Miles to go...

Off late this blog is becoming a medium for cribbing and it is high time that we talk something good. Long long ago, so long ago I had written about how pathetic the roads in Siruseri were and how hapless we found it to commute from to office every day. Times have changed.

Well, I’m not hinting that the notorious IT Corridor is complete. The last status I know of that is - it was halfway through - From Madhya Kailash to Thoraipakkam in the 30 KM stretch – when I left home back in December 07.

Yes, I experienced the paradigm shift when I moved to the states – Florida to be specific - six months back. Over this period, I have traveled extensively through most of FL. The first thing that inspires awe in any first time traveler is the quality of roads. But when you learn that these roads were built like 30-40 years before you get even more wonder struck with the amount of maintenance that goes into this as anything and everything over a period of time is supposed to have its wear and tear. Picture this in a land where labor is exorbitant.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how much people love to drive long distances.
Well, it is long at least from the Indian frame of mind. Over a period of time, after I started driving I find it to be a pleasure too. Much of this should be attributed to the well conceived idea of The Interstate system.

The Interstate Highways (Freeways in CA and a few other places...) form the backbone of road travel between the states. The design for the system is inspired by the German Autobahn Network. The idea is unbelievably simple. The roads are built according to a certain standard with NO traffic lights at all. You join the road at some point where you are given a short distance to accelerate and catch up with the moving traffic. You catch the desired lane - the one which suits your speed and just keep the foot on the gas and hold the wheel straight. When you want to get off, there are numbered exits around. Take which ever you want and that is it. Pretty simple, Huh. There are maximum and minimum speed limits which you are supposed to follow and the signs are VERY clear making life easier. Usually these exits connect you to State roads and from there you end up in country routes which take you home. This is pretty much prevalent almost everywhere except for a handful of cases. The US Highways compliment the Interstates and they too run through the length and breadth of the country. Although they follow a similar patterns and standards, they are maintained by the local or state governments.

According to Wikipedia, the Interstate system was officially completed in 1992 at a cost of 420 billion 2006 dollars making it both the largest public network system in the world and also the largest public works project. I can't help but to think what would happen in India (with all the politics and corruption around) if a project of this magnitude is undertaken.

That apart, I would say that the new projects that are being undertaken back home are no mean efforts and hence should be highly appreciated although everyone love to see a better pace in the progress. The Prime Minister's Golden Quadrilateral Highway system has influenced the lives of a good percentage of people. I have personally taken the Chennai - Bangalore highway and it was pretty impressive.

Given such nature of the roads, it is common place to find people traveling as much as 40 odd minutes to work every day. And one thing that is not so well developed in this country is the public transit system unlike India. A few major cities and industrial hubs may be exceptions. But a vast majority of the nation depends on their own cars to take them places. Well, a few of them changing given the current economic slowdown is a different story altogether! :-o) For me, I have had no problems so far commuting here as both the places I have lived are suburbs and I had to commute less than 5 miles to work every day. Even otherwise, I would have found it a pleasure...

As the famous saying goes,

Miles to go before I sleep.

And, I’m enjoying every yard of it..! :-o)

I leave you with a few of the best shots that I took on the road…

The drive to Clearwater Beach from Tampa. Clearwater is one of the famous beaches in the US.

A scenic bend at the Everglades.

Above and below : Beautiful Country Route in Homestead, FL

These photos were taken in US - 1 en route to Key west, FL. This is by far the most scenic drive I have ever been through in my life. The photo below of the GPS pointing device would tell you the story : One straight road for 120 odd miles with nothing but water on both the sides... To get a even better idea, visit this google maps page!

In case you have missed out on the other travelogues and pictures, do visit them here...

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

On the move...

I have been on the move this year. Very much. Literally. The first one from India to Tampa, FL was by far the biggest and it changed quite a few things in my life. The Second one was from there to Boston, MA where I took up new assignment. And now, as I write this, I'm on the move again. This weekend, we are trying to move from one apartment to another in the same community where I currently live. This post is going to dwell into the intricacies how hectic is this process of moving.

