Err… Blogger errs!

Yesterday morning, I opened my blog, clicked on the comments and I got this alarming message, “The blog that you are looking for is not found” or something to that effect and it gave this huge button, that said, “Back to dashboard” and I dashed back to my ‘dashboard’. Strangely enough, it wanted me to login to see my own comments!! How funny!

I thought something was terribly wrong with my blog. Panic!! Worse still, it was intuitions coming true for me!! Just the day before, I was wondering what would happen if the entire blogger system crashed. Mo assured me it wouldn’t happen and I felt safe and secure! And now, it seemed to be coming true! I have seen Orkut going down many times, cutely responding, “Bad bad server. No donut for you.”, but Blogger, this is the first time! (not that I have too much blogging experience, but still..)

On Mo’s advice again, I mailed blogger support too, telling them I can’t comment on my own blog and others as well. I also got my sis to do some R & D on it, at 12 in the night (S’pore time!)

Oh well, in between all that confusion, I managed to do something useful too. I finally (FINALLY) managed to add links to other nice blogs that I visit. (Blogfather, aren’t u happy and proud of me??).

Meanwhile, blogger support mailed me back sweetly today morning and I just couldn’t help appreciating the prompt response. The mail below,

“Hello,

Thank you for reporting this error. We are working on getting the comment
pages up and running normally again as soon as possible. We apologize for
the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support”

Thankie blogger, the comments do seem to be back!!

Three 'different' points

A coupla things..

One, I have uploaded the pictures I had clicked at “Swabodhini” Annual day..(Ref: Post titled, “Giving a little space”). Link to viewing photos available on the side bar. (Acknowledgments: Thanks Mo!)

Two, I got to read up this article (the link doesn't seem to work now) on how Nepal’s journalists are communicating on the situation in Nepal, to the rest of the world, despite the suspended media rights in the country. Thanks to the world of blogs, they seem to be escaping the control of the King. It is really interesting to see the power of communication that blogs offer. But the bigger point is, where should this stop? I happened to hear that an Iranian blogger has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. Where does the freedom of expression in a blog end? Highly debatable.

Third, I just had Yanni running in the background and now its Enigma. And I am just drifting to the past. Hmm..thinking of some years back, the four eventful years at BITS, somehow Yanni reminds me of the BITS Audi and OASIS (our cultural fest) times. Oh, terribly nostalgic, music has this undeniable tendency to pull you back in time. I have always felt this strongly. This topic definitely deserves a separate post. Hence, reserved for a future date.
Time to sleep now. Goodnight. :)

To be a girl, and to drive means..

I am supposed to be reviewing a book called “Political Economy of Under development” for my Economics assignment. I have read two pages of it, and the rest of my post isn’t about it. I just realise I have chosen the wrong time to start reading an economics book and before I could turn to the third page, I am already thinking of that irritating face that stared at me, as he zoomed past me on his bike yesterday. He was so disgusting!! And I suddenly feel this burning hate for him, that if I could stare back at him now, I would love to burn him down to ashes.

Sounds violent? May be. I don’t know if I echo a feministic attitude if I said that most guys driving on the road, can’t stand girls who drive confidently. (Well, not really trying to blow my own trumpet here, but its one of the things that I really feel confident about in life!). I reiterate, I said most guys, and there are exceptions. Let’s leave the exceptions aside. I drive a scooty pep and I simply love it (somehow gives me that independent feeling, can’t really explain!); So, the natural tendency is to drive at good speed and stay in the middle of the road.

I am not lying when I say that everyday that I drive down Mount road, I have at least one male chauvinist who can’t stand me going ahead. Yesterday, I met one such guy whose face I hate to recollect now. He kept honking from behind, so irritably and unnecessarily and me, I was in all moods for a fight that I refused to budge to useless fellows. I just drove ahead and this chap raced ahead of me, missing me by an inch. Had he swerved little bit, he would have gleefully dislodged me off my bike. And he just went ahead, turned and almost sneered at me, as though I was an insect who he could have squashed with his foot, if he wanted to.

“He-llll-oooo, Excuse me!”, I shouted back, appalled. Sadly, the vehicles on the road, and my big black helmet, shielded my voice and he was gone. And all the way back home, I wondered why vehicles needed horns; I mean they simply didn’t serve any useful purpose. They are terrorising tools used by men and when women use them, it simply didn’t make any sense. Times when I hear auto wallas or car drivers or two wheeler drivers go on honking, I would just feel like stopping my bike, getting down, walking up to the guy honking and just pulling off his vehicle’s god damned horn! Honestly, I haven’t seen people making judicious use of it.

