I read about this Tamil Play “Madras to Chennai” being performed this week by Kathadi Ramamurthy, Shylaja Chetlur and others, directed by Bombay Chanakya. The tickets were by invitation only and it was sent by post by Shraddha to anyone who asked for it by phone. Today I went for the play in Narada Gana Sabha and enjoyed it thoroughly. The story is basically of events that happen in a typical Tamil Brahmin household in Madras for last 60 years. The female lead role “Kalyani” was played by Shylaja Chetlur, who has performed it well and with elegance. As always the industry veteran Kathadi Ramamurthy performed the role natural and with ease.
I was not expecting many in the audience, but I was surprised to find the auditorium to be jam-packed. It was heartening to see those many people watching a Tamil Play and encouraging the artists. I think it is a good model by the organizers to have the costs covered by advertisements (i hope they covered) and having full audience, instead of being watched just by few paid audience (which in any day covered only portion of cost).
The play had some nice effects like 1) The split screen where aged Kathadi & Shylaja were on one side of the stage, and the couples younger version (flash-back) playing on the other side at the same time. 2) The exact same screen that begun the play, enacted back at the end and everyone performing both the scenes exactly the same way.
Good dialogs by Chanakya who has taken nice digs in the current prevailing corruption scene in the country.
What a season this IPL2011 was. Though for me it was an over-dose of cricket following immediately to the World Cup and with 74 matches, IPL2011 was memorable. I got a chance to watch the first match of the season in the M.A.Chidambaram Stadium, I was lucky to get tickets gifted to watch it from the special Anna Pavilion (Air conditioned corporate box of TNCA).
Though I was delighted for CSK winning the trophy again this year, the final’s match between CSK and RCB turned out to be an anti-climax. At the end of first innings and after Chris Gayle of RCB getting out, the final’s match was literally over with the result obvious. In contrast to this the qualifying match (Semi-Finals) few days back between the same two teams (CSK and RCB) was exciting with nail-biting finish.
Congrats to M.S.Dhoni & entire CSK team – Chennai loves you guys, see you next year!
I have been a iPhone user for last two years. I love my iPhone4 and the ease with which you can buy Apps, Movie & Music in iTunes (though I hate the Photos management in iTunes). For many months now except for presentations I don’t use my laptop much – when in office it is Office Desktop and at house it is Home PC and in between I do my emails with iPhone. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync keeps my email synced between the Office PC, Home PC, Laptop & iPhone. Windows Live Mesh syncs the files between the PCs & Laptop effortlessly. Whenever I am reading a book or a magazine I keep my iPhone next to me to refer in Wikipedia or browse the web about the topic I am reading. Even while watching TV having iPhone and turning to it for some information has become a habit – whether it is to find a song in YouTube I just remembered or to IMDB to refer on how old is an actor or buy a book from Amazon/FlipKart that you just read about in the Newspaper today. As you can imagine I am a heavy user of my iPhone, I have an Amazon KindleDX as well, so I was sceptical whether I need a iPad2. My friend who has been having an iPad for last one year kept telling it is a lifestyle device and I couldn’t see how.
Now after having been using an iPad2 for last few days, I can understand why the world loves this device. I bought a iPad2 64GB Wi-Fi model through my US Office in Washington. Apart from the device I bought a VGA Cable, the SmartCover (Light Blue), Apple CarePack giving one year additional warranty and adding WA State Tax it came to $927. The form factor, weight, display & audio are ideal for consuming content, it is not much of a Productivity Tool or Content Creation tool. There is a vast difference between what I read & visualized about the device, it feels whole lot better to actually have the device in your hand and use it. Playing Videos in YouTube, Photo viewing, Web browsing, reading FaceBook/Twitter/Blogs with FlipBoard is addictive.
Following are the 3rd Party Apps I am currently using in iPad, most of them are the same I use in iPhone4, but few of them only work in iPad.