America is a wierd country, at least from the point of view we Indians. We come from a land where cheap labor is available in abundance and at will. But here, it is exactly the opposite. The cost of buying a new one is in most cases cheaper than the cost of repairing one. Sometimes (very much in the case of automobiles), the labor for installing a part would be costlier than the part itself!!

Being a bachelor, I have shifted homes many a time in and around chennai and it was no big deal. When my parents do it, it is even simpler as they usually hire these movers and packers guys and you don't even need to move a spoon. They pack it, ship to the destination and unpack it too making life easier. Most often, during the process of moving, we Indians have a simple policy - Try to get rid of anything and everything that is not necessary. And most often the home is almost unihibitable after you leave and requires extensive cleaning. Now, picture this in this country where labor is exhorbitant.

The apartment rentals are a well organized business here. You have a proper leasing office who take care of leasing, maintenance and all that. Once you decide to move in, they take care of completeing all the legalities, do the paperwork and make sure that you move in without any hassles. In most cases, they collect a caution deposit - which is very much like the advance system in India. Well, It is not as high as 6 months rent but usually one month's rent or less. They also make sure that you move into a house that is brand new.

Another thing that we need to consider here is the nature of my work. Junta companies - Infosys, TCS etc., - out herds of people to work onsite on a L or a H visa. A vast majority of them are bachelors in their twenties. So, they end up living together - like a 2HBK apartment being shared by 2-3 guys. In most cases, the apartment is leased out a few years back and it is passed on generations onto generations. It is not just the apartment, but many things are passed on too - Like I inherited quite a few things like a microwave, a couch a table / chair, Kitchen Utensils etc., when I moved to FL. All I wanted was my clothes and my own bed to hit upon after a long days work. Now, this is great when you move in.

But it is a totally different case when you end up vacating the apartment. Your home suddenly seems like a Alibaba cave and things that you have never seen even once in your lifetime spring up. A couple of colleagues who ended up vacating one such apartment were greeted with a storeroom full of cartons. I found a branded guitar in mint condition when I was cleaning up my closet. I had never even glanced it once during my 6 months in that house.

Trying to evade fines, my roomie and I, with the help of a couple of good souls, ended up cleaning the house in 3 days - Only to be greeted with a letter from the apartment community with a fine for 250$. The reason - Shampoo washing the carpet, some general cleaning and replacing the stove dip pan in the kitchen. I was just left wondering what was the whole point in cleaning the house for 3 full days. :-o( The only good thing here was that my company bore the cost of relocating a few of my things from Tampa to Boston.

Just a month into the new at Boston, my roomies and I have decided to move again. And this time we are in the process of vacating a house that has been in the loop for more than 4 years. So far, we have made quite a few discoveries - A unopened / sealed printer, half a dozen rice cookers and all. We had the guts to throw a few of them to the trash. But the rest are preserved for eternity and would end up never being touched again...! :-o)

Well, this is a never ending story... I'm reminded of a poem, The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever

Do share here in the comments section if you have had such a share of legacy...!

Goodbye Mr.Gates...

Yesterday William Henry Gates stepped down from his full time position at Microsoft to pursue a career in Philanthropy. He and his wife have setup the Bill and Melinda Foundation and they spend a few billion dollars here and there to help improve the quality of medicine and education around the globe - especially in the third world countries.


In one of this blog's very first posts, I had ridiculed Mr. Gates and hit at some of his shortcomings. Even today this post is NOT aimed at singing his praise or whatever since I've made it very very clear that M$ or its products are not my first choice. In my opinion he is one of the luckiest souls on earth who was at the right place at the right time with the right people to bail him out.


So, Why am I writing this?

There have been quite a few billionaires around and there have been times when they have retired after making so much wealth. But, I have known very few who decide to give back something to humanity, especially the people who suffer. Well, there can be different arguments from various quarters. But, Hey! He doesn't have to do it. With all the money that he has, generations to come can sit back and have a cosy life...!

During the famous Jobs-Gates interview last year, Steve quipped - "He [Gates] chose not to remain the richest guy in the cemetery and that is a good thing". Definitely..

Hats off to you Bill. Wish you good luck in your new journey..!

What is in a name...

So, you may ask... I for one have had enough of name calling all through my life...!

