Govt Elementary school,Yethapur TO Mays Business School,Texas

I am all set to start my second innings. My second innings of college life. Of course, this time its going to be a serious business; more goal, objectives and career oriented unlike my fun-filled under-graduation. Above all, its going to be lot bigger as I am going to do MS in Management Information Systems at Mays Business School, TX. Nevertheless, I am moving out of my humdrum job and going to college again. Isn’t it something great to cheer about?

If good things happen, they happen very fast. If I say it was September 25, 2007, on which I attained enlightenment, its not a hyperbole. My job has been slowly becoming drab offering no challenges to my intellect. I was very apprehensive becoming yet another chap ruined by the ‘lead’ tag in IT industry. I thought of jumping to some other organization. It assured me monetary benefits, but failed to assure things that fulfill my aspirations. When I was thinking that MBA would be too early with the level of experience and expertise I had, my colleagues thrown light on my way which was digressing from its final destination. A splendidly organized course for people of my kind. A proper amalgamation of technical and management courses through a relatively shorter MS program on ‘Management Information Systems’. After a few round of thoughts and discussions I decided to take GRE on the above said day before my job takes a toll on me.

You should know my background to understand why I devote a post for this topic. As the title suggests, my schooling started at Government Elementary School of Yethapur. A school for the children of 10-12 villages around my village offering subjects only in Tamil medium. When every kid in urban and semi-urban areas recite English poems at the age of 4, my curriculum included English only from my third standard. Of course, I had had enough training from my home and the whole credit of what I am today goes to my uncle who moulded me in my childhood. My secondary schooling was even worse. There were hardly 2-3 good teachers in the whole school and again still it is the status of many village schools.

With my ‘not-so-great’ schooling (my scores have been good but no exposure to this competitive world) and a decent under-graduation, I joined TCS around 4 years back. Albeit my experience at TCS, in a nut-shell is pretty ‘middling’, I owe a lot to TCS for grooming me into a professional. All said and done, I was still the same guy, who had very limited vocabulary of words and repeated them to fill sentences. For an exam like GRE which demands rich set of complex English words, I was aware that a mere rote method of learning will not help. It took 2 months of hard-work, perseverance and organized preparation to crack GRE. I got 1420/1600 with 630 in Verbal which is like a dream for a person of my standards. And I can proudly say that 111/120 in TOEFL is one of my achievements in life so far (again considering my own abilities). In fact, I have started this blog to retain the hard-learned words…

I applied to 6 universities (Carnegie Mellon, Kelley school of business, Eller college of Management, NewYork University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Mays Business School, Texas A&M University) all in top league for this course. Except for Kelley which gave me an admission to Fall-2009 as I applied very late, other schools welcomed me with wide arms. Amongst them, Mays gave me an irresistible offer of full tuition fee waiver and a GA of $670 per month for my entire course period. Needless to say that I have taken immediately (and I think that is the wise decision). Though I started things very late, I was one of the first to get my VISA and Flight tickets and more importantly file my resignation to begin my journey which will take me to my aspirations…

Phew!! So, that’s my story (long enough to be an abridged auto-biography ). I am starting from Chennai on 3rd August in Singapore Airlines to begin my second innings at College Station, TX. I will be available in Chennai till 6th July as my last day in TCS would be 4th July (Incidentally/Ironically, US’s independence day) after which I would be in Madurai enjoying home-food till I leave. Seeing where I have started and where I am now, I am able to realize that God has been quite considerate with me and bestowed me with right things at right time. Hope He continues to do that in the other part of world as well.

So, What am I going to ask from you fellas? WISH ME GOOD LUCK…

PS:
There are 2 reasons for posting this here.
1) To inspire people of my kind to come out of their cuticles and dream big
2) To justify that I was really busy with all these things lately which caused many big gaps between posts

At times, I might look like a braggart in this post. But with the kind of buoyant mood that I am in, couldn’t avoid blowing my own trumpets…take them lightly

Finally, this post must have tested your patience. I swear, I will surely try to abridge my writings in forthcoming days

Dharan – A prodigy

I write blogs in English. All my official communications are in English. Even if my colleagues are Tamilians, I prefer communicating with them in English. But when it comes to songs, I listen only to Tamil songs. I still couldn’t find a reason for this, but so far I never listened to songs of any other language including English and sincerely do not know whether I will do in future.