Not just that. When you stand in a signal, by ill luck, in the front row of vehicles (missing the last round of signal unfortunately), you are gone for a toss. Even before the signal turns green, the vehicles behind you get so impatient and their horns blare with all the irritation. I have to forget respecting the signal, even if I wanted to, and just go ahead, else am doomed.

Main trouble makers. Auto rick drivers. They are unquestionable, masters of the roads. They would go on the left and suddenly move across the road to make a right turn, and if you happily assumed that they were just going left, you would head straight into hitting the back of the auto, missing it narrowly and screeching to a halt. Immediately he would put out his head, and point his hand at you, as if you did the biggest mistake by driving on a straight line.

Well, tough life! Not to mention those snakish looking new kind of buses, plying Chennai roads. Two buses linked by a vestibule(guess it's one), controlled by one driver sitting on the extreme right, he would never realise what devilish turn his bus takes when he starts from a bus stop. And these buses are really dangerous, because one can never predict the line in which they would move.

Yes, of course, there is the always existing size hierarchy and ego problem on Chennai roads. For a bus driver, a matador cannot cross his path, and for a matador, a sumo or sierra better give way. For a sumo, a maruti is trivial and you can’t obviously trail behind a maruti, if you drive a sumo, how could you? For a maruti owner, two wheelers better mind their own business and not come the maruti way. And for two wheelers, the cyclists are a real pain. Well, actually the cyclists are a pain to vehicles of all sorts because they just don’t feel they should obey traffic rules.

And how could I forget the fierce ego combat of two sexes? The male and the female. Females just can’t afford to be good. I admit that certain women who drive cars are lousy. Extremely lousy, that I hate them myself. But, most of them drive worse, because they feel intimidated by racing vehicles around. What is needed is some understanding, beyond regulating the traffic. Of course, traffic regulation is badly needed in Chennai. (something like Singaporean laws..I don’t really know how they are, elsewhere!).

I would also wish that some men didn’t generalise the entire women community to be bad drivers. There are good ones too. I always respect a good male driver on the road. Why can’t they?

Well, if I took a combination of size of the vehicle and the sex, the worst hit by that formula are the two wheeler female riders, assuming there aren’t women cyclists on Mount road ;). And, I fall in that category and that is why this post. Ah, a logical derivation to a social problem, ain’t I getting back to economics? I am conceptualising a problem..:)

Busy, Busy and Busy!!

I just realised I haven't blogged for two whole days..I don't know if I have a valid excuse for myself, when I say I was busy..
Oh hey, I was busy..I was..with all the assignments and tests and of course campus placements...
And, yes, I was busy feeling happy, on top of the world, on having got my offer letter!! I was also little confused, in convincing my parents, who despite their happiness, had more worries packed in their heads..and finally managed to convince them..still busy striking some deals..Boy, what a life!
Ideas literally pounding inside my skull, I feel I would burst any moment now..
Ok anu stop, full stop to ur excitement...Now, back to work..Blogging and reading others blogs reserved for the night! :)

I wanna sound byte!

Certain questions keep popping up inside my head, now and then. Those times, I would just feel like standing in front of a big crowd, and shouting the question out! Have never tried that but..
Then got this idea at 1 last night, when i was in one of those transient states, oscillating between sleeping and staying awake...
So, I decided I would put one such question here..Well, why not? If somebody could post a reply..I would at least get an answer..
Ok..now to the question..
One, What do guys think when they look at a girl? Simply put, which girl would impress a guy most?
Two, the other way round, What do girls think when they look at a guy? (I have my own answers..I wouldn't put them here, probably, that is another post!). Simply put, which guy would impress a girl most?

I know opinions differ and that is why I ask for it..
So, Can i have some sound bytes please????

Oops..I messed up!

I am smart. Know what I did. After posting stuff on Mega serials, with the HTML 'skills' that I possess, I tried something with the template code and I guess I deleted most of the code that my blog went blank. Gosh! I got psyched outa shape and went back to see the code and I realised the problem. But last night it seemed ok, Strange! Well, for all those who visited my blog yday (Hopefully!!:)), you would have seen a disaster.
One more post, reserved for the night!Catch ya soon..

Marriage talk..

