Pledge your eyes and take the first step to be a sight ambassador ...

Pledge your eyes and take the first step to be a sight ambassador ...

Eye donation is a great noble thing. Unlike blood and food etc this can be done only after one breathes last. When every other organ of the human body needs to be buried or burnt (as per each one's religious observations), the eye alone can be removed off and fit into another human enabling them to see the world. Also unlike lever and kidney etc where preexisting diseases stop the donations, eye donation does not have anything like that because it is only the cornea that is going to be removed and placed into another person.

Bharat Eye Bank, a unit of Bharat Matrimony seems to be ushering in an innovative 'Pledge your eyes' scheme where you register yourself as an interested eye donor and they promise to send you a 'Pledge Card' that you would need to preserve with you and inform the relatives. After your era, when your relatives inform the nearest Eye Bank, they would help your soul to help you to help others to see the world.

Innovative Calendar Applications

Innovative Calendar Applications

There are many web based organizers available now on many websites like Yahoo Calendar, Google Calendar and Windows Live. I recently came across another website called http://www.cozi.com/ which offers a variant of the calendar as 'Family Calendar'. Besides the usual appointments and tasks, they offer something like family blogs and templates for shopping lists.

Just thought I would share this with other interested readers too.

Truly Demonstrated Signages from Idle People

Truly Demonstrated Signages from Idle People

Recently I had one interesting conversation with a friend of mine and we were trying to compile a few set of points/incidents in which a few people show themselves off when they have nothing concrete to work/action upon. As the most common saying goes 'An idle man is the workshop where the devil unleashes catastrophy of all sorts'. We would here see a few list of gestures that an idle person would demonstrate. This can also be taken as a complementary discussion to our earlier post over here.

1. Since the idler does not have anything concrete to deliver or demonstrate you can witness an undue amount of yawning or scratcing of their body parts like head, shoulders, chin etc. Remember, one person yawning in the room would serve as a highly contagious infection and it would reduce the performance of the room in toto.
2. The idleness also in a way reduces the oxygen and they might resort to too much of long breath frequently. We call this as பெருமூச்சு in Tamil.
3. If they are tech-savvy too much of idleness can be seen as wild-goose chase-like behavior in too-frequent link click sounds or mouse-scrollwheel motion. Perhaps they are resorting to whiling away the time in travelling as per their brain dictates, like what we call in Tamil as மனம் போன போக்கில்.

There isn't much to work upon or to correct with respect to such folks. They are just dangerous vectors to the society who ought to be quarantined to preserve the ecosystem. The need of the hour is to recognize them and stay aloof, a thing of which that is easily spread but a little involved to practice.

Interesting 'ATMs'

Interesting 'ATMs'

The word 'ATM' is quite commonly used and spelt by every one of us these days. We use it in the context of Automated Teller Machines. I have two other observations of this word 'ATM' in Chennai under totally different domains/contexts, which I would like to share with you here:

1. Aishwarya Thirumana Mahal, located near Pallikaranai Oil Mill bus stop uses ATM as a short name form for itself in the vehicle parking and direction boards.
2. Today whilst commuting through Madipakkam, I just observed that in Apollo Pharmacy has the word ATM in its name board with the expansion as below: 'Any Time Medicine'. Just thought of sharing a related thought that Apollo Pharmacy stores serve in a 24 hour round-the-clock fashion.

A Team Member's Birthday Party leads to an Information Discovery

A Team Member's Birthday Party leads to an Information Discovery

As we normally discuss about the series of birthdays in the month of November in my friends circle, this year one of the birthday parties of a friend of mine (falling on November 5 and the party held on November 6) led to a good information discovery. You can see more about the same over here.

A birthday is not another day to while away the time in idleness (as there is a saying like ' An idle mind is a devil's workshop') or just to booze and destroy the health and wealth. It should be a source to learn something. Perhaps this team member's birthday proved, served and helped us with a token demonstration of this policy. Let us greet him 'Many Many Happy Returns of the Day'. Though it is belated as of the date of this posting, we can rest reassure ourselves that it is better late than never.

Innovative Vegetable Ordering website in Chennai

Innovative Vegetable Ordering website in Chennai

Day before yesterday during my casual visit to the food court in my multi-tenanted technology park establishment, I had an opportunity to see a new counter with a banner like Veggi Bazaar. They seem to be offering vegetables, fruits, groceries for retail and festival occasions. The orders seem to be accepted either by telephone or through website.

The website URL of the service provider is: http://www.veggibazaar.com/

With a fast moving mechanical life, we normally lament that we don't have a good time to procure and prepare healthy vegetables in our day-to-day life. We should see if we can leverage the benefit of such websites to assess if they could fill up the gaps.