Let’s come to the topic. Recently, a young chap is going great guns with his music composition in Tamil film industry. He has scored music only for two films but with the quality of music that he has produced, one can easily gauge his caliber. Though the movies have not been received well by the populace, the music has been welcomed with wide arms. I am talking about Dharan, a teenager who is doing wonders with his compositions. At the very first instance, I started noticing some difference in his music and started liking them.

Here’s a great song from his debut movie Paarijatham.

This song has been quite a revolution. At one point of time almost all the youth in Tamilnadu were kind of entranced by this song. If that was a perfect example of how one should start his career in music, he proved that he is no fluke with his second movie ‘Sivi’. After A.R.Rehman’s Tamil Rap in Kaadhalan, this is one of the best raps that you can get in Tamil. When almost every music director is giving run-of-the-mill rap songs, this one proves to be different. Unlike other raps, here the music doesn’t overshadow the lyrics and thats the best part of it. I listen to this song at least once a day.(Linking the audio alone as the video is terribly horrible)
Sivi Oh Nenje Remix

These are only the masterpieces and almost all the songs from these two movies are excellent. With only 2 movies to his credit, he has proved to have immense potential with the difference he has shown. With lot of talented youngsters entering into Film industry, it really augurs well for Kollywood, isn’t it?

Status Update!!!

Phew! Nowadays blogging has become a very rare activity in my life…I should admit that I don’t possess the momentum which I had during my incipient days of blogging. This is not entirely my fault and circumstances play a vital role in restricting me from writing here as well as in my Tamil blog (which requires more effort). So, as of now I can just write a mere status update from my end…detailed posts on various happenings in my life (a few interesting turn arounds) and interesting topics would hopefully resume soon(don’t ask me when…all i can say is ‘soon’)….

If I say that I am fully (in fact overloaded) occupied at office, you are never going to believe that. After a small hiatus of 40 days in a heaven called bench, I am back on track couple of weeks back. In fact, a better track. A technical role of my sort. No more excel sheets, microsoft project and management craps. I am now helping a team successfully deploy their newly developed application which is facing hell a lot of issues. I will be here in this role only a for a very short time, may be another week or so. What I am going to do after that is planned and will be posted in subsequent posts. So, life at office is never the same as before which is one of the hindrances in posting new things.

But, the real major hindrance is my laptop. The hinges on the top lid of my laptop are broken (don’t know how but they are gone) because of which I had to give it for service. I am upgrading the memory as well as it is quite obsolete now. For the past 4 days I am lappyless (lifeless would be a better word). It will take another day or two to get my life(lappy) back.

All my patient readers out there (as if somebody exists ),
Please give me some more time and few more chances. I will surely be back on track soon (hopefully). Till then, keep checking this space (what else can I say?)

Dasavatharam – Review

Yesterday midnight at 12 I was cursing myself for staying late in the office with hell lot of work. But good that I was able to use that as the reason for reaching office late today after watching this movie. Here goes my review.

Spoiler Alert:
If you don’t want to know the story or interesting sequences of the movie, please avoid reading. I cannot write reviews like some websites which keep praising the movie without writing anything about the story.

Heard of the proverb ‘All’s well that ends well’? Well, here’s something which was not going well with mutitude of problems but managed to strike the bull’s eye at the end. Yes, I am talking about Dasavatharam – the latest Kamal Hasan movie which faced myriad of controversies and issues and finally released today with a bang.

The story unfolds in Chennai, 21st Century with Govinda Rajan (Scientist Kamal-1) addressing thousands of people about why he was there then. Immediately we are taken to 12th century when 2nd Glothunga Chozhan an ardent Saivite decides to knock off the Vishnu idol from the Temple at Chidambaram. As expected Rangaraja Nambi (Kamal-2) makes his entry and thrashes the soldiers of the king. He tries to argue but fails and finally asked to chant ‘Ohm Namashivaya’ at least once and he will be emancipated then. He utters ‘Ohm Namo Narayanaya’ and thrown into the sea with the idol. That’s it. The flashback so emotional and touching but has nothing to do with the movie except that the name of the deity thrown into the sea is also Govinda Rajan.

