Friday, December 26, 2008

A Good view of Thorappakkam from MRTS

A Good view of Thorappakkam from MRTS

During my return trip from Thiruvallikeni to Velachery through MRTS yesterday, I had a chance to sit near the window in the train and it was a beautiful scene near Taramani railway station. Since the elevation of the train is at good height near Taramani, the following observations can be made thereto:

  1. Whilst approaching Taramani railway station, the view of the station and the curved track reminds one of the Frankfurt Airport skylines.
  2. Since it was about 1900 hours in the evening and the current season in Chennai, India is winter, all lights in the town near Thoraippakkam and Taramani were switched on.

I just thought I would share this observation with other readers who can also consider to start using MRTS in escaping the traffic clutches and also offering patronage to the good service from Indian Railways.

Weekend within Rahukalam?

Weekend within Rahukalam?

The previous weekend I had a trip to Chengalput to meet an old relative. Whilst discussing we had a talk about Rahukalam. Rahukalam is a definite time period of one hour and 30 minutes observed everyday where auspicious activities are refrained from being followed. You can check out more details about it here.

I had an interesting discovery at that time. During the Saturday and Sunday weekends, Rahukalam happens during morning on Saturday and evening on Sunday. So effectively, the start and stop of Rahukalam serves as delimiters for the weekend. We have been discussing about unleashed indiscipline by youth on Saturday and Sunday. Coinciding with my derivation, now we need to wonder whether this is a direct effect of Rahukalam controlling the days.

I would suggest the weekends are best for visiting temples and for holy activities that benefit us and society instead of wasting over fruitless parties which are just waste of time and money.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Good Noble Services of Kethaiyurumbu Sri Ayyappa Seva Sangam

Good Noble Services of Kethaiyurumbu Sri Ayyappa Seva Sangam

During this year pilgrimage to Sabarimala, I also came to know about Kethaiyurumbu Sri Ayyappa Seva Sangam. This is a very small village near Oddanchatram. The Ayyappa Seva Sangam does a lot of noble services like feeding to Ayyappa devotees (Annadhanam), special poojas to Ayyappa.

I just thought I would also give the address of Sri Ayyappa Seva Sangam for the benefit of other Ayyappa devotees so that interested can join up with them in serving the humanity, His devotees and hence serve Him.

Sri Ayyappa Seva Sangam,
Kethaiyurumbu
Pin Code: 624619

Since it is a small village, I believe, there should not be an issue for the post office to resolve and reach the address for any queries.

A more cheaper and effective Sabarimala trip ...

A more cheaper and effective Sabarimala trip ...

This year's trifurcation of our group in the Sabarimala trip has been more rewarding in more ways than one. I just thought I would summarize a few advantages that we derived from this nature-gift:
  1. Bhoopathy was able to discover a new route and explore the most cost-effective option of travelling himself to Sannidhanam, back to Chenganoor, accomodate a visit to Thrissur (Guruvayoor) Guruvayoorappan temple and back to Chennai all in just three days and budgeted at less than 950 INR [travel + food].

    When you go through the seasonal travel operator, you end paying up to 1050 INR for just travel.
  2. A deep study on Managerial Atheism.
  3. Travelling with the current seasonal operator (Sri Dharma Sastha Travels) who are operated by Sri Surya Travels, Burkit Road also brought to limelight various underworld profit making initiatives that some of the unscrupulous travel operators resort to during these periods to fleece the pilgrims:
    1. The travel operators many times to satisfy a section of the tourists, succumb to screening movie films instead of restricting to religious bhajan songs, which are the only desired things in a pilgrimage.
    2. The travel operators plan the trip in such a way that they charge for a pushback deluxe buses in the pamplets and brochures but in the actual travel they just end up bringing an old-style deluxe bus, thus making rich profits for themselves.
    3. In most of the cases, they overlook the timings and some of the temples en route gets closed. However, to ensure that they return before the end of contract timings, the return journey ends up in a rash driving race throwing safety of passengers to air.
    4. And this particular travel operator had a rule in the trip (a kind of fineprint) to instruct that passengers should not confront them in consumer courts in occasions where the service provider fails to keep up the quality of the service. The exact Tamil word in the reciept is as follows:

      15. டூரில் ஏற்படும் அசௌகரியங்களை மேனேஜ்மெண்ட்டாரிடம் தெரியப்படுத்தி முறையான சலுகைகளை பெற்றுக்கொள்ள வேண்டுமே தவிர கன்ஸ்யூமர் கோர்ட் போன்ற வழக்குக்கு வியாக்கியஙகள் செய்யக்கூடாது என்பது எங்கள் டூரில் கலந்துகொள்ளும் அனைவருக்கும் ஒப்புக்கொள்ளப்பட்ட விதியாகும்

I just thought I would share these illegal unscrupulous operations by such seasonal travel operators who are just oriented towards strenghtening their bank balance at the cost of passengers.

