Friday, February 29, 2008

MBA Course Complete

MBA Course Complete

I would like to share the happier moments that I have completed my MBA with systems as the elective from Alagappa University, Karaikudi. I just got the results last week. I have started the course sometime in 2005 and it was a two year course running till 2007. Actually, my other colleagues who started the PG courses in 2005 or in that time period are:

  1. Santosh Kumar Sinha (Symbiosis, Pune)
  2. Rajasekar Reddy (Symbiosis, Pune)
  3. Deepak Vasudevan [This Blogger] (Alagappa University, Karaikudi)
  4. Pradeep Joe Felix
  5. Ramesh Kumar Nagarajan (Alagappa University, Karaikudi) -- But I guess, he later switched course to M.S. (IT).
I would also like to sincerely thank the following who guided me to the right study center during the selection of courses:


  1. Senguttuvan Haridoss
  2. Lloyd
  3. Jeyapaul [the then study center representative]
  4. My Parents
  5. My Sweet Lord ("Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa")
  6. My friends for encouragement. And a special thanks would go to 'Prathiba Venkatesan' (affectionately known as Kitten) for being an inspiration and motivation towards a more focussed attention to the task on hand. There are a lot of things to be learnt from her.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Banners and Hoardings -- A Latent Advantage

Banners and Hoardings -- A Latent Advantage

Time and again there is a big hue and cry from the Corporation, the municipal authorities and other NGOs regarding the reckless banners and hoardings that are put across every nook and corner of the city. It is true that banners and hoardings have the following disadvantages:

1) Safety hazards particularly in the case of storms
2) Hiding of visibility of the business establishment entries
3) Preventing natural daylight for establishments on whose entry gates, the banner is put up.
4) Distractions to vehicle riders particularly in the case of vulgar displays.

All these discussions and debating points in one side, last week when I was waiting for a bus near Rajakilpakkam bus stand (where only white board ordinary buses stop), I got a different view regarding the banners. There was a hoarding of AIADMK put up in the bus stand. The bus stand was devoid of a proper shade for passengers. As you know, white board buses are now sparse in Chennai and if you are a few who have to depend on them then you need to put up with the enormous hardship particularly exposed to the bright shine and the thunderous rain.

This hoarding of AIADMK was actually a great boon as it saved me from the shine and gave me a pleasant cool shade. I am not affiliated with any political party. Incidentally, since the hoarding was belonging to AIADMK, I am just trying to appreciate them for the goodwill gesture of a cool hoarding to save the passengers from rain or shine.

The Time Wheel (Kala Chakra) -- Time and tide waits for none

The Time Wheel (Kala Chakra) -- Time and tide waits for none

After a long gap, my uncle had an opportunity to visit Chennai. After his wedding and getting settled in New Delhi there weren't much of Chennai - New Delhi visits for work-time schedule related reasons. The only means of communication were either email or telephone or a postcard. About five years back, when he came down, his kid was somewhere in eight standard. When I was in eight standard, he got married to Usha (my aunt).

Now this time, when he came down to Chennai, we talked really for a significant time. His son is currently doing his engineering from a college near Noida. Just wanted to tell about the speed with which the time moves non-stop without waiting anywhere.

It just looked fresh and green before my eyes as

(a) his wedding at a wedding hall in Pondy Bazaar (JYM Kalyana Mandapam)
(b) his kid's naming function at aunt's house in Arumbakkam
(c) His coming down to Chennai now ...

Is time cruel to bring all memories in one shot? Is time so generous to flash all memories in one shot? Nature is indeed a greatest book to learn and digest. No wonder there is another saying 'Life is short and art is long'.

A Cool Medical Discovery ...

A Cool Medical Discovery ...

A musical coughing guy in the vicinity seems to be an eternal source of information. He seeded and initiated a brainstorming discussion over here and then he was instrumented in a lexical discovery. To combat his menace, myself and my friend brought in an interesting step. Whenever he makes his musical cough (which we nicknamed it as 'Click-Click-Tick'), we need to countermand his distraction attempt by an equally but an opposite musical sound. Sometimes 'Tit for Tat' works right? Here came the 'Bring in the Burp' scheme. But a burp normally comes only when your digestion is going in good progress.

Hence to bring in burp, we had to take enough water. A trial run of water consumption over the week did bring in miraculous fun in combating this cough menace. But I suddenly got a new confusion. Would so much water consumption bring any other issues? A quick hear-say based information consoled us that water is harmless and it actually cleans the blood circulation and the respiratory system. I also checked with a couple of doctors and Web Health Center. Along with this, a little more Google search got me interesting results. I would just thought I would share the merits of water.

1) As long as the water you are consuming is clean and pure, you are safe. In Chennai at least, we have canned waters and water purifiers everywhere.
2) An average of 13 cups (3 litres) is recommended for men and 9 cups (2.2 litres) of water is recommended for women.
3) In most cases, drinking water to any quantity is harmless. However, when excess water consumed is unable to be excreted by your body, then there is physiological condition called Hyponatremia (It is characterised by diluted blood or low sodium levels in blood).
4) When I checked with my doctor regarding condition (3), he actually told me that at least in Chennai, the conditions for (3) is really really remote considering the weather.

