Chennai welcomes you...

Well, recently I debated with my north Indian colleague. He was going on telling about how bad Chennai is compared to Bangalore, how cold people are, how people here are unfriendly, how the food here is so bad, how there are only 2 malls in such a big city, how the beaches are dirty and so on...

I couldn't help but show him that I totally disagree. I myself am NOT a native of Chennai, (I am from Coimbatore) but I think I am considered "a local" because I speak the tongue. So, I had to give out replies to each of his questions, but since I was angry because he was blaming MY city (I think I could call Chennai mine too), I was a little harsh towards him in my reply.

First, he said the people here don't even wanna learn hindi (He expects everyone in the country to learn hindi because it is our rashtra bhaasha), where as those in B'lore or Hyd speak hindi... I am a great lover of tamil and I somehow couldn't stand it when he told tamil is just another regional language. I told him that it was he who has come to Chennai and if anything. it is he who should learn the local language. Would anyone in Delhi learn tamil just because I went there?

Then he was talking about the food habits of the people here. As if Bangalore people have north Indian food all the time. In fact, as much as I know B'lore food, it was way too sweet. Even sambhar tasted sweet. I replied saying food habits are something you shouldn't expect us to change. In north India, you people put aaloo in everything possible (I wonder if they have invented aaloo juice!!!)

He then told about how unfriendly people are, specially the autowalahs of the city. They take advantage of the north Indians' lack of knowledge of the language and charge extra money and if a north Indian goes and even enquires directions to a place, they don't help. I told, Chennai people are considered the warmest of people. You would probably have sounded snobbish. When you are asking for help, you are suspposed to be humble. You approach someone with a smile and a humble tone, none of them would take advantage of you...

I don't understand what problem these people have with being here. They call their relocation to Chennai a disaster. Chennai is such a nice place... Warm people, nice beaches, decent places to hang out, good food...

Wanna save money??? Don't eat....

A friend of mine caught me completely off guard when he told me that some of his team mates skip their lunch to save money. These team mates I am talking about are well-paid IT professionals, who do not have to skip their meals to make both ends meet. I don't understand why they have to resort such thoughtless and depressing habits just for the sake of saving money. Is this whole saving thing that important? If yes, why so??? Or is it just that they want to exploit the free pantry services offered by the organization? Whatever it is, this whole saving money by skipping meals is not just ridiculous, it is disgusting, atleast to me.

I am a complete foodie... I love food. When asked to list out the top 5 things I love doing, eating tops the list. I have heard stories about a lot of people not having enough money to buy food (thanks to phenomenal inflation, the number of stories I hear everyday has increased), but those were about daily wage workers, unable to gather enough to even eat. I pity them. I try to help them whenever possible. In the same country, we have people like my friend's team mates who just don't feel like eating because they want to increase their bank balances. I don't feel pity, I feel anger and disgust for them.

Who are they saving it for if they are not going to be healthy enough to enjoy it? I know this post comes as a surprise to you, because you must have been hearing about the changes in lifestyle of the IT professionals of India, how much they have come to spend and how free they are to spend and how lavish they have become. I agree that a bunch of them actually spend a lot of money unnecessarily (they call it chilling-out, they call it fashion, they call it lifestyle), but there are people who save up money by drinking say 2-3 cups of (free) milk from the pantry!!!

I am not for spending too much (though I can't seem to stop myself when it comes to shopping), but certainly against this unhealthy habit of skipping meals to save for a not-sure-if-it-will-come future....

Rang de basanti

I saw the movie Rang de basanti on star movies last week (it was like the 14th time I was watching it) and it gave me the same feeling everytime I saw it. Only, this time, the intensity of the feeling I felt was more!!!

Guys just like you and I, having fun in a campus, always surrounded by friends, laughing, pulling each others legs, doing the stuff that normal people do, getting caught in a situation that is way out of their control... I can't imagine how I would react when I face such a situation. Well, I did give it some thought after the movie got over...

I don't think I'd have gone for killing the defence minister at the first place, because it made the killing more like a revenge than a punishment. And second thing is that I don't think the youth of today is so impulsive... I feel they would have thought more about any other way of exposing the corrupt minister than to just kill him and then go out in the open with it. Had they not killed the minister, they would not have got punished... So finally, one gets the impression that you try to do anything good, you would lose your life...

The movie states that "ज़िंदगी जीने के सिर्फ़ दो ही तरीके होते हैं । एक, जो हो रहा है होने दो, बरदाश्त करते जाओ । या फिर ज़िम्मेदारी उठाओ उसे बदलने की।" But concludes sadly saying, "You try changing it, it kills you..."