It all started around 10 years back - when I was in class 9. My parents decided to do away with my name - "Rahul" - and give me a new one. Hmmm.. Numerology was the numero uno craze at that time. Whether I believed it or not is a different question altogether. But what mattered most is that I had no say whatsoever in such an important decision and before I could realize the potential impacts of it, my father applied for a gazette notification and got my name officially changed to "Ramchandran M E". It took all the years left in my school days - 3 in all :-o) - for both me and my friends to get a grasp over the new name and start identifying me with that.

And with a completely new bunch of people around in college, the transition was easier. But troubles started brewing in from different quarters. The name has a close resemblence with that of a former Tamilnadu Chief Minister M.G.Ramachandran - although that definitely is not the rationale behind my name -but for 2 letters. Yes! Two. The first "G" is so obvious. But, my name doesn't have the "a" after Ram and that turned out to be a bane. 9.5 out of 10 times, I was pretty sure that my name would have been misspelt!!

Around this time, I had to apply for a passport and well, it was time for more confusion. A major part of India follows the Given Name / Surname system and so does the Legal System. Hmmm... That would mean that I will have to expand my Initials the passport. It turns out that M E is the abbreviation of Maharajapuram Easwarasharma!! ;-o) Tiny, Ain't it?

To understand my initials, I have gotta elaborate a bit more on the Indian Naming system. Most Indians have Surnames - which are traditional or made up or reflecting their profession. But Tamilnadu - in the recent past - is the only exception and follows the patronymic system. Meaning, the child would get his father's name as the initial. Sometimes, they include the name of their hometown too.

Traditionally, Tamilians have had their identity established both by their profession, which is woven deep into the caste system. During the mideveal years, they added the place - a Toponym - just for the sake of better / easier identification. TamBrahm's, especially Iyers have long been identified through this system for atleast like a couple of centuries. I tend to believe that this system was done away with as politics of caste along. The politicians gathered enough mileage out of the divisions in the society and played awful ganes of divide and rule. The northies however, adopted the tradition of going along the Gothra's. So, Bharadwaj's and Athreya's have become common Surnames. Iroically, some people who moved up north long long ago found unique ways to establish their identities. I remember reading an interesting anecdote about Rahul Dravid whose paternal grandparents are from Tanjore, Tamilnadu. They chose a surname they hailed from the Pancha Dravida Brahmin Community.

Brahmin's get yet another name on the day of their Upanayanam - a XYZ Sharma - which is used for all religious purposes. My dad chose to retain it for for himself when he did his name..! Things would have been far more simple if he had made Sharma as the last name for our family.

Going back to my case, Obviously when I started working after college, my employer wanted me to enroll with the same name as the passport to avoid any legal hassles while processing my visa applications. They even gave me an email address with 53 characters. A record of sorts...! LOL.

So, Have I had enough of it? Unfortunately, no. Things started getting worse before even I landed in Uncle Sam's Country. There is this form called I-94 which determines your identity when you are in the States and that didn't have enough space to hold all the characters in my name. So does Computer system at the Immigration office, SSN office, Registry / Department of Motor Vehicles, my bank etc., etc., Adding to all this confusion is the fact that there is a whitespace in my last name - meaning that 2 words constitute my last name. This is a big no-no in this land. Most often one of this is mistaken as middle name and your name doesn't show up on most of the searches that they make for getting anything and everything approved in this nation. :-0(

This also meant that I ended up having different names in different places. Legally, I have begun the process of consolidation offlate beginninng with my drivers license. But, it has to stand the test of time before I can have things falling into place.

Another notable thing here how American's end up pronouncing Asian -especially Indian and Chinese names. Well.. most chinese have a very easy solution to it. They adopt a English name when the arrive at the Americas so that it is easy for everyone around here. I believed that a part of my first name - "Ram" would server the purpose. If you an Indian reading this, your reflexes would read it as Raam as in Lord Rama. Call it coincidence, the computer memory - RAM - also has the same spelling but a different pronounciation. Inevitably, you know what happens to after this..!

With so many years of everything going around, all I can say is that I have gotten used to it. :-o) If you have any such experience, feel free to share it in the comments section!

