BULL fight..

It is 7/20/2009 @ 7:07 AM when i start this blog & I was wondering the reason behind the dream that I had this morning.

It was early morning around 6.45 AM I found myself woke up with with a heart beat of around 130 BPM.

I was sitting on a steep slope near a "Jallikattu" alley from where I could see the event clearly from a safe distance.

Wiki quotes for those who don know what it is...

Jallikattu - ஜல்லிகட்டு is a bull taming sport played in Tamil Nadu as a part of Pongal celebration. This is one of the oldest living ancient sports seen in the modern era. Although it sounds similar to the Spanish running of the bulls, it is quite different. In Jallikattu, the bull is not killed and the 'matadors' are not supposed to use any weapon. It is held in the villages of Tamil Nadu on the eve of Mattu Pongal, one of the four days of Pongal festival (usually January 15 on the Western calendar). The one held in Alanganallur, near Madurai, is the most popular. This sport is also known as "Manju Virattu", meaning "chasing the bull".

Though the exact event was happening at the end of the slope, the participating bulls were scattered around the alley away from the crowd.

I just realised that two of the beasts that has completed/waiting for its lap has gone crazy and started to sprang into the crowd. A normal sized bull and a calf. Both of them were cuffed on in its legs and were tied with a rope and was held hard by its trainer.

All of a sudden, for no reason they gone wild & started hoping too heard in its place. There were 2-3 guys holding the rope of bull tightly and 1 guy holding the calf.

No sooner I see this in a considerable distance, all the people who were in the same length of me started to run in various directions. Me, the little charm guy pretty leaner than laughing Buddha took 1 second more to obtain the escape velocity within which the entire crowd near me vanished away except for a middle aged guy of his 30s.

By that time, they managed to release themselves free from their trainer's hands and started their lap into the crowd. Since myself and he were the last two in the crowd to start, we were the targets for them. At this point of time, I had a reason to feel happy about. Yes.. I was been chased only by the calf where as the other guy was been chased by the bull (Mr.~Suz:- Celebrate it with a cake..).

When I took on my heals, I just found the trainer waving his hands from distance signaling me to run in the opposite direction as I was running the direction towards the calf(~Suz: Effect of the Scotch in dream too ?? ). Actually I was more scared since I will be running into the alley if I run the other direction.

At last after crossing the calf successfully I found a stair case which I felt quite safe thinking that he cannot climb up the stairs. But to my poor state I found him coming down from the top (~Suz:- In between shots edited out ?? ). As I saw him in the other direction, I started running down in the opposite direction and found a big white wall with a laptop lying on the floor.

Yes.. The dream is off & it is my won lappy.

Thank God !!!

~Suz:- Happy that the bed is not wet ?? :)

I still remember the person who bade me 'sweet dreams' with a smiling smiley on Skype..

Bull Shittt...

The Oracle agony

This incident was urging me to blog upon from the time when I read a blog from similar category. This happened around 10 years back when myself and Mr.~Suz were sitting on an old filthy chair and have been taught the way to the place where I am today.

After a successful clearing of a set of toughest aptitude questions of jeopardy standards, we got into the prestigious institution “CSC”; a software school popular among the upper middle class people for its budget computer education.

To explain further about the technical infra, the place was equiped with higher end cutting edge systems built with the state of art technology. There was a dedicated server for hosting oracle software. It had an enormous memory space which can be measured in terms of “GB”s especially a double digit number prefixing it. We call it a “Server” only for the sole reason that it is connected to a UPS & it can function for around 20 minutes more than the other computers when the power goes off. (Mr.~Suz:- Well explained about its importance. !!)

For the scientists like me, there were pretty old systems for usage; having a memory space which is often in MBs and RAM size little more than a normal scientific calculator. For the convenience of the senior citizens, they have never upgraded the monitor, which’s resolution is not more than 640 X 480 and the characters were often ghosty.

It was on a day of hands on session and as usual myself and my brother were been exploring the database queries sitting before one such computer. I really felt honored when the faculty staffs claimed that, before me that system was used by Charles Babbage for doing his high school home work.

As a usual way, the students get connected to the Oracle server (the one I mentioned above) through their local client using the login & password communicated to them. For a secret reason the login is fondly called as "scott tiger" account.

The way the faculties communicates the password to the students is an interesting way. The login is written on the board during the class hours and password is communicated secretly in the student’s ears during the hands on session (Mr.~Suz:- BS 7799 Policy ?? :-) ). Later we realized that same login & password is shared to all the students and the poor fact is that the password has been never changed since the oracle is installed on to that system (and also now we understood the reason behind the secret nick name :-)).

