the other day, my counterpart in a downstream system was explaining a new requirement to me over phone, "assume i am a bum, i should have access to ... ."
i put the phone on mute, and started laughing.
that day i came to know of the fact that a business-unit-manager, in short, is a bum.
i wondered what sort of jokes/humor would be passed around by the sub-ordinates and the superiors about the bums. my mind raced, and came up with a few funny sequences. here is one of them!
a business-unit-manager calls up support team, and says "hi! i am a bum, and i am not able to see the trade."
the smart support guy, who knows that manager does not have permissions to see the trade, replies, "of course! you will not be able to."
"why?"
"because you are a bum."
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
a mastercard weekend
toll on garden state parra-slow-way [very slow way] - 2 $ 70 cents
go-karting at mayville - 35 $
30 minute jet ski @ wildwood beach - 65 $
weekend rentals to dollar-rent-a-car for a dabba car that even a dollar store parking lot would reject undoubtedly - 200 $
a krishnamurthy, the care taker at econo lodge in marmora, welcoming us with a 'vaango, payanam eppadi irundadhu ?' [welcome, how was your trip] - 250 $
the group coming to consensus on a restaurant to have food - chanceless
driving home safely from cape may, on garden state parkway, in the thunderstorm with visibility of just about 10 feet - priceless
go-karting at mayville - 35 $
30 minute jet ski @ wildwood beach - 65 $
weekend rentals to dollar-rent-a-car for a dabba car that even a dollar store parking lot would reject undoubtedly - 200 $
a krishnamurthy, the care taker at econo lodge in marmora, welcoming us with a 'vaango, payanam eppadi irundadhu ?' [welcome, how was your trip] - 250 $
the group coming to consensus on a restaurant to have food - chanceless
driving home safely from cape may, on garden state parkway, in the thunderstorm with visibility of just about 10 feet - priceless
Monday, July 7, 2008
karthik is my name!
when my parents christened me karthik, they had thought it was a unique name. coincidentally, this unique thought occurred to quite a good number of parents in the late 70s and the early 80s. end result, scores of karthiks were released into this world.
whatever school i attended, coaching class i went to, there was a minimum of two karthiks on the roll-call. the max number was at my college that had 4 karthiks in the class. i did not dare to take the count across the 2000 batch, or across my college. definitely karthik would have made it to the podium at the most-common-name-contest.
class was divided into groups of 4 or 5 to do experiments in the labs. my group consisted of karthik, karthik, karthik and kiran.
even though karthik's spelling varied from karthik to kaarthik to karthick to kartic, the name was pronounced one and the same. in order to distinguish the beings, some characteristic or the other was used to qualify the karthiks. for eg - nettai (tall), bodhai (drug- the guy was always in a trance), dumm (cigarette), delhi, current.
year 2008. i am attending evening accounting classes at new york university. the strength of the class is 20, and the only other desi in the class is also named karthik. now what are the odds?
whatever school i attended, coaching class i went to, there was a minimum of two karthiks on the roll-call. the max number was at my college that had 4 karthiks in the class. i did not dare to take the count across the 2000 batch, or across my college. definitely karthik would have made it to the podium at the most-common-name-contest.
class was divided into groups of 4 or 5 to do experiments in the labs. my group consisted of karthik, karthik, karthik and kiran.
even though karthik's spelling varied from karthik to kaarthik to karthick to kartic, the name was pronounced one and the same. in order to distinguish the beings, some characteristic or the other was used to qualify the karthiks. for eg - nettai (tall), bodhai (drug- the guy was always in a trance), dumm (cigarette), delhi, current.
year 2008. i am attending evening accounting classes at new york university. the strength of the class is 20, and the only other desi in the class is also named karthik. now what are the odds?
Monday, June 16, 2008
dasavatharam review-ed
a genuine effort from kollywood at something big and different.
+ kamal's multiple roles and voice modulations. the characters of fletcher - the ex-cia agent, balram naidu and boovaragan have been very well done.
+ racy screenplay. please leave your brains at home though!
+ immense effort has been put into making the sets and the visual effects.
- bad graphics.
catch the movie at a good theater so that the decently made graphics does not get degraded any further!
trivia : ten avatars - rangarajan nambi, govindrajan naicker, president bush, fletcher, japanese kung-fu master, balram naidu, avtaar singh, krishnaveni paati (grandma), vincent boovaragan, khalif ulla.