Photo & Video: VLC Player (to play WMV and other formats), iMovie (paid app works in both iPhone4 & iPad), WiFi Photo Transfer (to share photos without a cable)
With the arrival of a new Government, Tamil Nadu got its new IT Secretary – it was Dr.Santosh Babu, IAS. Fortunately continuity was maintained as Dr.Santosh was earlier Managing Director of ELCOT and worked in the same department under previous IT Secretary Mr.P.W.C.Davidar. Dr.Santosh is a fine gentleman and one who is passionate about technology and its impact on E-Governance and Citizen Services, he has many pioneering E-Governance projects in the country to his credit. I had the privilege of working with Dr.Santosh Babu, Mr.P.W.C.Davidar and his whole team during the Tamil Internet Conference last year in Coimbatore which ran inside the Chemmozhi conference. Today few of us from local IT community went and congratulated Dr.Santosh Babu on his new assignment. All the best to him and his department.
I am not sure how came across this book, but I am extremely glad I did. The book is “Delivering Happiness” by Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. When I bought the AudioBook from Audible.com I knew very little about Zappos other than having heard about their legendary Product Videos in their site and that they were bought by Amazon in 2009 (which implied they should be super smart on e-commerce & warehousing).
The book starts with Tony Hsieh (pronounced as shay) talking about his childhood and teenage misadventures and business ventures. Tony’s narrative style, especially listening to as Audio grabbed my interest. I was reminded of similar incidents in my own school & college days and it motivated me to immediately make a list of events of interest in my own growing years, thank you Tony. Then Tony talks about his founding days of LinkExchange, I remembered I was one of the early users of the service and loved it for generating traffic to EasyTools.com in those early days (~1998). He then goes on to sell LinkExchange in two years of founding to Microsoft for $265 Million after realizing the culture of the company deteriorating so badly that he couldn’t get himself up from bed to work one morning. Many entrepreneurs won’t have the luxury that Tony got of selling it and starting new – so it is important to listen to the second part of his story of how he build a fun & energetic culture in Zappos.
It was news to me that Tony didn’t start Zappos, instead it was by a young first time entrepreneur Nick Swinmurn. Tony Hsieh got involved in Zappos initially as an investor through his venture fund “Venture frogs” which had invested on Zappos, then after the Dotcom burst Tony became more hands-on and then to risk his entire LinkExchange fortune on Zappos – fascinating indeed. Many entrepreneurs including myself can easily relate to the struggles the company has gone through in early days from 2000 to 2003, but the growth story from 2003 to 2009 (when they hit a Billion Dollars) was like a fantasy come true. Tt would have been great to learn about those years had Tony chronicled them in detail (in preface of the book he did say this is not a Biography of Zappos, but I wish it was). Tony wants us to believe it was all due to the Culture he created in Zappos. May be it was the culture primarily, but I feel it got to have been helped greatly by other factors as well – their technology, marketing, warehousing capability and so on.
The book then focuses on what is happiness (sounded to me like a PR creation and retro-fitted in later years, though nothing wrong about it), what Tony has learned on the subject from research he read, Employees talking in their own voice on how Zappos culture impacted their happiness & well-being. Some of the things about Zappos stands out clearly & uniquely and those are certainly inspiring. They have something called as a culture book – you can see videos of it online and can even request a free copy of it (they ship anywhere outside USA to international as well). Their risky move from the “hip” San Francisco to Las Vegas (of all places on earth). The ability of Zappos to maintain their independence even after their sale to Amazon. Their willingness to share their ideas on Culture & Delivering happiness to rest of the world – through tours of their offices as part of Zappos Insights, through this book and now they even got a bus tour as well.
After listening to the AudioBook I have bought few copies of the paper-back from FlipKart.com to gift it to my colleagues for them to enjoy and learn. A great management book that is fun to read, which can bring happiness to employees around the globe if only every CEO under the sun reads it.