Myself and he were on our gears for exploring Oracle 8i and he was constantly getting distracted by the surroundings. He was constantly in search of something around the place (May be in search of people from Venus !! ) and accidentally saw the monitor of the neighboring scientist and found that he was trying to create a table. It wasn't really tough to readout the contents because of the character size that was readable even from two rows behind.

He really wanted to show a magic to the guy and he pestered me to drop the table. Me as a responsible scientist tried to convince him that it is not a humane task to do that. But he, who was in a serious mood to show him the magic tried to convince me. At last he succeeded and I too thought of dropping the table. But before doing that I wanted to make sure that it is only a test table. I tried to describe it and found it to be like any other useless students-marks table having Roll no, name and marks as their columns. Hence I proceeded further.

Since I dropped the tables in few mille-seconds after the creator see the success message, his table was not being listed when he tried to list all the tables. We were enjoying the puzzled look of the creator over the monitor (Probably would have scolded the software with some un-defined prefixes).

Since we did this magic couple of times, he called the faculty in-charge to complain about the miss behaving software. As soon as she come, Mr.~Suz took off his eyes from the other monitor and started pretending as if he is working along with me(who was working sincerely for hours). When she tried creating a table, he was more puzzled to see that the table created by her was not getting vanished away. His face gone red when the same magic happened again after the faculty has left the place :-)

He managed to disturb the faculty who was having her Nth dose of tea for the day, she gave some ingenious solution which I dare not hear. (Mr.~Suz:- Probably to restart the computer :-)). Since we were satisfied with the happening we decided to end the magic session and vacated the lab.

This made the day...

MOKKAI blog

It was a sunny & also rainy for some hours on a saturday afternoon. Me and Mr.~Suz were sitting on my desk staring at the monitor refreshing the application screen that list out the activities that I need to process. Since I have completed all my activities on the day before, I was expecting for new activity to arrive into my queue. Since it is a usual trend that during the week end the flow of activities will be pretty less, I was anxiously looking at the clock at the down right corner of the monitor expecting it to hit 6.00 & I can hit the club for the saturday night fever. (Mr.~Suz:- What a wonderful job profile; Why can’t all the days be a Saturday :-) )

To explain more about my work place; Its the technology division of a big multinational banking client. With my desk having an excellent rocking chair, a PC equipped with a new HP LCD monitor for less eye strain & excellent configuration with latest version of VISTA for the comfort of usage. And to mention, the PC has access to high speed internet too. What else do I need to call it a heaven ? (But strictly no access to orkut :-( )

Since I am quite interested in knowing more about human emotions, I wished to do a google on the physical & chemical reactions takes place when a person gets angry ? (Mr.~Suz: Most necessary topic to be googled ?? :-( Better could have mapped out the route for a different club ).. I am proud to have such a brain that I feel my brain is one of the crazy creations of god which’s hunger for knowledge can never be completely fed (Mr.~Suz:- Many have seen the high school mark list. Today is not Apr 1st ?!?!)

As usual, google listed wikipedia has its first choice for the information I searched and it seemed to be worthy too…

What is anger ?

Anger is an emotional state that may range from minor irritation to intense rage.

When does one gets angry ?

When a person is getting offended (physically or mentally); when the ego of the person is not given enough importance, it triggers a series of changes that leads a person to become angry.

What physical/biological changes takes place when a person gets angry?

The physical effects of anger include increased heart rate, blood pressure, levels of adrenaline & noradrenaline, loss of self-monitoring capacity, loss of objective observability and many more.

The extended increased heart rate, pumps more & more blood to the brain. Since the arteries that carry blood from heart to brain experiences a high pressure than normal, the valves of the heart gets weakened eventually lead to cardiac arrest and the pressure exerted on the brain leads to brain failure; eventually leading to death.

There were various interesting facts about Fight-or-flight situation; about sympathetic nervous system that were thrown light during the course of the search… (Mr.~Suz:- Looks like better than search for code to copy paste.. Hmm.)

OK, Now comes the question of the millennium.. What does the title of the post “Mokkai” has to do with this????

First of all, for those saints who do not know what the word means.(Its good not to know actually :-))… It’s a colloquial word in the tamil language often used to refer something of lesser interest.

For e.g :-

Person A: “How was the 2 hour lecture on “how to spend time usefully” …. ?”

Person B: “Full of “Mokkai”… What a waste of time… “

(Mr.~Suz:- Excellent example :-))

The exact meaning of the word mokkai refers to the English word “Blunt” (Without sharpness).

