Rendezvous with life...

Se7en of the Week

(May 13-19)

Felt...

Though it is the mid of May, Chennai calmed down her fury and romanced a bit at the start of this week, throwing her violent breeze on a night and cooling us.Soothing it was..

Watched...

Nice script, well devised characters, humorous and good art work, i watch Office Soap aired on
Vijay TV now and then. Wish my office were like that too with more masala :P . Innovators, Vijay TV stream all the episodes online targeting IT professionals making it available on demand. Good time pass it is ...
Office on You Tube

Read...

Always been a fan of Edward de Bono s books on creativity and recently stumbled upon a very small 20 minute read titled "Intelligence is not enough" a book on thinking about thinking. Nice short read it is ...

Listened...

Melodious treat it is , allah ke bande song, listened to it on my way to office quite a few times...

Created...

An Oriya colleague of mine inquired why i stopped sending mails ( a coding standards mail) for the past few days. You like that? I will send today, i replied. Felt of adding a little creativity and chose the dialogue from Batman:
"Why do we fall ,Bruce"
"So that we learn to pick ourselves again"

Though this has nothing to do with "Prefer lists over arrays" (the next item which was to be mailed) i managed to relate them and got the pleasure of creating something.

Struck...

Recently read an article on "The Hindu" on creating multi use public spaces in cities inline with the banyan tree in villages(The Living Tree).Got struck by this idea. Only few days back , read about compound walls replacing thinnai (verandah) in our homes which serve good to interact with neighbors. An US based architect had written an article in the same newspaper about how modern apartments could be designed more people friendly.On this context, I was mesmerized by the architecture at Powai where i worked for few months which are designed both aesthetically and humane.I had blogged on it and a little glimpse of it here...(Hiranandani Gardens,Powai)

Liked...

Liked a reply on objectification of women on Quora. (The reply with onslaught on American Apparels). Was a bit taken aback that this happens in the United States of America, the most free nation.

(Objectification of Women).

Se7end...

Se7en of the week

(May 5-11)

Digitally dumped waste

A year back when i came to chennai and settled at my place, i noticed its unusual garbage friendliness and wondered why no one bothered.Bothered we were having tea when we noticed a mini auto with a website name in it s forehead.It was kuppathoti.com , a digital service for dumping waste.Excited, i wrote a post on it(Dump not your junk on the roads). Probably as a matter of coincidence, our place became better and tidier.A year later,this week, i got a call(i had registered on their site and used to get call often asking if i had any waste), i nodded this time and voila , a day before i scheduled(KUPPAI SCHEDULE) i got a preparatory email with contact details.And lo!We digitally dumped our wastes the next day

Lessons from a Paati@Idli kadai

We stormed a paati kadai for dinner this week. Idli kadai paati gave some management lessons for us along with idli and dosa.I blogged on it before the idlis got digested(Lessons from a Paati @Idli Kadai)

Tearing mokkai

With the entire Tamilnadu bearing the brunts of powercut,Chennai too randomly looses sight at times.On a night when this happened, myself and my roommate chose a kuttichuvar and put mokkai. At an instant i cracked a joke ,it was not that humorous,but somehow triggered his humor nerves and he laughed until he dropped tears.

27@27

Wanted to do something creative this birthday breaking monotony and could come up with 27 things on my 27th birthday.Thanks to every buddy who helped on this.

(27,Thank you)

Melodious Kites

Got mesmerized by two melodies from Kites, watched this movie at Mumbai few years back

Quote

Got provoked by a thought on facebook wall,

Gift from brother

Finally , got a wonderful gift from my brother, the best gift someone can give me is a book i have not read.My brother gifted me one of my heroes' biography which i had been eyeing on for some time.

Se7end.

27,Thank You

On my birthday : May 9 (27 years)

first child

Thank you every one who reminded me that i am not alone here.Tried to make this day creative by trying/experiencing 27 off routine/weird/different things staying in office.

27 was a big number and doing it on a single day was quite a challenge i enjoyed!

1."Own a typical South Indian Mustache and hair style"

It started with going to office in a typical South Indian style, i shaved my mustache and combed my hair to it.

2."Order water can for room"

My room mates always do this favor and i always shied away from the twin shop owners nearby our house.To start 'The 27' i decided to pay and make order for water can on my way.

3."Automated birthday wishes"

From my bank ,gym,office digital platform etc.

4."Nenje ezhu song in a loop on my way to office"

Until i reached office , i looped this single song and listened to it.Fell asleep on the way though.