I have never seen myself hitting such high pressure peaks in my life. My temper soars high, words just fly out of my mouth, sometimes its hot anger that leaves me fuming in silence – well, I never knew it took so much to get married to someone, through an arranged, parents settled proposal. While the alliance seeking process goes on in full swing at my place, I am finding it increasingly hard to digest certain shortcomings of arranged marriages.

Before I say anything else, let me make it clear that I am not against arranged marriages. All the business of horoscope matching and knowing the family well and all that is definitely worthwhile and something that is unique to the Indian society. But what I look for is a change, to suit the present generation. Things are not the same as it were, some 30 years ago, when my parents got married.

Now, the scene at home. My mom has registered my name and horoscope with at least three places, hmm..let me recollect – Taamras, Sringeri mutt and Mahalingapuram chart (well, all that is what I found out hearsay)..and you would see her settling down with the classifieds of The Hindu on Sunday and dutifully ticking and sorting out the vadamas and ashtasahasraams and brihacharanaams..Man, and what happens to the other charts? They send you piles and piles of computer generated sheets that list endlessly, a record of prospective grooms.

The Taamras thing really sends me into fits of rage. The ‘wonderful’ software actually matches your profile to all the other such groom profiles based on gothram, nakshatram and all the nuances of zodiac. When my mom told me this for the first time, I was shocked. Shocked. And I just yelled, “you trust a computer, but not me??”

And how could I forget tamil matrimony in between all this? It lines up in my dad’s inbox so obediently , “Tamil Matrimony.com – matches on 12/02/2005” and so on and so forth. The mechanised messages read “Dear Member M123456, Congratulations!! (Well?) you have received a message from profile id MXXXXX” and probably ends with a good luck. And Imagine, for once I regretted having been in software, for I had to sincerely open my dad’s inbox everyday and show them the mail. Since, my parents didn’t understand the complicated working mechanism of the colourful site, they would make me do all the messaging part of it, while I sat and cursed my luck.

I would sit and wonder, how I would ever find the man of my lifetime there. Ah, no offence meant to the people who got married that way, but it’s all a question of choice or one’s individual way of looking at things. My biggest problem is that I need the time to know a guy before I married him. But as my mom reasoned it out two days ago (during yet another fight) that time constraints are high in an arranged marriage, I just wondered why a small accommodation like this couldn’t be made. After all, even mothers work these days and they would be more outgoing.

Girls today are more independent, much more educated than before, and hence wouldn’t just give into a relationship after a one time meeting with the person, whom you are expected to spend a lifetime with. At least, I wouldn’t. while I continue to ask for time, my parents insist that the family is good and the guy ought to be good. Fair enough, he might be a good guy but the question is, do I get along well with him? Do we really “click”?

Frustrated parents and relatives would immediately say, Ok, if you have someone in mind, let us know, we will get you married to him! And whenever, someone said that, I would question, “Then, would you drop the gothram and nakshatram business?”.Once my mom said, let me give you the list of nakshatrams, you shortlist based on that. Fantastic!! Might as well go for an arranged marriage.

My stand is probably confusing to many or may be everyone. But all that I am asking for is, a little bit of flexibility. Some bending of rules. Honestly speaking, I wouldn’t easily settle for someone, even if I tried looking for somebody, all by myself. That is the way we (I add my sis here too!) have been brought up. But if I did find someone, good enough, I would just wish my parents would accommodate, without all these lengthy rituals, trusting me! Even if it’s somebody whom they see for me, all I want would be some time to know the guy!

All said and done, last year, at the marina beach, I tried my hand at “killi josiyam” and the parrot, that spelt out my fate, took a card, which the guy described to me. “while you and your parents have different things in mind about your marriage, you would get married to a guy whom you like and who suits your parents wishes too,” he predicted. And what do I do now? I only continue to hope that what he said would be true! Then, I would thank him and his cutie parrot!

Back after a break!

Talk about being regular in what you do..I had decided when I restarted my blogging efforts, that I would come back to it at a time period (??) of 24 hours..but sadly, I haven't lived up to my decision, even within the first one week..and imagine, I have so many ideas literally "whirlpool"ing inside my head, that I am all set to pour it out..
I had told vani, that I am posting something last night, thanks to a stupid fight at home (for obvious reasons!), I lost all the enthu..
Lets see how much of justice I can do to my blog today...
Being the ed of our website , I am all stuck ripping people's articles apart!! Shall be back in a coupla minutes! Hang on:)