When Windows Updates ruined my weekend...

I have never been a big fan of Winblows for the last many many years ... But unfortunately, I had to buy my dream machine with the crappy crappy Vista from M$. Vista, in my opinion is the worst product that they have released after the infamous ME. And being hard pressed for time these days, I couldn't install any flavor of Linux on this machine and bang, it was time for a rendezvous with Murphy.

I got this weird problem a couple of days back. A recent windows update that automatically got downloaded onto my pc, ruined my weekend. As any user would know, Vista complains about anything and everything. It was irritating me for the last few days with a request to restart.

At restart, the it showed -"Configurating updates: stage 3 of 3" for like 5-10 minutes and went onto a restart loop. The mess continued for like a couple of hours before I got fed up and tried to stop this nuisance.

As it was very late into the night, I could even disturb my roomie to borrow his computer and do some googling. I tried to start Windows in Safe mode, but all that efforts went in the drain. The eyewash called "Repair errors" completed without an iota of improvement.

Finally, I managed to restore the system to a point like a week back and finally it worked. Once my pc booted up, I was able to figure out that "Vista Service Pack 1" was the real culprit. Now, man - People install service packs to stay away from secutiry threats and vulunerablities. But what can we say, when they themselves play spoilsport?

M$ clearly lists this out in its website. But, it was my guts and instinct saved my ass out of this as users are helpless when they run into such kinda issues. They seemed to have figured this issue out a few months after users first started experiencing the problem. But even then I wonder why they didn't try to push this to all the computers that have SP1 installed ont it already.

Secondly, coming to my own problem - I have already wasted enough of my time banging my head aginst this and I don't want to get into this anymore. According to update 937287 is the root cause of this and have released an update to this problem. But my Updater logs tell me a different story. The one that has failed is 950126. So, I'm not able to install the patch that they have out for this problem as it doesn't apply to my case.

What do I do now? I'm going to write to Support and have my fingers crossed. Till then, it is good bye to Automatic Updates on my computer.

If you have have had similar issues, please share them in the comments section.

Firefox 3 - Download Day

Firefox - The Bestest browser on any platform no introduction. I mean, who on earth doesn't use firefox... For that matter, is there really a browser that is as good as this one? Yeah... I hear you..! Opera and safari are almost there. I stopped using that IE thing from M$ ages ago...

With an array of new features - Increased Security, New Download Manager and above all improved performance, Firefox 3 is as good as ever! I had migrated to it right from the beta phase and currently using RC1. The initial phases have had its share of hiccups. But being open source helps. Ain't it? I'm damn sure that everything would have been fixed when you get the full version tomorrow.

Yes. Tomorrow is the D-Day. And this time around, the community is planning to set a new guiness world record for the most number of downloads in a day. Of course, it will be a cakewalk for a product as good as this. But hey, Shouldn't we be part of history? :-o)

Pledge here and go download it tomorrow: Save yourself and experience the new internet if you haven't done so far!

The Dasavatharam Experience

Disclaimer : This is NOT just another plain "review" on the movie and the title is NOT synonymous with the verdict of the author. Read on to before you jump into any conclusions on the movie itself! :-o)

I watched Dasavatharam at the Belmont "Cinema" theater in Boston yesterday amidst much fanfare and this post would dwell into that experience first. Once the release dates were confirmed, my colleagues and I - a group of 8 people took the hassle free way of booking the tickets over the internet for the show today morning. With all the hullaboo surrounding the movie back home, I'm sure that I wouldn't have got a chance to see the movie for the next few weeks! :-o)

After a half-an-hour drive from home, I felt as if I had a feeling that I was back in chennai. The theater didn't even have a parking lot and all that was left was the "1-hour" parallel parking slots on the main road. Left with no options, we gathered the courage (to pay the fine, if indeed Uncle Sam gives us a free ticket), parked and went inside. The atmosphere was exactly like the ones that you would find in Devi Kala or Mini Udayam or Adyar Signal Thyagaraja for that matter. This comment evoked a mixed response from the "Besant Nagar Locals" sitting in front of us! :-o) Having said this, I needn't elaborately explain that the quality of sound and projection was a notch below par here.