+ kamal's multiple roles and voice modulations. the characters of fletcher - the ex-cia agent, balram naidu and boovaragan have been very well done.
+ racy screenplay. please leave your brains at home though!
+ immense effort has been put into making the sets and the visual effects.
- bad graphics.
catch the movie at a good theater so that the decently made graphics does not get degraded any further!
trivia : ten avatars - rangarajan nambi, govindrajan naicker, president bush, fletcher, japanese kung-fu master, balram naidu, avtaar singh, krishnaveni paati (grandma), vincent boovaragan, khalif ulla.
Monday, June 9, 2008
thunderstorm memories
the thunderstorm, here today at hoboken, for some reason brought back memories of my childhood days spent in madurai and madras. whenever there was a thunderstorm, the following things were executed with alacrity...
> scurry up to the balcony to remove clothes hung-up on ropes for drying
> get the bicycle indoors, put cover over the scooter parked out in the open
> get a torch/candle into vicinity
> remove the antenna cable from back of the tv
> unplug power chord on any recently bought electricals/electronics
> make kappals (boats) out of paper from used rough notebooks
after the prep work was done, me and my brother would wait in anticipation of a power cut. power cut implies books down, some extra time for chit-chat with friends next door.
electricity board would hardly disappoint us!
> scurry up to the balcony to remove clothes hung-up on ropes for drying
> get the bicycle indoors, put cover over the scooter parked out in the open
> get a torch/candle into vicinity
> remove the antenna cable from back of the tv
> unplug power chord on any recently bought electricals/electronics
> make kappals (boats) out of paper from used rough notebooks
after the prep work was done, me and my brother would wait in anticipation of a power cut. power cut implies books down, some extra time for chit-chat with friends next door.
electricity board would hardly disappoint us!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
snapped...
while roaming the streets of Manhattan over the long weekend, I met telugu movie star Venkatesh. he was shooting for his movie 'chintakaya ravi' at union square, new york.
he was happy to stare into the camera with us.
he was happy to stare into the camera with us.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
being civil is no good!
circa - somewhere in the early 90s. like any above-average i.q son of a middle class man in chennai, i too had to choose between two career paths. a- becoming a doctor, b- engineering. biology was a subject i hated, so it was hobson's choice. with time it metamorphosed into an ambition.
circa 1996. i flunked jee, and the gates to the mecca of engineering were closed for me. in spite of good scores in the 12th exam, I could not get a 'free-seat'* in any of the top engineering colleges in tamil nadu. reason - i was an academic outcast of the tamilnadu education system on two counts. first : the cbse tag, second : i belong to section of population whose ancestors misinterpreted the vedic varna system.
I was left with the ambition and zero admits!
nowhere to go, and the thought of burdening appa's monthly middle-class budget with the expenses of a 'payment seat'** was playing on my mind. i was now desperately trying to figure out options in other states and union territories.
i stumbled upon the entrance exam conducted by P.E.C (pondicherry engineering college). did pretty well in the entrance test. but, quota had another quota to play in my life. this time it was pondicherry resident quota.
in the words of the the admission committee, "congrats! you have a very good score. we can give you only civil as you are a non-resident of pondy."
though i did not desire to be civil-ised***, this chance appeared as the last hay of hope tying me to my ambition. i decided to go for it.
after the decision was made, i was back in chennai with a wee-bit of sense of achievement and loads of happiness.
as part of the prep work to leave for the new world, i went to mount road to shop with my uncle. enroute to a shop near tarapore towers, we ran into a friend of uncle, o.-something. from his looks uncle's friend o (u.f.o) looked educated.
after initial exchange of pleasantries, the two friends got into a banter.
suddenly my uncle decided to do some peela (show-off) by introducing his to-be-engineer marumaan (nephew).
uncle started, "hey! meet karthik."
u.f.o to me, "hello karthik!".
I smiled back.
"you know what! karthik is going for engineering. he has chosen p.e.c. ", declared my uncle.
"chosen? ", i said loudly to myself. i was continuing my smile though.
"oh! pondicherry engineering-a", cried out the excited u.f.o. "super-ba! congrats", he continued. his face lit up like a thousand watts tube. the customary question followed, "what branch?".
