the day i was born

The day i was born (2nd Sept, 3.30 AM) just occurred for 2008 as well. Another year passed and certainly it denotes i am aging...
If i look back last 1 year, it was professionally successful year. i spent almost all the time for the project @ work. Thanks to very kind and co-operative team at Business Objects, i was able to set straight certain expectations at work.
It wasnt all that good year at personal life. Due to work, i failed to return many calls/emails on time, failed to call many, failed to write to many. The big push was needed at work, but the cost way too much. Hence i decided from now on be more normal in managing both personal / professional commitments henceforth...

Raghu

Leader (Everyone) should accept his failure

If any of you seen the finals of IPL yesterday, you will now know, as a leader how to generalize failure to the team you belong to rather than accept it on you. Yes, In the presentation Dhoni mentioned that his team failed in all the 3 departments (i.e. bowling, batting and fielding). It is team's failure or his failure to provide competent team member's opportunity to fair play.

In Batting, they promoted Kapugedera instead of Badrinath in 17th 0ver which was a blunder by him. Badrinath is a known big hitter and in form. easily we could have scored 15 more runs and could have set a good target.

In bowling, again, they did not provide Badrinath an opportunity to bowl. When choice for bowler for 20th over came, again ball was given by Dhoni to balaji whose figures were 3-0-34-0. what do you expect the result of 1 over 8 runs?

In fielding it was raina and partiv patel to be blamed for dropping Y. Pathan @13 (who went to score half century) and parthiv giving away easily the bye run on a wide ball in the last over.

I guess the entire team would have felt bad on what Dhoni mentioned in the presentation. They put in their best efforts and some of Dhoni's move did not click well. Rather than attributing it against team it is better to accept failure on him. This will improve his image and make him a better person to work with.


it looks like chennai played well, but Rajasthan definitely played like champions. they deserve this victory.

-Raghu

Fun @ Mumbai

In 2000 i went to Bombay to do my project in Tata Institute. Yesterday i again traveled for my french embassy visa to Mumbai. i was wondering it will be one hell of a trip after being let down by Arun aka Arai. Yes, i was supposed to see Mumbai along with him and landed there when he was traveling to Delhi at the same time (useless fellow!!). Becz of this confusion, i could not change my prior reservation of 9AM sunday flight :-( without arai around, i thought its going to be one dull and solitude visit... i never knew i had many hidden talents which brought in the fun element during this mumbai trip. some of these events listed below,

1. I wanted to visit vadala road, 5 gardens, bsnl colony, brij samosa shop, ram/krishna pani poori shop and amar restaurant (short list of items for one place vadala road). I took a BST bus to andheri and from their took a train to bandra. In Bandra station i asked for ticket to CST in harbor line. the person in counter asked me "aap mahim se change karogae". i said OK without much thinking... when i used to live in vadala road, we always take train to bandra in harbor line and change at matunga rd station. so without giving much of heed to what the ticket issuing person was saying, i landed in matunga railway station only to find out it is no longer the same station and there is no connectivity to harbor line :-( to add to it, i approached a ticket checker, showed him my ticket and asked him where i can take harbor line? Goodness me!! firstly i was in wrong station and on top of it.. i approached lion in its den!! he verified my ticket and told me it is the ticket for harbor line, but i am at wrong station.... Luckily all religion Gods were on my side, when i bought ticket from Andheri, i bought till churchgate with return.. i survived event #1

2. Landed in vadala road...... expecting a delicious lunch @ Amar hotel..... all places (listed above) existed except Amar hotel. If you havent been to vadala road, u will not realize the missing piece. it is a perfect residential locality without any restaurants !! my only hope also vanished!! with so much fire in my belly.. i approached one old man who was a localite and enquired about Hotel Amar.. he told it was closed for longer time.. he explained history behind that hotel location... my only hope also vanished!! with so much fire in my belly.. this time my savior was Lord Ram.. sorry Sri Ram bhel poori shop. there used to be days when this shop opens only in the evening say 3PM and gets closed by 6.30 PM. so much people will buy that this shop will become empty in short time each day. we used to catch early bus in tata institute just to meet Lord Ram (he he). had chat ... the taste had not changed much... again survived event #2

3. walked all the way till Dadar as i used to do.. landed in dadar. took a fast train to church gate and by mistake got down in Mumbai central only to find it was a wrong station.. by the time i realized this, there was 100 people around me......

4. Finally arrived @Hotel Ambassador Guess what.. i ordered lunch and headed towards the bed in the room as i was too tired...

it did not stop here... whole of this trip was marked by headache.. as i type this now, i continue to have headache..

