You may wanna check out..

How would it feel to have a mag brimming with creativity, in your hands? Sounded great to me..You may want to check out this interesting idea, called Alvibest, that is brewing up..

Boondhon se baatein

“Giant gray clouds shrouding the usual blue of the sky, so loaded that they would burst down any moment with a million raindrops” – It is time to witness the monsoons of Bombay and the last one week has seen me scurrying through the rain hit roads of the city, experience the way a routine needs to be tweaked up to fit the monsoon’s requirements. Come whatever may, you need to move on..

Ropes come up within homes to hang those washed clothes. And the clothes are ‘uncomfortably’ dry with a ‘doubt’ of dampness still clinging on, clothes which you wear with the warmth of a hot press, almost become cold and soggy by the time you reach office. The point - pull out the oldest of your clothes and move on unmindful of what the rain does to you!

The shutters come down on buses and you view the rain-hit world outside through the window glass. The innumerable slums, on the way, almost falling prey to the devastation, still stand up and the inmates wouldn’t dare to stop; their lives need to move on.

Rains have an effect on me; they make me go nostalgic. The bus journey till office is filled with moments from the past – the way two years back, I rushed to pick up my vehicle from the dealer, giving a damn to the rain, how I used to look out of the window at my office in Bangalore and regret that the vehicle was getting drenched. How at school, I would long for a day’s holiday when the rarity called rains hit Madras, how a couple of my friends and I ran out to get drenched in the first rains of Pilani and..

Complaints still exist, but brushing them aside, today a small boy, and his gesture made me smile to myself. Two pups were running playfully across the road, and as the bus made its way through, the boy just lifted the two and pushed them into his so called ‘home’. It was wonderful.

Now at office, all I feel like doing is to settle down with a mug of hot chocolate and listen to some great music. But what is blaring now is the TV set next to me; the channel’s life goes on as well!!

This post is dedicated to that wonderful rain that is lashing out outside, settling a layer of moisture on the windows. The rain made me write, (setting aside my work) after a long time!!

The post also goes out to that little boy who enjoyed the rains so much (to my envy) and saved those two sweet pups!

Am tagged, So..

At a moment when the blog starts wearing an archaic look, two people are sweet enough to let me know that I have been tagged. Rathish, Thanks! Am honoured. Anispice, thanks to you too! Oops, I missed Saranyan, who has also tagged me!

So, here is a quick (and rather short) list ..

No. of books I own:

Actually no idea, rather too lazy to count, got some here and many at home!

Presently Reading:

- “Good Muslim Bad Muslim – Islam, the USA, and the global war against terror”
by Mahmood Mamdani (one that i recently got too!)

- “Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management” by Prasanna Chandra

In the pipeline:

- “M.S, A life in music” by T.J.S George
- “The Remains of the Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro
- “Vision of the greatest mystic unveiled – A scientific perspective to the wisdom of Sri Ramana Maharishi” by Dr.G.K.Pillai

Recently Read:

-A collection of “Bharatiyar Kavidaigal”
-“The (Un)common sense of Advertising” by Sanjay Tiwari


Some of my favorites:

“Sophie’s World” by Jostein Gaarder
“Fountain Head” by Ayn Rand
“Small Remedies” by Shashi Deshpande
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
“Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” by John Gray
“Computer Networks” by Andrew S Tanenbaum
"Digital Image Processing" by Raphael C. Gonzalez and Richard E Woods (for the love of that course that I did)


And let me tag:
Mrgonsings
Vijay Mo
Agnibarathi
Prabu Karthik

Eroteme/Krish had a lovely list in my previous post. But these guys have been tagged already. They have a nice list up in their blogs!

A month as a journalist

Mark this day. It has been a month into experiencing sea change. Yesterday, the bank sends me an sms that my salary is credited. I am not too excited but this is my first salary as a different professional.

From staring at code windows for hours and hours together, now my closest interaction with software remains MS Word and a little bit of backend to upload stories.

For the last two weeks, I have moved into a new team. And that reminds me, the last time I blogged was the day the shift came. Smitha's comment in my previous post got a silly smile on my face. How irresponsible of me!:)

Work couldn't get more rewarding and exciting. I have been offered the best of opportunities, despite the fact that I am almost new to this entire spectrum of reporting. My ignorance is pardoned and support comes big time. It is a great feeling having done three soft stories that carry a byline to my credit and also having attended two press conferences ,within a month of joining.

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Press Conferences. You get the royal treatment there. I almost felt like a child gaping at the treatment and all the glamour that surrounds it. It is good to be a beginner, because you can ask dumb questions!

The first one, I missed out on the good lunch because.. (Oh don't ask! The tensions of attending your first official press conf!). The second one that was yesterday, I didn't repeat the mistake and I ensured that I hogged on the three different desserts that they served, between all that stuff on a mutual fund launch. Ain't I learning?
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And then your mobile keeps buzzing as financial consultants and big shots from banks try to reach you and confirm on the interviews and emails. Thanks to the tag, you almost get what you want for your story. At ACJ, I remember how I struggled to get my sources to talk!!

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I am tired of seeing raised eyebrows. "Oh! So what did you do before your ACJ course?" The answer received a million different responses - "Wow!", "That's interesting!", "You are f***ing mad!!", "Why the shift?" (and I am tired of singing like a tape recorder for this question!). The new kid in the block (well, am new too, but she joined ten days later!) asks me, "Oh so you are the one?" The HR told us during the induction that they have an engineer from .... around. Boy, I almost went red!!

And then the HR manager walks in. She puts her hand around me and asks me, "How are you? Are you settled into this place? Are you liking what you are doing?" and I smile back gratefully, "Yeah, everything is fine, really!!" And What is more, I am busy running away from attention!! :)

I have loads of fun with my team lead. The other day, the backend threw some weird javascript error. "You are an engineer, fix it no?" she said. The next instant, I had a couple of debug windows open in front of me. "D, the problem is here" and I pointed to that yellow block and she burst out laughing! And we are still trying to fix it!!

I am sounding so kid like. Well, well, this is not how journos sound. But that is ok. First this is my blog and second, I am not doing a business report!!


Oh damn, my bus would have gone!!!!!!