"civil!", i said.
the answer pulled the plug on the tube. u.f.o's face shrunk, and he retorted in a derogatory tone, "...seeee-villll-aa...". He made 'civil' sound like the longest word in english.
my smile dried up. as i was groping for an answer, i was hoping that the man-hole behind him would pop out its corporation lid, and consume the anti-civil fellow.
as no such miracle happened, u.f.o continued, "couldn't you at the least get an instrumentation or mechanical seat?"
i do not remember the rest of the conversation. but to this day i have not forgotten the shrunken face, the tone and the pronunciation that was used to echo my branch name!
*free seat - a misnomer to denote an engineering seat that comes at a non-exorbitant amount.
**payment seat- a term used in tamil nadu education system where a seat is acquired by an individual in self-financing engineering college by paying a lump-sum. a little portion goes to the government exchequer, and the rest to the college. this is not the end-all of the fees that the individual pays to the college. the college is given multiple degrees of freedom to demand for more fees, with sky being the limit. i always felt such colleges should be called 'student-financing', and not 'self-financing'.
*** this was not an era where the equation [ engineer = software engineer ] held good. where ? can be computer, electronics, electrical, mechanical, civil, nothing, something, anything, balderdash.
circa 1996. i flunked jee, and the gates to the mecca of engineering were closed for me. in spite of good scores in the 12th exam, I could not get a 'free-seat'* in any of the top engineering colleges in tamil nadu. reason - i was an academic outcast of the tamilnadu education system on two counts. first : the cbse tag, second : i belong to section of population whose ancestors misinterpreted the vedic varna system.
I was left with the ambition and zero admits!
nowhere to go, and the thought of burdening appa's monthly middle-class budget with the expenses of a 'payment seat'** was playing on my mind. i was now desperately trying to figure out options in other states and union territories.
i stumbled upon the entrance exam conducted by P.E.C (pondicherry engineering college). did pretty well in the entrance test. but, quota had another quota to play in my life. this time it was pondicherry resident quota.
in the words of the the admission committee, "congrats! you have a very good score. we can give you only civil as you are a non-resident of pondy."
though i did not desire to be civil-ised***, this chance appeared as the last hay of hope tying me to my ambition. i decided to go for it.
after the decision was made, i was back in chennai with a wee-bit of sense of achievement and loads of happiness.
as part of the prep work to leave for the new world, i went to mount road to shop with my uncle. enroute to a shop near tarapore towers, we ran into a friend of uncle, o.-something. from his looks uncle's friend o (u.f.o) looked educated.
after initial exchange of pleasantries, the two friends got into a banter.
suddenly my uncle decided to do some peela (show-off) by introducing his to-be-engineer marumaan (nephew).
uncle started, "hey! meet karthik."
u.f.o to me, "hello karthik!".
I smiled back.
"you know what! karthik is going for engineering. he has chosen p.e.c. ", declared my uncle.
"chosen? ", i said loudly to myself. i was continuing my smile though.
"oh! pondicherry engineering-a", cried out the excited u.f.o. "super-ba! congrats", he continued. his face lit up like a thousand watts tube. the customary question followed, "what branch?".
"civil!", i said.
the answer pulled the plug on the tube. u.f.o's face shrunk, and he retorted in a derogatory tone, "...seeee-villll-aa...". He made 'civil' sound like the longest word in english.
my smile dried up. as i was groping for an answer, i was hoping that the man-hole behind him would pop out its corporation lid, and consume the anti-civil fellow.
as no such miracle happened, u.f.o continued, "couldn't you at the least get an instrumentation or mechanical seat?"
i do not remember the rest of the conversation. but to this day i have not forgotten the shrunken face, the tone and the pronunciation that was used to echo my branch name!
*free seat - a misnomer to denote an engineering seat that comes at a non-exorbitant amount.
**payment seat- a term used in tamil nadu education system where a seat is acquired by an individual in self-financing engineering college by paying a lump-sum. a little portion goes to the government exchequer, and the rest to the college. this is not the end-all of the fees that the individual pays to the college. the college is given multiple degrees of freedom to demand for more fees, with sky being the limit. i always felt such colleges should be called 'student-financing', and not 'self-financing'.
*** this was not an era where the equation [ engineer = software engineer ] held good. where ? can be computer, electronics, electrical, mechanical, civil, nothing, something, anything, balderdash.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)