Whenever I hear the word in whatever the scenario somebody around me using it; not necessarily to me; either A using to B in my presence; I really feel the above mentioned syndromes in myself. Hence as a request, please make sure that nobody is get offended before using such words.

Hope the blog is not the way, what the title says ;-)

Embarrassment of the day...

After a very long period of dormancy, its time for my next blog to be published. I usually blog on something that I have really enjoyed and is memorable to share with. Though I did not post any new blogs all these days, me and my twin brother Mr.~Suz were been enjoying the moments of life to the most possible extent...

We had many happening things all these days which will be blogged soon.. But for some reason this incident was striking my mind so hard and urged me to blog on. Hence I wish I shall share this; which happened little later to my college life.

It was on a sunny week day afternoon between 1.00 - 2.00 PM. I; wearing a so-called formal attire & was on way to my office on a barely empty Chennai bus (probably C51 or T51); for a real, active nigh shift; (~Suz: To mess up the codes which was already messed up to its best).

It was just when I commenced my travel nap, I heard a feeble Nokia tune from somewhere in the wind. I followed the source of the tune and found it instigating from my shirt pocket.. Yes.. My old steady Nokia 1100 was trying to gain my attention to inform me that someone is trying to reach me.

I picked up the phone with a great difficulty of coming out from the nap and was really exited on hearing the voice of a lady probably of her mid 20s(~Suz, we can never be changed.).... On hearing the voice, for a moment I could able to hear the jingle bells from the inside of my heart with pretty angels flying above my head..

As soon as I picked up the call, the voice proceeded like this...With too much of "Sir" in between the words.....

"Sir.....AIRTEL sir.. Balasubramaniyan unga friend dhane sir..??"
Means: "Sir.....AIRTEL sir.. Balasubramaniyan is ur friend sir...??

I could able to listen only to these words in the midst of the drowsy and noisy atmosphere. All I could guess was that; it is a call from airtel all center and somebody is asking about one of my old friend.

Little bytes from my college days...

When I was doing my bachelors in Computers, Balasubramaniyan(Bala) was doing his commerce studies in my college. Both of us are combinedly famous in our college for our mega physic and were been a point of entertainment for the guys & girls. Most of the time we can be found hanging about with our "amigas" from various departments and batches. At times, guys stare at us for flirting too much with them(~Suz: The ultimate purpose of the college life.)... Still we took it in a pure sportive spirit... :-)

Secret Note: This blog too is an outcome of the motivation from one of my nice-looking female friend from UG... ;-) (Mr.~Suz: Daie... Nadathu da.. Nadathu....)

Ok, coming back to our main stuff.,

Since I was having a connection from Aircel at that time, I was wondering and almost came to a conclusion that no way I can get a call from a airtel call centre. In this puzzled mood I proceed to talk to that young woman... The next question was...

"....May I know whether bala is your friend..? .
"....and how long you are having this number with you ??.. "
(The entire conversation happened in my native language)

Mr.~Suz, my twin brother was also in a drowsy mood as me. As soon as I heard the voice he woke up in the background in a full spirit. From the back of my mind he told me that Bala is asking someone else in his gang to call me and speak this way. This was his usual technique to irritate me. Hence I wish to confuse the caller and replied....

"...No..Bala is my first enemy.." (!#$%^&^&#@!)
"... and i am going to use this number only from tomorrow.." (!#$%^&^&*)

I could able to feel the confusion in her voice on hearing this reply. I felt really happy about what I have done (Mr.~Suz: As if nominated for Oscar) and tried to insist on the same answer when she asked me the same question for the second time. After a series of chats this way, the girl got frightened with my replies and called one of her neighbouring male caller sitting next to her.

Since I wished to maintain this state of confusion on the other side, I replied the same answer to this guy too.

An eternal silence prevailed for around 30 seconds.. Then the man started explaining me..

"Sir.... Airtel.. Mr.Balasubramaniyan was previously having an Airtel connection has not paid the mobile bill for past some months. We found that he has called to your number frequently when he was using this number. Hence we are trying to reach him regarding this. Please let us know if you know any of his contact details.."

But before even he could complete the full sentence I realized the confusion because of my misconception. Then I spent couple of minutes explaining him that he is my college mate and I am no more in contacts with him...And I thought that it is he playing with me like that and so only I replied that way...bla.. bla.. bla......

Finally I ended my reply with a note of sorry and told that guy to convey my regrets to that female too. I felt really sorry about the poor state of those two callers who were kept in the state of embarrassment because of my brother :(.

After that I did not get sleep through the rest of the journey. !!

Hayoo... Hayyyooooo....

