan and Last Name Sivakumar.  So you would be typically Saravanan Sivakumar and the sad part is, they will address you by your father’s name when you visit Western Countries.  Kind of annoying at times coz, we aren’t used to mentioning father’s name owing to respect unless asked for in a form etc.,

If you have 2 names ex.- yours truly “Harish Ranganathan” and also have an initial “U”, you are pretty much setting up yourself for embarassment.  Example, in my case, till S.S.L.C they used U.Harish Ranganathan in all documents.

When applying for passport, the travel agent enforced me to expand initials.  And for me, my father’s name is Uppili Venkatesan (2 names too).  Hence, my passport name became Harish Ranganathan Uppili Venkatesan.  Many times, the number of boxes in electronic forms/physical forms don’t fit these

And people have great difficulty in pronouncing my surname, which happens to be my father’s name, even in India, leave alone Western countries.

Recently, I had passport reissue and checked if I can shorten my name.  They said, it’s a lengthy process and equivalent of name changing for which I have to get it corrected in gazette and also publish news papers.  With a sigh, I dropped the idea.

So, the enforcement to expand initials (some weird official) has resulted in me, carrying this lenggggggthy name all through my life

Hence, there should be a uniform rule across the country.  Either resort to initials or resort to First Name, Last Name concept.

Cheers!!!

Yet another year passes by

Yet another year passes by.  I am not going by the cliché-d terminology of “what an year it has been”.  Every year brings in lot of surprising as well as ordinary moments.  So, 2011 wasn’t an exception.

The world saw quite a few devastating natural calamities, Japan, coming to the mind first and the shameless adjective we Indians and press uses, “they sprung back into action quickly” without making an iota of effort to practice it for ourselves.

Gadgets took the world by storm with tablets and smart phones jumping in from everywhere.   Facebook seems the most important thing on “what was on everyone’s mind” and the clever marketing folks capitalized it with every gadget trying to be designed for Facebook.

In my personal life, we had quite a few changes happen. Primarily L quitting Microsoft, moving to Chennai and then joining CSS Corp, all of this revolving around Sai’s education and future.

MS became even more consumerish with the launch of Windows Phone, Windows 8 Tablet preview and the Kinect products.  We are all there in your houses

I gained a few friends, few “dunno if they are friends” and lost a few of them primarily due to distance (physical and mental).  Hoping to make more friends in 2011, ouch 2012 (it would take a while before I start typing 2012 instead of 2011 and am sure you would have experienced it in school/college/work)

Looking back at new year celebrations, it has always been the being awake till 12am, wishing some friends and watching television rewind the memories of the year gone behind for me.  Till 15 years of my life, I probably slept off by the time new year landed

One new year celebration, I would remember is the one on 2002.   We four friends, Mahesh, Viji, Sanjay & Balaji (miss you, but you made all wrong decisions in life ) headed on to Bangalore for a party on 31st.  That was the first time I had been to Bangalore and it was quite memorable.  In fact that was the only year when I was away from home on new year.  We walked all the streets of Brigade Road, MG Road and saw how people celebrate new year boozing and enjoying.  It was a cultural shock for me, one who had been all life born and brought up in the middle class Chennai mentality.  

Coming back to present.  If there are a few learnings that I had for the year, they are

1. When you help others, make sure first you have done your work complete and keep it intact.  No one would remember what you did.   But if you don’t keep your stuff done properly, no one is going to feel sorry for that.

2. Not everything people say is true and not even if they say that with so much conviction. 

3. Its not enough if you just work hard.  You need to socialize, make a lot of contacts and make sure that you do the most important things for the organization. 

4. You can do 200 good things, but still one bad thing leaves a deep impression.  In other words, one bad thing/word can make people forget 200 good things in a second.

5. What goes around, comes around, so if you are happy go lucky and do the right things, it won’t be long before you get for what you did (I mean it should be good )

These are generic in nature, but real life examples and rather expensive learnings that might help you.

But leaving all of this, to all you my friends, have a party and here’s wishing you a great new year 2012.

Cheers !!!