A new Vekkali temple in Palayanur near Vizhudhamangalam Koot Road

A new Vekkali temple in Palayanur near Vizhudhamangalam Koot Road

About a month back while the bus was negotiating Medawalkam junction, I saw a hoarding about a new Vekkali temple samprokshanam. It had been a week since I could capture the details because the advertisement was so huge to read it fully. And finally, somehow I managed to grasp the contact number of the organizer which was available on the notice board. I gave them a call to find out where the temple was.

The temple is located near Palayanur near Vizhudhamangalam Koot Road (a few miles after Madurantakam). He says there are town buses from Madurantakam bus stand too. The organizer can be reached on +919840633366 for more directions and details of the temple.

I just thought I would share the details with other interested readers so that more people can visit the temple to get the blessings of the Goddess.

Sri Bhaktha Anjaneyar temple in Medawalkam Koot Road

Sri Bhaktha Anjaneyar temple in Medawalkam Koot Road

I have been observing a very small temple for Sri Bhaktha Anjaneyar near Medawalkam Koot Road and located on the Medawalkam High Road (towards Keelkattalai) which regularly organize quite a lot of poojas for Sri Anjaneyar. They also organize regularly laksharchanais and other poojas too.

I just thought I today I would alight at Koot Road and try to get the contact details of the temple so that I can share the same with other readers who might be visiting the area so that they can also visit the temple to get the blessings of Sri Anjaneyar by participating in various poojas of the temple besides helping the temple for its various construction activities.

The temple is organized and managed by SBAT (Sri Bhaktha Anjaneyar Trust) who are reachable on the following numbers:

  1. +919444183022
  2. +914422771127

Sri Veeramani Raju's Ayyappa Bhajans in Ponni Amman Nagar (Chitlapakkam)

Sri Veeramani Raju's Ayyappa Bhajans in Ponni Amman Nagar (Chitlapakkam)

Thanks to Sundaresan Sivaraman for letting me know of Sri Veeramani Raju's Ayyappa bhajans in Ponni Amman Nagar (Chitlapakkam) on 25th December 2008 evening 1930 hours.

Landmarks to location:
  1. You can take the cement road from Mahalakshmi Nagar (near Camp Road), Selayur to reach Ponni Amman Nagar.

Let us try to schedule our calendars to attend the programme and get the blessings of Swamiyae Saranam Ayyappa.

Swamiyae Saranam Ayyappa!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

NobleFoundation with another shorter friendly domain name ...

NobleFoundation with another shorter friendly domain name ...

Service to suffering humanity is truly a service to God. With this noble motto, there exists a group called 'Noble Foundation', based from Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The group is founded by one Mr. T.S. Premkumar from Madurai. My sincere thanks to my college friend (K.R. Srinivasan) for introducing me to the group.

The group is innovating in providing a lot of services to financially challenged for their upliftment. A few of them are:

  1. Providing free textbook for students
  2. Free rice bags for widows/poor families
  3. Free rice, sugar, dalda and foodgrains to poor families during festival seasons like Diwali

If you are interested in contributing, please check out the contact details of Noble Foundation from the following addresses:

  1. WWW:
    1. http://www.noblefoundation.cfsites.org/
    2. http://www.noblefoundation.tk/
  2. Email:
    1. noblefoundationmadurai (at) hotmail.com
    2. support (at) noblefoundation.tk
  3. Telephone: +919487391524,+919965244410
  4. Contact Address:
  5. New No.48 (Old No.29/1),
    Perumal Koil South Mada Street,
    Madurai – 625001.

Sri Veeramani Raju's Ayyappa Bhajans in Ashok Nagar Mahodaya Hall

Sri Veeramani Raju's Ayyappa Bhajans in Ashok Nagar Mahodaya Hall

Thanks to Sundaresan Sivaraman for letting me know of Sri Veeramani Raju's Ayyappa bhajans in Mahodaya hall, Ashok Nagar (near Pudur) on 27th December 2008 evening around 1730 hours.

Landmarks to location:
  1. From Ashok Pillar, take the road to Kodambakkam (Jawahar Vidyalaya School) and also Pudur high school bus stop is honored by a lot of buses like 17D, 37D etc which ply on this route.
Let us try to schedule our calendars to attend the programme and get the blessings of Swamiyae Saranam Ayyappa.

Sri Veeramani Raju Bhajan in Mahalingapuram Ayyappa Temple

Sri Veeramani Raju Bhajan in Mahalingapuram Ayyappa Temple

Thanks to Sundaresan Sivaraman for letting me know of Sri Veeramani Raju's Ayyappa bhajans in Mahalingapuram Ayyappa temple today between 1930 and 2130 hours. The temple is known to be very strict with respect to time schedules because there are other poojas and Harivarasanam after 2130 hours.

Let us try to schedule our calendars to attend the programme and get the blessings of Swamiyae Saranam Ayyappa.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Managerial Atheists

Managerial Atheists

It is almost in any organization that the freaking middle management seems to be showcasing a kind of new doctrine called 'Managerial Atheism'. With my recent experiences and my colleague (Selvaraj's experience) besides a clip-review from a Tamil Movie ("Varuvan Manikantan"), I just thought I would compile all these thoughts into a single post as a moral review for other users to assess and understand about such people.