5."Attend PPT session"

Dont remember the last time i attended a ppt session. It would have been boring but for the decision to add it to 'one in 27' for its off routine nature.

6."Invent a management style"

Just doing what appears important is not enough in our current work environment.I almost burned out few months ago unable to cope. Started improvising on it when was about to get an opportunity recently.Following that tried to create a management style and tried to practice it. It was influenced to some extent by GTD and my own manager.Need to practice though( failed today).Called it COPEN (taking the first letters)

7."9 smileys of a type in a single chat" #plissexcuse

Chatted with a friend with the same smiley deliberately but secretly implanted 9 times (May 9).The smiley is :P.

8."Triangular conversation"
Asked my friend for lunch and enquired him where to go and he responded in his typical humor. I constructed a triangular conversation on that (length increases uniformly) #plissexcuseagain

where?

where? from my side

where? returned from my side

where? returned with high importance from my side

where? i got the answer, lets go to old ABFC and try chicken briyani?

9."Birthday joke"

Told my friend about my idea and suggested that i could find some one born on the same day and wish them (or propose them we joked - another friend suggested this too) and asked how to find it.There are routine fire drills at our campus which begin with this warning "Fire alarm has been triggered.Please do not panic". He asked me to go to them and play this
"Birthday alarm has been triggered.Please do not panic.Anyone interested in proposing..."

10."Chicken briyani"

Had chicken briyani at a canteen after a long time where we had stopped having after the quality got worse .It was poor and with the hot summer having already increased my body heat i vomited just before cake cutting

11."Cheap treat"

Gave lime juice as treat to friend.

12."Indirectly let a friend know that it is my birthday"

Today is a very important day for the entire world i said.He immediately shook my hands and wished me

13."Get random menu from friend"

Ate adai avial at Saravana Bhavan for snacks, a random menu from a friend

14."Cake cutting"

Was not interested initially as i thought it would be too formal but was not really.

15."Cake revenge"

Applied cake back to a colleague who made me dirty

16."Happening by not happening"

Have been sending a mail daily in office for coding standards with the suffix Day X , Wondered what i could send on this day.And just noticed that the last mail i sent ended with Day 27.27!.

17."Call friend who didn't wish and say him that it is my birthday today"

Called a friend and got 'aashirvad' from him.

18."Take a walk around campus"

Siruseri office is incredibly beautiful.Had a glimpse of it under night lights.

19."Find a lazy intelligent way to do a job"

Had a manual work to do which involved taking data from an excel sheet and insert in a table(1 row in the excel, 1 entry in the table).Not so brilliant but did it without manually firing one query for every row in the excel.

20."Fifth plate dinner"

For dinner decided to have whatever i see in the fifth plate (colleague's plates) as i entered the canteen.Luckily it was what i wanted

21."Bye in Spanish"

On leaving office bid bye in Spanish to team mate (Adidos)

22."1 year crazy risky resolution to friend"

Told my friend that on May 9,2014 i would complete that crazy risky resolution.

23."First seat in bus"

Took the very first seat in bus

24."Nenje ezhu song again in loop while return"

Same song on return

25."Instant power return"

There was no power supply at my place when i was returning home.In an instant i opened the door power returned (Thanks Tamilnadu Electricity Board for wishing me)

26."Wish room mate who forgot birthday"

Being in on call support in a product company , he doesnt know day and night now. No wonder he didnt notice my birthday.I wished him in turn.

27,Thank you

It did not happen without failures: tried to see sea view from office terrace but did not have access , on my team mate's suggestion went to another block only to see the pool in front of our office.Tried to smile at some one whom i know but have never spoken to but failed.Tried to strike a conversation with a stranger but failed .

Lessons from a Paati @Idly kadai

With my finance getting tight for the past few months, i decided to go frugal curbing my instincts to head to thalapakatti and the likes(I struggled to get good South Indian food at Mumbai that i jumped into lavishness coming to Chennai and the habit continued). I joined my room mate to explore Paati kadai for some idlies. I had gone there before once and seeing us she looked curiously for our order. I duplicated my room mate's menu and we ordered for two idlies as starter.

We both got three idlies on our plates covered with plastic cover and idlies on them and i softly tried to confirm my room mate that we ordered for only two. He confirmed and said 'Its ok.Paati sollai thattathe' (Never question a grandma). I didnt question my room mate and we continued .