Who told "IT Guys Practice Late to Bed and Late to Rise?"

Who told "IT Guys Practice Late to Bed and Late to Rise?"

I have been observing a common feeling at least from Chennai, India that people nurture a few weird things about people hailing from software professions.

The Myth

1) Always work late and they wake up very late. They always get to skip the early morning cool serene nature and the glimpse of the beautiful rising sun.
2) Always spendthrift.
3) Carefree and do not bear and accept responsibilities.
4) High earners.

The Reality

1) I would say the people who stick on to the myth like above are carried by the exceptions or stuck to a section of IT Enabled services like call centers whose employees need to cater and serve the other timezones of the world. I was actually inspired to write this post after reading an email from my one of my colleage (Ramesh Kumar Nagarajan) who is currently on an assignment to United States. The mail came from him at really early morning hours there, inspite of the chill climate prevailing there. He used to always practice "Early to bed and Early to rise" even while he was in Chennai. He has been always a source of inspiration for many things like:

(a) Focussed attention to the task on hand.
(b) Sticking on to 'Early to bed and Early to rise' instead of wasting odd times of the night to odd hours spoiling the health with junk foods.
2) Never. People in IT are more conscious spenders.
3) They have more responsibilities than any other quarter. There is a saying "If the train driver sleeps, the entire set of passengers' life is at stake". This saying very much applies to IT sector. With a significant chunk of world life empowered by computers and software, a good dynamic vibrant software professional is always expected to be responsible.
4) They are responsible tax-payers and nation builders.

I think we need to take slow, steady and conscious initiatives in getting other people realise that IT sector is not an island by itself. If people still stick on to their superstitions belief, those viruses should just be quarantined. We have studied a case study about people showing an envy face sometime back right. That should make us understand about envying people.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

A different Monday Morning Trip to Saidapet

A different Monday Morning Trip to Saidapet

Today morning inspite of the heavy crowd, I had a real deluxe bus trip from Tambaram to Velacherry. When I reached the Medawalkam Koot Road bus stand after a friend of mine dropped me there from Kamarajapuram, I got the Villupuram - Adyar bus. It was a long route bus but about the same tariff. So it was a comfortable journey.

From Velacherry, I got a C70V (Velacherry - Red Hills), which was again a cool bus. Albeit the fact it was standing journey from Velachery - Saidapet, there was not much stress and strain. So, it was a successful conquer of Monday morning crowds.

A Good Refreshing Weekend (16th February 2008)

A Good Refreshing Weekend (16th February 2008)

The Weekend of 16th February 2008 and 17th February 2008 was very much refreshing, entertaining and learning curve besides cleaning a lot of known debris and junk from both my residence and as well my mind. The following were the brief updates that I performed over the weekend:

1) Self-Appraisal: Normally, it is my regular practice to assess myself towards the deliverables I ought to plan towards the first quarter during the first week of February. This had been my regular practice for more than three years. I should actually thank Tony John since his Dotnetspider also encourages this Appraisal. Towards this, on Saturday, I had to update my profile to see what were the shortcomings and also towards upgrading the profile and skillsets.

I would actually sincerely thank Google Docs Team for the real excellent Word Processing product that facilitates seamless and efficient word document creation without a desktop word processor.

2) Core Spam Check: A few people always have a sadistic attitude of tormenting others always. Perhaps there was some kind of envy problems from a few of my ex-colleagues. This triggered them to resort to mass-spamming my inbox time and again whenever they had an outburst of hysteria. Whilst I don't take this seriously, since if they spam, it is going to be a headache for my SMTP server and my technical support, since I am just going to file a trouble ticket with Inbox.com Support, to augment and enhance their spam filters making them still aggressive. But I just thought, I would let the higher-ups over there know over the childish amateur attitude of a few people over there. Hence I drafted a quick and little update to them.

3) Reminder to Prathiba: One of my friend was actually telling me that she wanted to take LLR for driving a car. I remember she was telling me the previous week but for some reason, she could not take up. At least as a token gesture of encouraging, I had set my Calendar to trigger a reminder.

CBSE Helpline by 'The Hindu'

CBSE Helpline by 'The Hindu'

Come March and it is Examination time for students of schools and colleges. It is a very important examinations for Ten Plus Two school students since the marks they get would decide on their future course and career.