In more cases then one, I have also witnessed that whilst such creatures go way beyond in establishing their doctrine, they only succumb and crashing their goals and thus delaying the legitimate deliverables too. Would they ever care or dare to realise that? It is only time that can reliably answer this query.

  1. In the film "Varuvan Manikantan", there used to be a poor laborer working in the fields and farm house. Though he used to be very loyal to the employer, the rewards he used to gain was just paltry peanuts. Once it so happened that he wanted to take the pilgrimage to Sabarimala on the occasion of Makara Jothi and the dictator-type manager was intending to put a barricade by asking him to complete the farm harvests first before going on with his journey.

    With great distress, when he was sleeping in his hut, the Lord took the form of the same employer and flagged him off the journey to Sabarimala and took his form to work in his farmhouse. When he returned back, things came to everyone's limelight that the Lord Himself had been working in the farmhouse for the sake of devotee which made the adamant and arrogant employer to realise his folly and repent for his bad things.

    There are the following things to learn from the movie:
    1. The greatness of devotion and significantly the greatness of Lord Ayyappa. The background song of the movie remains as "Manikantan mahimai solli maalathu" (We can not tell-complete the entire greatness and valor of Lord Ayyappa)
    2. The greatness of Lord to even correct the atheists.
    3. The need for shedding our atheist doctrines and realise the greatness of Lord.
  2. In my latest trip to Sabarimala, I had mentioned about Selvaraj was not able to cope up with our latest schedules and had to again reschedule. That was again one of the middle management foul play. While the managing director of the organization from whom he had his contract was supporting him, the middle (intermediate) supervisory cadre (manager) was adamantly forcing him to complete the assignment first before taking any or other pilgrimage to Sabarimala giving lame excuses that his organization was running behind schedules in filing tax and other returns to government authorities.
  3. The another set of atheist, I had was from my previous organization. This bugger frequently had trouble with my regular Thursday Triplicane trip but I supported by my the then technical lead (Varadarajan) who himself used to go regularly. And God gave them a resilent reply too. The US headquarters have now decided to close down the shutters of the Chennai organization, with effect from June 2008.
I just thought I would share these few experiences for the following reasons:

Doctrines of atheisms are just not even for reading or thinking pleasure. Going against the supernatural powers of God can be disastrous. There isn't anything under the Sun which can operate without the will and wish of God. Hence let us shed our ego and other stupid things aside and ensure that we are truthful to our own conscience and to God. The New Year 2009 is around the corner. Let us take up a new year resolution to keep off such bad practices and keep off from such atheists and be truthful to our own self and to God, serving Him and to get His blessings for success in every quarter/every step of our life. Happy New Year 2009 to everyone!!

Friday, December 19, 2008

'Ticket' or 'Travel Authority'

'Ticket' or 'Travel Authority'

I was just thinking about this comparison between the terms that is used to describe a travel pass which is issued in public commutation systems. There is an interesting comparison of the words as used in India and in US. Just thought I would share this comparison over here:


  1. The travel token that you purchase or reserve is often called in full along with the mode of travel like 'Air Tickets'. I observed that DART token has the word 'Day Pass'.

    A ticket stands for a penalty that a cop levies for a traffic offence or violation.
  2. In India, we use the term 'fine' for traffic offence penalty and 'ticket' for travel authority.

There isn't much to compare but just thought I would share this note so that first timers across the nations can be comfortable with the different words used for the same purpose.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

MTC Public Grievances over mobile

MTC Public Grievances over mobile

The Chennai-based public transporation system, Metropolitan Transport Corporation seems to be ushering in a fresh venture of commuter-friendly measures. The other day, when I was travelling from T. Nagar to Tambaram, I saw a new announcement painted over the seat behind the bus conductor.

The english version of the announcement would be like 'If you have any grievances in the travel of MTC buses, please get in touch with +91 93833 7639". I am not sure whether it is being routed to IVR or another call center, but just thought I would share this observation with other readers so that others can also know about the commuter-friendly initiatives of MTC and benefit from the same.

Erstwhile VAS Premium Services are now at normal SMS rates -- Thanks to Google

Erstwhile VAS Premium Services are now at normal SMS rates -- Thanks to Google

If you have a Airtel SIM card, you can find the following services in Airtel Menu of your SIM card:

1) Cricket Scores,

2) Indian Railways

(a) Train Schedules
(b) Ticket Status

3) Horoscopes

4) Movie Showtimes

5) Restaurant Information

Now, Google India has brought in a unique mobile number 9-77-33-00000, which offers these services for the cost of normal text message. Previously, if you opt to use the standard operator menu, it used to charge INR 3 to INR 6 per text message and now it is just a standard text message rate.

Check out more details from Google Mobile page over here.