5. woke up at 7.. decided to walk around marine drive from nariman point... Awesome and priceless walk!!!

6. decided to have Pizza @ dominos. was searching for an outlet in the neighborhood.. walked for more than an hour only to find a dominos service guy in his bike... ran and caught him and asked him for the address. he told me shiv sagar and he ran away... i did not know where shiv sagar was located... again was determined to have pizza that night... finally got to know about its existance in colloba which was 3 KMs away from church gate... u know what i would have done... walked all the way....... for FOOD

7. as i came out of dominos, i came to a bus stop... there came a beautiful lady asking if i wanted to go to church gate with her...... My god!!! if she was what i think about her (dont know, i must confess, but could not resist this doubt in my mind in a area like collba around 11PM). i told her i am not going to colloba (a lie). she even arranged a shared cab for me with one more guy sharing the same... i resisted... the cab driver was not leaving me!! i do not know why i boarded the car (may be it was getting late and i did not wait in the bus stand)... it all ended soon as i got down in churchgate... gave my share to her and started to walk straight towards my hotel...... it was different experience.

today in short..
i landed in andheri station... as i came out, i saw bus to sivaji airport... immediately got in.. not realizing that i was heading towards intl airport.
then took an auto to get into domestic terminal 1A gate1. Again KingFisher check in was in gate 2 and after reaching gate 2, i came to know that my flight was in different terminal (1B) .... walked again!! flight was delayed by 2 hours landed in bangalore only to know about cab strike... luckily again i got an auto driver from b.ghatta road itself... he dropped me at my home some 1 hour ago...

it all happened in Mumbai!!

until next
Raghu

je suis retour

I am back for good. Yes good for the company (SAP... I hope you are following the news, Business Objects for which i work for, is intended to be acquired by SAP for 7B USD deal on Oct 6th). So it is eventful period for the company. Everyone is looking for integration related information. Hence not much work :-) Good for the company isnt it??

For someone like me sitting idle is impossible (really!!!) this is what i have been doing these days... Some useful info for you

Have you read the tamil wiki pedia?? http://ta.wikipedia.org
If you are not a chennaite, interested in hearing suryan FM online, check out the online FM radio http://www.sfm935.in/
I am member of Seventymm online video lending library. its really cool now with seventymm http://www.seventymm.com
Did u hear about google programing contest? http://code.google.com/android/ your 10M is lying there....

I also restarted my cooking sessions, so do expect some interesting recipes on the blog...
Also contemplating about restarting flute lessons (readyaa ???)
another one!!! i am trying to see Anand and Partha for a while and discuss some initiative with them. both of them are escaping for a while....

so much more to come!!!!

je suis retour (i am back)

Happy Birthday Raghu

Hello

Thanks a ton for everyone who sent and who planned to send wishes on my birthday raghu. There were calls, SMSs, scraps, emails :-) How lucky am i to have so many friends and relatives who care about you.

we had organized lunch with the students of veda pada salai in T.V. Koil. In few years my life will move in to next decade... may be my mom and dad should know that its time for them to be serious about their action.

until next
Raghu

Villain in my Life

Ants are the current villain in my life. they make me sweat, they make me work hard, they make me do all those repetitive household work, they are small, but in numbers they come to my home every day, despite my efforts to keep my home clean.

I might have ignored my parents sometime @ home, my friend's request @ room, here am i always obedient, cleanliness centric, always working hard with lots of sweat :-(

Only villain in my life --- Ants

Cash

Mazhaiukku udangara madhirinu kelvi pattu irukinga la? I happen to visit PVR yesterday afternoon just becz Badri wanted to sleep. It was 3 PM when we two stood in the que looking for tickets for afti show... After reaching the ticket counter, PVR salesman posed us an impossible question. We have tickets for Partner, Cash, which one do u want? Kizhinchadhu krishnagiri nu niniachom.. Still i asked badri, do u wana go? He said he wanted to sleep, We had cash also in our pockets :-) Damn it!! Aunty behind the line must have been wondering about us going through our discussions...

well time was 3.10 when all these were over... we headed right into our M10, M11 seat of Audi 4. The movie started with a song, i thought it is gonna be another one of those bollywoddish movie... i looked at right, badri was already preparing himself, stretching himself with half closed eyes..