The movie started with whistles from the bustling "rasigar" kootam, soon to be silenced by a documentary style introduction which I suppose could've been avoided.

Caution : Spoilers ahead...

Kamal excels in a few of the 10 roles that he does in the movie. My list would have Rangarajan, Boovaraghan and the RAW officer Naidu. IMHO the other characters in the movie could have been done by some other artist (or even scrapped for that matter..!). Sometimes one feels as if they have been forcefully thrust on you just for the heck of it.

Since he has been the ONLY talking point of the movie, lets first look at some others first.

Sujatha has done a GREAT job with the story - as usual. Who else could combile all these heavy subjects - Chaos theory, Butterfly effect, WMD, Atheism etc., at such great ease. The only concern here is : Will the lay audience be able to comprehend this? Again, I personally believe over 90% of the movie goers will not understand this movie completely. Having followed most of these concepts before, I was atleast able to decipher the inner meaning on what they are trying to convey.

Crazy Mohan has wielded his magic wand once again. This is nothing new for the Kamal-Crazy combo - Panchathantram, Avvai Shanmugi, Thenali being a few of their master pieces. Crazy deserves a special mention here as he is instrumental in resurrecting the movie and giving the audience a well deserved break from the gore and chase takes a dip. The airport scene where Naidu interrogates Kamal and the one when Asin-Kamal meetup for the first time in Chidambaram stand out and portray his flair for wordplay.

KS Ravikumar has once again proved that he has the secret ingredients for making a Tamil Movie. Without him I'm pretty sure that this would have become an award winning movie - read as getting rave reviews but taken out from the theatres within the first week with distributors and theatre owners ending up losing everything.

One can't expect much from supporting actors when you have a single person performing 10 of the major roles in the movie. Asin, Mallika Sherawat, Jayaprada etc., have done the little that they could do...! The only person who stands out here is MS Bhaskar with his exceptionally poor and irritating performance.

I concur with populist opinion that the music has been a HUGE let down and the visual, graphics and the stunts were amazing.

Among Kamal's character's, I loved Boovarahan the best. His make up was one of the very few that suited the best. The worst was the tall muslim guy, the Kung-Fu master, Krisnaveni pattu and ofcourse, George Bush. Their face and body donot have the same aspect ratio with the 2 inch mask that he is wearing and sounds very odd. Havin seen the "Indian thatha" and "Avvai Shanmugi" getups, you end up wanting more and more. The only thing that I loved about the Bush character was when he was perplexed about NaCl and enquires if it can be detonated with a Nuke missile or something!!

In hindsight, I get the feeling as if the movie has been made just to set the records straight and enter into the books. If that was the motive, they have achieved it and made that point with immaculate precision.

But I personally believe that Kamal is better than any other film maker in Indian cinema by leaps and bounds and he needn't prove anything to anyone. If he had thought on that lines, maybe they could have made a better movie and saved quite a few crores of 'Aasacar' Ravindran's money...

Another New Beginning...!

First things first - This blog has been lying dormant for quite some time now. If you have been a regular reader, my apologies...!

The past few months have been, to put it subtly, very exciting in various aspects. The usual first onsite experience - Client Interfacing and stuff like that apart, I learnt loads and loads during the time that I spent with that "Leading Media Research Firm". One of the interesting things from my perspective during the project was the Team itself - Multi-Faceted with people from various geographical backgrounds and cultures. Being fortunate enough to build a good rapport with each one of them, It was indeed a grim feeling at the back of the heart to depart from that very place.

Yep. I've moved out of Tampa, FL to Boston, MA where I have taken up an assignemnt with a "Financial Services" company specializing in corporate tax calculations. New Domain - New Technologies - New People and a New life. The transition from the South to North has been smooth so far and I hope that it stands the test of time.

Life in Florida was simply superb. Great weather all around the year, scenic beaches and what not..! Just in case you have missed a few of my best shots from "The Sunshine state" - here is a set of links.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Wish me luck! :-0)

This is a test document from Google Docs..!

I'm going to try posting this to Arre...! Oh! Sambar :-D