The Day dream

Long long ago.... So long ago... Nobody know how long ago.... there was a boy sitting in 3rd bench of a class studying in Std 11 in a school in some part of earth....

Yes.. This happened when i was studying in std 11.. It was a long pending request from my side for a new PC for my self which I felt could help me to reach great heights in life where am today. At last the bill got passed in the 5 year plan and the order was placed.

As soon as I saw the copy of purchase order, Mr.~Suz started having his dream trip thinking about how good it will be to sit before a PC and browse through net, chat, mail, play game... It needs some one to drag him back to earth..

It was earlier informed that it takes a week for the delivery… The hours turned to be days & the ecstasy grew higher as the week pass on...

And at last the day came & the engineers reached my home in an auto rickshaw at around 11:45 PM... Dozens of fancy colored cartons with the colored pic of the gadget over it got unloaded from the vehicle. The installation of the stuffs took more an hour.

As soon as they left my home around 12:30AM (early morning) my exploration over the newly arrived gadget started. My exploration over the mere OS went on… and on… and on... Felt really excited to see the default blue wallpaper of the Windows98 getting loaded majestically over the screen.

Then I tried connecting to the world of internet through a dialup connection & a modem which makes a hell lot of noise during the connection. The dialup package was "Mantra online" which came as compliment for buying the PC... It was early 4:00 AM in the morning when all my exploration came to an end for the day & I went to the bed. The set of default loaded wallpapers, the set of preloaded screensavers, Solitaire card game were the targets for my exploration. That was the first time I saw a computer as my own possession. The dream of buying a PC has become true after a long time.

During my schooling, there were days where I have reacted to my dreams a bit much.. Many days my dad use to tell me in the morning that I walked while I was in sleep the previous night.. and was blabbering some thing... (Mr.~Suz:- May have leaked any truth bout me..!?!?!?! :-) ) . Once I have even took bath at 1:00 AM in the though of getting ready to school... (~Suz:- Crazy guy...!)..

One such day came where I did a same sort of exploration on the previous day and had a sleep less night. The next day was a day to the school with sleepy red eyes. There was a close mate of mine.... Bala, a close friend of mine in those days who always accompanies me for almost all the tution classes I go.. (But having absolutely no idea what is he doing currently...). It was during the 2nd hour in the morning... & it was a chemistry class. The subject that comes first in my hated subject list…

For this class, I was sitting the left corner seat of the 3rd bench (Usually not my place… The places in the first 3 bench are unquestionably allocated for the brainees of the class. ). Bala was sitting to my right.

The teacher Latha (God.! Please don’t make my chemistry teacher to view this blog) the one who was taking chemistry in my 11th started the class. She started reading out her notes loud in the middle of the class from her old bunch of hand written 2 ruled papers.I went to my usual state (Sleepy state..) because of the effect of the previous day explorations.

Around 30 minutes of the notes writing session passed. I herd a feeble voice calling out my name. I did not respond to it since it did not sufficiently disturb my sleep.
Few minutes later, I found a left hand tapping at my shoulder with a hard attempt of waking me up… Since I had enough disturbances, I made an attempt to see the source of it and found Bala trying his level best to wake me as per the teacher’s order.

On seeing her face, she asked me to stand up and she asked me a million $ question.
“Do you know that you are sleeping … ?? “
“ Yezzzz…”, I replied with a sleepy voice and sat back on my seat to continue the activity…

Since my chemistry teacher was lenient enough & also was very sure that there is no point in making me awake did not wanted to disturb me… She continued on with her old notes…

The climax of the day

About 20 minutes passed and she was running at the fag end of her 1 hour session.
I was keeping my pen over my note to make others believe that I am taking the notes promptly…

Suddenly I made a hard tap over the pen with my right hand index finger and got up from my sleep with a shock. I felt quite uneasy as suddenly the continuous voice of the teacher stopped near me and the entire set of guys sitting in the first 3 bench were giving me a strange look. I felt even more shock to notice that the lines of notes I have written on the paper took a steep curve towards the upper margin of the note crossing all the above lines…
Since the bell rang, she was about to start… I found all the boys coming near me and were enquiring what has happened to me…

I found Bala with a puzzled face; jointly interrogating me along with the other guyz. He came near me and asked...

" Machan.... Enna da aachu...?!?!?! "

For those who don't know the wonderful Chennai tamil... It means (Antonym) "Friend... What has happened.?!?!?! "

Later I realized that because of the previous day explorations, I had a dream during the course of the class where I have made a strong “double-click” over the pen. On hearing this the entire class started to laugh at me… :-) :-)

People felt happy that I have not played the “Age of Empires” games the previous night… Else the class would have become a battle field…

The whole class began to laugh at me… Having no way of escaping from the situation, I gave a Colgate smile and left to the place…

Happy school days…!