Cash is a movie about robbery, thieves, cars, pathetic songs and not so bad screen play. The scenes of the duo ajay devgan and shamita shetty are good to watch (but better watch it in TV yaar). well these guys have lot of cash to take such movies cash... if u are expecting me to run through a previe, my apologies, this movie is worth writing this much.... at the end of 2 1/2 hours of sound sleep (yes, some side effects during his deep sleep), he woke up and said, good movie isnt it!! shall we leave? I said right :-) lets go, we headed straight to... u know what people do after getting up from deep sleep or someone who drank 2 Large Coke during a movie....
Its de pressurising time!!!

Until next
Raghu

so far so good

Hello,

So far so good! in terms of my experience with kitchen as concerned.
In the last 15 days i have tried variety of dishes and most of them turned out to be of similar taste as that of dishes!! few times, i failed dramatically! but i learnt about the mistake and do not worry if any of u are visiting my home, u will not be experimented...

My recipes include - Oninon Rava Uppuma, Wheat Dosa, Chappati with Chow Chow Pallaya or kootu, Saada Saada Dosa, Adai, Tamarind Upma, Bajji (failed here, need to try again), some varieties of rasam - regular rasam, pepper rasam, coconut rice, coconut chutney and ofcousrse lots of time potato fry...

more to come, i am finding lots of time as my office timings have changed and it ends at 5PM!!

Guys! do u know very well a recipe, send it across to me... but only veg!! (eggless)

Come home sometime!!
Raghu

Ah! Vai Raja Vai Raja Vai...

Today 30th July we shifted to our new office premise in Outer Rink Road. i must tell you this is one hell :P of a office for us :) It has space for every one and for everything inside ;).

It has ultra posh reception with LCD displays and all, one huge floor to house entire 3oo staff of business Objects, Huge play area right now with 2 TT tables and some carom boards, huge banners in most of the walls and seating areas representing core values of BOBJ, dormitory and plenty of meeting and conf rooms with wall hanging projectors, and many phone booths, this is quite intuitive and this is backup arrangement in case of conf rooms are full (it cannot happen, still !!!) or if people wanted a private talk. and many more... i think i will keep on talking about this..

Since it is single floor for all of us, we need to walk a bit, it reminds me of REC days :) good for people who are body conscious.

My cabin is really big and with no neighbour around, i have so much space...

tomorrow there will be play cards at my table... wanted to start mangatha club at my place... interested people can join.... ah vai raja vai... vanda pogadhu pona varadhu... ah vai raja vai...

MM - Midnight M$#^

MM is not about yester day's Midnight Masala. This one goes for all those who like to see Midnight moon more than early morning sun...

Midnight Moon

I hold you forthis perfect night
Love is born to linger in your magic light
With that girl beside me and you above
You must also be in love :)

- by Smoking popes

A perfect night my bed is calling ...

Good Night
Raghu

the partha effect

If you are wondering that i am going to write about that elusive parthasarathy, you are wrong :)

Last weekend i had been to trichy. The ususal suspects (me and Badri) had been to Sri Parthasarathy Bhavan in T.V. Kovil and had the taste of those wonderful dosas (with lots of sambar ofcourse :)). I am not sure how many of you visited this place in the past. It is in the lane right adjacent to the temple wall of T.V. Kovil.

This restaurant resembles one of those old iyer hotels of srirangam. It is an old house converted to a restaurant. As you enter, you will be blessed by whole lot of Gods and Goddess (original Goddess ;)). On the other side of the hall, you have series of tables like a typical restaurant. Most of the faces looks familiar as they were around and working in that hotel for long. We happen to meet one Mr. Subramanian and gave our spec for the dosa (saadha saadha) and had our mini b.fast with lots of sambar. if you are cleanliness conscious, beware!! it is like yet another iyer hotels in srirangam area...

Apart from that, i had lots of home food (sorry i cannot stop talking about this ;)). visited our usual places in trichy and watched once again Sivaji with Badri...

got to go

A+
Raghu

Fun @ Work

Lots of companies do different things to create fun @ work. Today my company Business Objects had organized a movie show for all the employees :)

First it was the scary part. they were planning for Jhoom Barabar Jhoom movie. after having read its review, i was thinking the real fun would be, they will tie us all in our chair and make us watch this movie fully... :)

Somewhere our (crying) voices were heard. we changed movie to Pirates of the Caribbean... Although i have not watched Part 1 n 2, it was good movie technically. i am amazed by the performance of Johny Deep as Jack Sparrow... 2nd half is really worth watching... but be sure to watch 1st and 2nd part before this :).

Until next

A+
Raghu

Uncertainty is certain in life?

is this true? ;)

This is my debut to blogging. From the learnings recently i have realized that uncertainty is certain in life. The way we manage things makes these uncertain things certain.

clear now :)

Cheers

R. Iyer