I took my son today to watch this new 3D Movie “Rio” in Escape multiplex. As usual I booked the tickets online at thecinema.in, printed the tickets and was expecting to be seated without any hassles. But the usher redirected me to the crowded food-bar to get 3D Glass coupons for Rs.20 per person. Its a 3D movie so everyone has to have the glasses to see the movie, so why not add the cost as a line item in the online booking – they do allow the convenience of buying food & beverages online along with the ticket, so why not 3D Glasses?. I suspect it is to do with some misunderstood & out-dated Entertainment Tax or VAT law in Tamil Nadu/India.
The movie was about a Blue Macaw bird which is raised by a young girl in Minnesota after being smuggled from Rio De Janeiro (Brazil) to USA. The bird is taken back to Rio to pair it with a female and save the species but gets chained by smugglers again. The rest of the movie is how the bird escapes along with its lover. The animations of the scenes in Rio are breath-taking, seamless 3D effects – shows how far animation & 3D technology in Cinemas have come in the last decade, amazing!. A cool movie for kids, they will love it. For Adults the story line could have been a little more fast-paced.
After our stay in Langkawi we went to Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia), a metropolis I love to travel to. On our trip from Chennai to KL itself I noticed the colourful seats that Malaysian Airlines have in their flights, lovely.
And KLIA (KL International Airport) is one of the fine airports in Asia. I found the nice small Boardwalk (open to sky) inside the airport in the centre with a little waterfall to be refreshing and breaking the claustrophobic feel inside the air-conditioned airport.
Though the Airport to City Centre is quite far (50Kms) – “KLIA Express” the high speed train is very efficient, taking just 25-30 Minutes each way. While returning from City you can drop your bags and check-in the KL Centre terminal, board the KL Express and travel conveniently & eco-friendly.
We spent a good part of a day in the famous KL Bird Park. The kids enjoyed seeing so many birds roaming freely – lovely peacocks, parrots, Eagles, Owls, Macaws, Emus and more. We took a photo with our camera for RM 30 with about half-a-dozen birds on our laps and hands – great experience. The kids loved the bird show and my son volunteered to hold a pole with a meat-piece, an eagle elegantly came flying and snatched it, was great to see. After Bird Park we went to near-by Butterfly park, but since it was evening we found very few butterflies (all gone to sleep?) and so it was not worth the entry fee.
Other than the Bird Park we didn’t do much in KL, just relaxed and lazy’d around the malls – going to China Town, Times Square Mall (the foot court here has a fine selection of Mock Fish/Chicken/Meat dishes) & Pavilion Mall.
One of the days in the evening we went for a dinner in Middle Eastern restaurant by name “Tarbush” which was at walking distance from The Westin where we stayed, the food was lovely. Then we took a ride in the KL Monorail – it was quite crowded with city commute but we were riding it for fun!
The last time I went to Langkawi (the beautiful island near the Andaman Sea & Thailand) was about 10 years back with my wife, the place held a serene feel to it. Last month we went there again for our summer vacation, this time with our Son & a friend’s family with their little boy. When we landed we were surprised by seeing lot of new developments in the island – bigger new airport, huge Police Academy, new buildings, shops, wide ring roads, what a difference 10 years has brought to the island. Still the resorts in the island were beautiful and relaxing, the people continuing to be very friendly.
When doing our booking for the stay after much selection we opted for The Andaman Resorts which is on the North-West of the Langkawi Island, inside a Million year old Rain Forest and on the shores of The Datai Bay (formed by a Meteor hit) in the Andaman Sea (hence the name). It turned out to be a good choice. But remember the Resort to City centre and shops are a good 25 Kms and you certainly need a car to commune. And that’s what we did, we rented a car. Since we were a group of 4 Adults and 2 Kids we opted for Toyota Innova – which costs about RM 600 for 48 Hours plus fuel (which is much cheaper in Malaysia compared to India). Your way within the island is easy, there is an outer ring road like structure (not a full circle and overall around 75-80 Kms) and few main roads – all neatly marked in the Tourist Map. All points of interest are dotted around the island.