One night at my Office

The nocturnal time at our office is yet another interesting time at our heaven.. Once the 8'O clock voyage departs, the nocturnal life begins. Those, whose projects are in fire due to the mess up & projects nearing the dead line stays back to make it to set in path... At this hours too, the con-call for the update keeps proceeding....

DINNER FOOD

The moment we gets the smell of the food (same smell for past few years) at around 9.30 at night, we march towards our FC.. (It is food court.. FC is how we call it..) to find the same set of cuisines that was there on the previous day. With having a small confusion of whether it is the same food of yesterday, we start our dine.

NIGHT DROP CAB

The moment after completing the night food, the fight for the wonderful journey begins from 10.30. The cabs prepare for this trip at various schedules at 10.30, 12.30 and 2.30. I go to my home at Tambaram through the interiors of Madipakkam, Guindy..etc..(Route prepared with the help of Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm).

The route through Guindy or even Mambalam would be more preferable than Madipakkam. Since the Madipakkam, having the best town plan the cab drivers struggle hard to find their way out of the place. Since my office ppl consider Tambaram as far off place than Madipakkam, I have no chance of getting down first...

"Take the first right then the 2nd left then again the 3rd left & 100mts straight the road leads to the subway. Then the straight of 2 KM leads to airport. From where Tambaram is 10 KM away..." The life saving clue given at 2.00 AM by the previous drop guy who lives inside the maze of Madipakkam... A minute error in following this clue will leads to a hazardous incident of a sleepless night.

After solving the amazing maze, we escapes out of the Takeshi's castle and reaches the next stage. The next stage is the terrain through the traffic of NH45. This take 2 quarters hours in an expert drive... Atlast we reach the den & mastermind go to rest in a pleasant way...

Good night...!

One day at my Office

My office is the most favourite place of mine in my so far life... Because of its immense beauty, its professional ambiance, its majestic infra, its aesthetic amenities and many other divine features which gives such an attractive appeal not only to me.. But also to every of its beloved associates.. We consider it as our heaven and also we find all the maximum possible chance to be there and dwell amidst the arena of cutting edge technologies serving around us...!! ( ~Suz:- given enough buildup for my office... :-) )

Still wondering in which heaven am I working in..??

A place where we make the idiot box go live to the world market. Yes..! A Software lab... A heaven in the IT corridor of the sacred city Chingaarach Chennai...! The Mecca of every chennai software professional...

THE MONDAY MORNING

The Monday morning is a crucial time for every of us. After the week end fever, we; the coder battalion march towards the office with our mind overflowing with the schedules for the week. We take our charge at our bay in a formal attire experimenting with an old tie to gain a perfect cute knot. But at most times, the experiment ends after a huge struggle resulting an unusual knot which no one has ever seen so far. :-)

The next is the mail checking session. After making the punch as a proof of reaching the office, the mail software is opened. The moment the software gets refreshed with the entire set of new mails marked in red colour. Many interesting forwards on friendship, clips, pics, PPTs & many other funny stuffs along with few corporate communication awaits for our action.

PMR

This is a formal review conducted for every project for the higher authorities to know about the direction in which the project is sailing at. A week before the day of the review, our team members start cooking the datum for this review. Then the datum gets garnished by putting it over a power point slide. Then the garnished item goes for a review, where a dash of coriander is added to give a final spicy touch up to make it delicious to serve. :-)

Team Meeting

Team meeting is an interesting occasion where we plan to pause on our tight schedules for a while and share our new learnings & issues. The most important meeting consists of a maximum of 3 to 5 peoples including me. :-) The meeting takes place in a separate conference hall where we take the most critical decisions which changes the future of the company.

THE CON-CALL

This is a call made to the people sitting at on site. This happens in a separate transparent sound proof hall, where the PMs sitting at on site allot the work for the off shore people. Most of the calls commences with the report on the previous day's status. We maintains a heroic smile on our face during the entire call in order to avoid the fact that we are getting blasted, knowing to others. The fact that the room is sound proof makes us escape being caught.

LEFT FOR THE DAY

This is "the most" awaited event of the day for every one of us. That is the time we leave our heaven to our home to meet our own people. The moment the minute hand points 45 at 7'O Clock, the server hosting the excellent software for marking the punch-out attains a crash due to the load... After a tiring successful attempt of punch-out, we board our Volvos to start the voyagin journey back to our home...

The day ends here... !!!