Before the idlies could satisfy our hunger, Chennai humidity caught my hair in its hands and asked 'Do you think i will let you eat?' . I agreed and looked up at the fan for some help, that was still. I turned to the Patti and asked if she could switch it on. She laughed innocently and shared an incident she had on her business day, that a young guy brings in girls (in her words) and often switches on the fan himself and she mistook another customer for him and shouted at him for approaching the fan switch. Saying this she did approach the fan switch and turn it on.

As the fan came to rescue, we continued gulping one more omlete and dosa and when we had to make the payment, we gave her the numbers

6 idlies, 2 omlete and 2 dosas
She said,
ok, 4 idlies, 2 omlette and 2 dosas

We said,
No paati, 6 idlies, 2 omlette and 2 dosas
She said,

No pa, those are small idlies, i didnot have enough dough , i made smaller ones, those extra ones are FREE. if i take amount for three idlies each ,'My Stomach will burn'.

'Paati sollai thattathe' became true to its words. We admired her ethics and i immediately thought we should propose this business model to modern day businesses. It was inspiring at that moment to know that we had had a strong work ethic and generally everyone took his work to his heart. Honesty is not an option for her, It is the way. It's easier or may be the way to climb the corporate ladder today by being clever and cunning. Oh no ! No lessons from me.I am not eligible.
Let Paati do it.

'Poitu vanga Raja' she bid bye.
How did she know my name?

Come What May - not the month of May

When God made Earth , he made Adam and Eve. Adam ate the forbidden fruit and betrayed God. God got furious and cursed him :

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"

And he made Chennai and put Adam in it on the month of May(Eve too).Adam sweat hard and his descendants still bear the brunt.

There began the journey.

There are only two seasons in Chennai, hot and humid summer and wet and floody rainy season. All other seasons are present only in geography book.This post deals with how to optimize and leverage Chennai heat and maximize efficiency (i am in corporate world, i will speak like that only)

courtesy:broadbandforum.co

Why is chennai hot?

Some elementary science:

Chennai is close to the equator and nearby coastal region giving it a tropical wet and dry climate. When our body gets hot , it pumps more water out carrying the heat to regulate its temperature. Since chennai is humid , there is more water vapor on air which makes life difficult for the sweat to evaporate (Already houseful). And so body heats up, it tries to push sweat but no space , so it remains heated up.And nights are hot too , since the water vapor caused by humid condition absorbs infra red rays leaving the earth surface at night( with the heat energy), thereby preventing cooling.(Source: Wikipedia)

Ok , a hot analysis...
How chennai heat helps and how to leverage it for maximizing efficiency and minimizing resources?

Saving costs:
Do not buy water heater if you are moving to chennai, water is already heated, just open any pipe.

Alternate energy:

Do not buy any stoves, use your motta madi (terrace) as stove.

Keep solar panels on your head everywhere you go and direct the output to the rest of Tamilnadu, this will relieve Tamilnadu from its powercrisis.

Alternate punishment:

Crime rates in chennai can decrease if criminals are given the punishment of 'Standing in chennai heat at 12 noon for 12 minutes' , instead of life term imprisonment and hanging to death

Reducing traffic:

It is impossible to travel in a two wheeler in chennai heat, those who do so are super humans, they deserve Param Vir Chakra. Sensible people will stay home with their air conditioners turned on and this reduces traffic.

Empowering rural economy:

Why do people migrate to chennai? because it provides a better standard of living. But chennai heat will force the government and corporate to create better standards in tier 3 cities and rural areas thereby improving rural economy

No terrorism:

Why do you think terrorists don't attack Chennai? It is Chennai heat.It will attack them back.

More arranged marriages:

Do you think you can romance under this scorching sun? No, this helps to preserve culture by promoting arranged marriages

If leveraging this way is still not satisfactory, we should implement a strategy proposed by my friend at home town studying LKG. On a hot afternoon , he came running half naked to my house, kept rolling on the floor for some coolness and shouted at my mother,

"Athe , antha roatukarana fan vaika chollunga athai, ore vekkaiya iruku"

"Aunty , ask that road wala (government) to keep fans (on the road) , it is very humid"

Brilliant idea indeed, just like street lamp posts, if we could plant some cooling devices ,

We may finally beat chennai heat.

Good luck...

Part I:

How to beat Chennai heat

Other posts on chennai:

Filter Coffee with Saithapetta Sadhasivam
Madras Matteru - The Quintessential Madras
Dump Not Your Junk on the Roads