A quick platform to view hotel accomodations pan India

A quick platform to view hotel accomodations pan India

The other day whilst alighting from the bus to enter my workplace, I saw a banner advertisement with a little interesting name like http://www.cheersbye.com/. I had a quick tour of the website. Though it does not have really great flashy designs, the website attempts humbly with the information about various hotels that provide accomodation throughout India. This is exclusive to hotel accomodations only unlike MakeMyTrip and Yatra where they club it along with travel. A quick check with them for the modus operandi of reservations reveals that they only host the information and the reservations need to be dealt directly with the hotel only and not routed through them.

Just thought I would share this website over here for everyone's information and benefit.

Another Phone Search Directory Service for Chennai

Another Phone Search Directory Service for Chennai

I had one long-pending issue with Sodexo India and when I called the number mentioned in the Sodexo Pass I was surprised since the brand name she mentioned was little different. I asked twice and thrice to get the name and it was 'Call Ezee'. They seem to be accessible in this number 2444 4444. I just thought of sharing this information with other readers who might be needing information about services in Chennai.

Nevertheless, I normally lookup and recommend to the following services:

1. JustDial [pan-India presence and multiple channels
2. Sulekha [web-based]
3. Getit [lot of cities in India]

Let us pray together for a bountiful showers and a blissful monsoon in India to save us from the onslaught of gruesome cruel immiment drought

Let us pray together for a bountiful showers and a blissful monsoon in India to save us from the onslaught of gruesome cruel immiment drought

With every reservoir in the state of Tamil Nadu and in the overall country indicating that their storage levels are fast coming down, the country is reeling under acute hot weather conditions and imminent drought situation. The North-East monsoon is still dilly-dallying on its moral obligations to feed our state. Let us join together to worship the Lord through Andal's Thiruppavai pasurams for a bountiful showers of blessings and a blissful monsoon in India.



Ongi ulagaLandha uththaman pEr paadi *
nAngaL nam paavaikku caaRRi neer aadinAl *
theenginRi naadellaam thingaL mum maari peydhu *
Ongu peRum sennel oodu kayal ugaLa *
poonguvaLaip pOdhil poRi vandu kaN paduppa *
thEngAdhE pukkirundhu seerththa mulai paRRi *
vaanga kudam niRaikkum vaLLal perum pasukkaL*
neengaadha selvam niRaindhElOr empAvAy.

[Source Courtesy: iBiblio Sri Oppiliappan Archive].

aazhi mazhai kaNNaa! onRu nee kai karavEl *
aazhiyuL pukku mugandhu kodu aarththERi *
oozhi mudhalvan uruvam pOl mey kaRuththup *
paazhiyan^ thOLudaip paRpanaaban kaiyil *
aazhi pOl minni valamburi pOl ninRadhirndhu *
thaazhaadhE saarngam udhaiththa saramazhai pOl *
vaazha ulaginil peydhidaay * naangaLum
maargazhi neeraada magizhndhElOr embaavaay.



[Source Courtesy: iBiblio Sri Ramanuja Archive].



[Source Courtesy: Project Madurai]

IMD should take a vacation for a while ...

IMD should take a vacation for a while ...

Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) which helps the nation in its weather forecast, I believe, should take a break and abstain from weather forecasts for the monsoon period. It is always said that when these weathermen predict shine there is a heavy rain and downpour. When they predict the arrival of the monsoons or even some smoothing soft drizzles, there is a tough shine.

Currently the state of Tamil Nadu is reeling under hot climate, despite the start of Aippasi (November month in Tamil) and the North-East monsoon is dilly-dallying on its exercise. The state reservoirs are depleting in their storage and larger sections of the state has already started to feel the pinch of an onslaught of an imminent drought condition. Today morning I saw the weather forecast and it was telling heavy rains and when I went out for lunch today it is bright sunshine.

Either the accuracy of weather forecast should be increased and enhanced immediately by the department or at least in a social gesture let them avoid speculating and shoo-shooing away the monsoon.

"Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!"

Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!

Today's headlines in all Indian print, India-centric Internet media and televisions seems to be talking high and low on the rain's fury unleashed in Mahboobnagar and Kurnool districts of the state of Andhra Pradesh which included surrounding the famous Manthrayalam temple of Sri Raghavendra. And the very sad and unfortunate fact is that the district administrations are too lazy to even their move their asses a bit towards any relief measures. At least with respect to the news being aired at 1830 hours, a few of them in the boarding and lodging opposite the temple complained about lack of potable water supply.

Whilst flood situations present a grim picture now and then, the vast nation does not have enough long term vision or planning for a suitable people-friendly storage of water for use during water-dry periods. State and central administrations which are keen to construct flyovers and other infrastructure in an avaricious move to make fast bucks are just paying scant respect towards the welfare of the nation. Blatant deforestation and turbulent disturbance to the ecosystem adds to the woes and compounds to the problem.

Would there be light at the end of the tunnel with such bad rotten apples occupying the administration seats? Time alone can answer this query and heal the wounds of the people.