While reading 'The Hindu' today, I came across an interesting news today which speaks about CBSE Helpline being operated by 'The Hindu' where readers can send in their queries about CBSE examinations through email and selected queries would also be published in 'The Hindu'. To extend this, when I just clicked online, I also found that 'The Hindu' webpage has already started publishing select queries over here: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/nic/cbsehelp.htm

Readers can send in their queries to cbsehelp (at) thehindu.co.in. Perhaps, if the reader comes across more news helping out students to score better marks in the examinations, please feel to share them across as comments in this post.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Thursday Temple Visits for this and coming week advanced to Wednesday

Thursday Temple Visits for this and coming week advanced to Wednesday

This week and next Thursday visit to Thiruvallikeni temple has been advanced by a day to Wednesday. But why? The following are some of the reasons, that I had to make this schedule:

  1. Today is Ratha Sapthami day. This is considered very holy. The sun switches over from the zodiac sign Simha Rasi to Makara Rasi on this `Magha Suddha Sapthami' day. You can check out the details over here.
  2. I just observe every Thursday that sometimes because of bad eyes either the weekly schedule gets disturbed or unnecessarily delayed. For a couple of weeks, to break the monotony and also to break the malefic effects of ill-willed persons, I felt that this change be incorporated.
  3. To visit Thirukkostiyur Masi Teppam at Sri Sowmya Narayana Perumal temple which is scheduled on 21st of this month.
  4. A most-possible plan of visit of a few friends tomorrow or any other temple tomorrow.
  5. Retaliation to Ghost Attack: I have been having two nightmarish dreams yesterday and day before which are also accompanied by two accidents during home return yesterday and day before while travelling from work to home late night. The temple visit also would be towards addressing this too.
    1. Day before yesterday, the cab I was travelling had a violent turbulent overturn near Pallikaranai which was not expected since the roads are clean and perfectly laid out now.
    2. Yesterday, my cab had a narrow escape from a violently driven Tata Indica car near Velachery Vijayanagar bus stop.
    3. Last Friday, I saw two women walking at 00:00 hours (Saturday) from the back street of my house. When my car turned that street and reached my house, the same women could be sighted near the next street. I don't believe these ghosts per se. But going by the thing of incidents that happening, I think instead of making scientific debates, let me visit a temple to get things rectified at an earliest.
    4. My sincere thanks to my Lord Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa for blowing off the lurking perils off from my way.

I am not interested to start a debate on ghosts in this post. I just wanted to clarify the point of a belief I had taken due to a sudden turn of incidents this week and rectification-cum-correction procedures, I am incorporating thereto.

Monday, February 11, 2008

A Sumptous Dinner -- After DayLong Hunger

A Sumptous Dinner -- After DayLong Hunger

In the morning I started a bit early since I had some quick driving classes. Hope you would have actually enjoyed my first learning over there. Since it was quite early, I had to skip my breakfast and start off. During the day besides stringent schedules, I had two more responsibilities that interfered:

1) A call from my home loan crediting institution to get the updated passbook and other statements.
2) A call from my personal banker regarding an earlier report about an erring lethargic Term Deposit officer.

To address these issues, I had to use my lunch hour without disturbing my other schedules. When I reached back, it was about 1530 hours. So I had abandoned the lunch. The hunger started to hit after an hour. I was just managing for a few hours. When the dinner time came, I had visit the restaurant for a full meal. Thanks to the Lord, after the daylong hunger, the food was really good. I had some light common cold and the Lord had also blessed with the following dishes:

1) Sundakkai Sambar
2) Potato
3) Some Good Dhal

That made pretty good dinner to focus on rest of the work and relax after an acute mental stress plus stringent schedules.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Welcome Showers in Chennai Today

Welcome Showers in Chennai Today

Today being Saturday and also since I went home really late at about 0100 hours the previous night, I had to get up a bit late. I had some quick schedules like having a hair-cut in the morning and when I started out, I would witness black clouds forming up in the sky. Formation of thick and dense cumulo nimbus clouds normally indicates rain. I was bit surprised of this weather since all along it has been hot outside.

A co-passenger in the bus (M51H bound from Tambaram to Saidapet) told me that it has been raining in Chengalput. No sooner did the bus reach Velacherry, the rain started in Chennai too. I had to wait a while in a stop at Little Mount (Saidapet) before I could take up the tasks. I could actually hear people scolding at the rain. But I actually feel the rain should never be scolded. It is the gift of God. I recall that the song in 'En Swasa Katre' starring Aravind Samy and Isha Koppekar which starts like 'Chinna Chinna Mazhaithuligal ...' has one interesting lyric that people should welcome rain and they should actually avoid black umbrellas since black flag demonstration is considered shoo-shooing away (the opposite of welcome).

Let us thank God for the Rain Gift and Welcome Rains.

Community-Credit Hall of Fame Winner (February 2008)

Community-Credit Hall of Fame Winner (February 2008)

I am glad to share the happy news in my weblog that I have been selected into the Community-Credit Hall of Fame. Just a couple of days back, I received the following notification from Community-Credit Panel.



Hello Deepak,

Congratulations, You have been inducted into the Community Credit Hall of Fame. This award recognizes you as a contributor to the development community who has gone well above and beyond the norm. You are among the forces that really help the development community thrive. This level of recognition should be something to be very proud of and you are among a select few.

Recipients of this award are officially recognized on the Community Credit Hall of Fame Page and are also displayed in the Hall of Fame section on every page. In addition, you may proudly display the Hall of Fame logo on your site to show others that you are one who has really gone the extra mile in your contributions to the development community.

'

Congratulations,

David Silverlight
President
Community-Credit.com