Inside the Resort itself there were nice little 1 Hour Nature Walk tour twice every day conducted by a trained nature guide, bird watch tours and more activities. I took one of the nature walks in the morning and enjoyed it thoroughly. In the evening we went for a small trek into the near-by forest cover, the trek in the cleared path takes about 30-40 minutes and you reach a nice little stream and a lovely pond. After few minutes of hesitation I jumped (I should say got pushed by my wife) into the pond and it felt great. No man made swimming pool can come closer to mother nature!
Before the trip I saw this program in NDTV GoodTimes by gorgeous Arlette on a Boat ride in Langkawi & got impressed with it, so we did the same. We took a boat to go into the river and then to the open ocean to see the Mangroves, Crocodile Cave, Bat Caves & the Kilim Geoforest park. Apart from the great food in the Resort itself we dined outside in two Indian Restaurants – one day at Tandoor (great lunch) and second day for a great dinner at Papadam Ria (we remembered this place from our earlier trip 10 years back and the friendly owner).
Next we went to the famous Underwater world in Langkawi. This has one of the large collections of marine animals in Malaysia and over the years seems to have grown bigger. Overall a memorable trip, I just wish we stayed longer in Langkawi.
The WikiTravel page has useful tips for tourists – recommend you check it out for planning your activities while in the island.
In today’s Economic Times Newspaper in an Interview Subhash Menon, Founder of Subex mentioned about “If” by Rudyard Kipling – a short poem that carries the whole essence of Life. I searched and found it at PoetryFoundation and courtesy to them given it below.
If
By Rudyard Kipling 1865–1936 Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Source: A Choice of Kipling’s Verse (1943)
Reading this poem reminded me of Legendary Tamil Poet Subramanya Bharathi’s poem, given below:
தேடி சோறு நிதந்தின்று – பல
சின்னச் சிறுகதைகள் பேசி – மனம்
வாடித் துன்பமிக உழன்று – பிறர்
வாடப் பலசெயல்கள் செய்து – நரை
கூடிக் கிழப்பருவம் எய்தி – கொடுங்
கூற்றுக் கிரையெனப்பின் மாயும் – பல
வேடிக்கை மனிதரை போலே – நான்
வீழ்வே நென்று நினைத்தாயோ!
I have heard few times about this 1989 movie “Sex, Lies & Videotape”. It has scored like 97% on Tomatometer, Cannes Film Festival winner, nominated to Oscar & Golden Globe and many other awards. Got a chance to see it this weekend. Definitely a trend setting movie, can’t believe it was taken 22 years back. The movie feels familiar and that’s because over the last two decades many movies/TV shows have been inspired by this movie when it comes to talking about Sexuality, Marriage issues & compatibility among spouses.
The movie is about a trouble married couple & the story of a man who films women discussing their sexuality. The title can be misleading, as the movie has no nudity or explicit scenes. If you love a good cinema don’t miss this one.
The content of this site are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway. In addition, my thoughts and opinions often change, and as a weblog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot you should not consider out of date posts to reflect my current thoughts and opinions.
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_1.jpg "Malaysian Airlines Flight (2)")
_3.jpg "KLIA Jungle BoardWalk (iPhone)")
_1.jpg "KLIA Express (2)")
_1.jpg "KL Bird Park (4)")
_1.jpg "KL Bird Park (9)")
_1.jpg "KL Bird Park (15)")
_1.jpg "KL Bird Park (32)")
_1.jpg "KL Bird Park (44)")
_1.jpg "KL Bird Park (40)")
_3.jpg "KL Berjaya Times Square Mall (iPhone)")
_3.jpg "KL ChinaTown one end of the street (iPhone)")
_3.jpg "KL Tarbush Restaurant (iPhone)")
_3.jpg "KL MonoRail Stairs (iPhone)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi Airport (5)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi Drive (5)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi The Andaman Resort View of datai bai (iPhone)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi The Andaman Forest Walk (22)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi The Andaman Forest Walk (24)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi Kilim Geoforest Boatride (16)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi Kilim Geoforest Boatride (23)")
_1.jpg "Langkawi Indian Restaurant Papadam Ria (2)")