But this is one movie that would haunt me forever...

When lyf throws shit at u...

Just when we think life can not be more perfect, it throws rubbish on ur face, just to let u know it still has the upper hand over u. Well, the same thing happened to me. Lyf is just showing how much capable it is of changing the way u think ,u behave, u reason and everything...

But thts exactly where I am supposed to confuse life. I would have to have teh biggest smile possible to hide all my disappointments and put on my warrior clothes (again, smile and courage r the only clothes i can wear) and get ready to kick some ass...

Just when everything was fine... che... Anyways, if life wants me to be dull and crying and depressed for some time, it ain't gonna get it... Coz, it's me, not someone else!!!

When happiness is all u get...

There are very few moments in life when you feel you are completely happy and content with what is going on... I am enjoying once such moment now. All the happiness surrounding me is making me fall in love with life all over again.

Peace at work, home, friends circle and most importantly, the peace within myself... It's all amazing. It's fantastic to be able to enjoy and pass light-hearted comments even when work is piled up on the desk, without having to worry so much about the pending work. It needs a cool head to do that and till now I never thought I was cool enough to pull it off...

I feel life has not been this perfect for a long time now. It has taken so many years of patience and perserverence to be in such a position now, where I can afford to do what I feel like doing, where I don't have to worry about anything else, where it's so care-free, where I can only thank God for whatever He has given me (without having to find some fault or the other with Him)

Enjoying life!!!

That is the comparison of my facial features with celebs... Was surprised to see even Saif in the list. ;-)

What a month and a half it has been!!! The energy, the cheering (not to mention the cheer-leaders), the teams, the players, the controversies, the celeb owners - IPL had it all... Wait a minute, hmmmmm... Oh yeah, there was cricket too in the middle of it.

I am no expert to discuss whether cricket is moving away from the good ol' elegant game that it was, whether test cricket is dying or anything else. Whatever bad it does to the longer formats of the game, I think T20 is awesome, more so because it doesn't take up much of our times.

As a typical young Indian cricket buff, I like to watch big strokes, fast bouncers, huuuuuuuuuge sixes that send the ball outside the stadium and all that drama. In the case of test cricket, I could not get to see 1 boundary in an entire session, sometimes. I used to get soooooooo bored...

And I had gone to the MAC stadium here in Chennai to watch the match Chennai Super Kings vs. Kings XI Punjab. It went right until the last over where local lad Balaji picked up the first hat trick of the tournament. That is one night I can never forget in my life!!! It was so colorful so loud and so much fun...

I miss running home from work to watch the match and sitting glued in front of the TV when my friends shout at me for not helping them with the cooking dinner thingie... Now there is no excuse for me to escape from that :-(

As a staunch supporter of the Chennai Super Kings, I miss dancing around whenever Chennai batsmen hit a boundary or a six or whenever they took a wicket. I miss reading every single article written about IPL and the matches and the slapgate controversy and the SRK factor and e-mail forwards about what a great employer Preity Zinta is.. Lolz...

Missing IPL!!!

Do we always get what we deserve???

Finally, there has come a moment (after a looooooooooong time) which has made me feel low. It's because I feel like a villian, because of my inability to love the people I am supposed to, because what I am doing may spoil a smart person's career, because I am selfish beyond my own comprehension!!!

No, I am not proud of myself, but I just can't seem to take it when someone else (who, by the way, is less deserving) gets something that was denied to me, coz it makes me feel like a helpless spectator to my own fall.

This raises the question - a question that has been eating my head for a long time, is it ethical to do whatever it takes to spoil someone's life just coz they don't deserve it, given that we deserve it more than they do?

Help me!!!

The ha ha called lyf...: When I am forced to shut up!!!

God has been so cruel...

Didn't it even pass by his mind to make me a lil' wiser when he was creating these awfully painful wisdom teeth??? Wisdom teeth? Plural? Yes, yours truly has a second one growing.

People familiar with me would be shocked to know that I am keeping my mouth shut for another 10 days or so. It is the most gruesome punishment I could ever get!!!

Until the surgery/whatever process is involved in extracting this tiny devil from my mouth gets over (which is again very painful, to say the least) I'll have to cut down on 2 out of the 3 things I love the most - eating and talking, shopping being the only remaining activity that I don't have to cut down on ;-)

This morning the girl who keeps the pantry clean and ready to use told the entire office building is gonna be silent for another coupla weeks... wat a tragedy!!!!