We come back to 21st century and Govind works in Seagle which researches on bio weapons. He finds the most dangerous bio-weapon is planned to be sold to a terrorist group by his chief. He snatches it and runs out of the place. He is chased by the villain Christian Fletcher (Kamal -3) and George Bush’s (Kamal -4) men. The box travels to India along with that Kamal and the story also shifts to India. The whole movie is a chase for Govind and the box by the villain and the local RAW Police headed by Balram Naidu (Kamal-5). Needless to say that it ends in a positive note.

This movie is one of the milestones in Tamil cinema in terms of technology and screenplay (with minor flips). Climax Tsunami scene has been shot excellently which makes you drop your jaws with awe. The movie’s pace is equivalent to that of a Hollywood thriller in the first half with comedy interspersed in between which makes you not to look at your wrist watch. Second half is slower than first half with social and agnostic messages interspersed and you can feel the reduction in pace. Some how KS Ravikumar has failed to keep the momentum in the second half or may be it is intentional.

It’s a total feast for Kamal fans and they deserve it after a long wait. I can bet – no one in this world can match Kamal’s abilities in dialog delivery. Be it the Telugu-Tamil accent by Balram Naidu (my choice of best character in the movie), pukka brahmin old lady accent by Krishnaveni, Nagacoil tamil accent by Vicent Poovaragan or the American English accent by George Bush and Christian Fletcher, Kamal scores 200/100. But out of 10 (Rangaraja Nambi, Govinda Rajan, Christian Fletcher, George Bush, Avtar Singh, Krishnaveni Patti, Japanese Martial Artist, 7 foot Kaliafullah, Vincent Poovaragan and Balram Naidu) characters, only 3 or 4 (Balram Naidu, Krishnaveni Paatti, Vincent Poovaragan and Christian Fletcher) make an impression. Other characters have been added just for the sake of it. Kamal’s manerism as all these characters is impeccable. Especially Christian Fletcher who imitates contemporary Hollywood Villains. It is just awesome.

Though there are no duets, Asin has an important role to play and she has done it neatly. If she moves to Bollywood, Kollywood will surely miss a talented actress. I felt she still has scope for improvement in her dialog delivery. Or may be since she acts with Kamal, it looked obvious. Mallika Sheravat is aware of what audience expect from her and she is generous enough in giving it.

-ves:
* Reduced pace in second half
* Scenes where the graphics could have been better (in the flash back and during chases)
* Kamal’s dance in Oh Oh Sanam (his age is felt only there)
* Strong characterization for 5 of the characters and very weak for others

But, as a whole, its a racy and novel entertainer. It’s undoubtedly worth the money that you are spending. After all, its K.S.Ravikumar who has wielded the megaphones and he knows the pulse of audience.

Verdict: Are you still reading my review? Damn…go and book your tickets…

Dasavatharam – Review

Coming here very sooooon….

I am watching Dasavatharam in another 2 hours..my genuine review of the movie will be here soon…keep watching this space…

Online shopping in India

This is something that I am cogitating for the past few days…why is the number of Online shoppers in India is so low when compared to other countries?

When e-Shopping was introduced in India, the number of players was very low. The penetration of Internet in the country was not great. Availability of credit/debit cards with the people was not great either. So, initially it was a tough time for e-Com companies. But over the years, all these factors have improved considerably but still online buying seems to be in its incipient stage.

If we keep away online travel and ticket booking and online broking, the number of transactions and amount transacted in e-Tailing (Retail) and other parts is not showing big jump. Though it is making constant progression, when compared with the number of new internet connections taken and number of new credit and debit cards taken, the jump in online transactions is quite discouraging.

So, my little research and discussion with people shows me that following reasons make Indians hesitate to buy online. 1) Cannot negotiate / bargain 2) Cannot get the feel of the product / try out 3) Fear about the security of the site 4) Delivery delays 5) Very less variety of options available. So, can we expect the online shopping market to grow if we bring in improvements in these areas? I don’t think so. Even if we improve, it won’t be drastic. We don’t get the sense of satisfaction if we don’t bargain and more importantly if we don’t try it out.

Having said all these, even I don’t prefer buying things online in India. When I was in UK, I bought even the most expensive things like my camera and laptop online. In fact I bought many things even from eBay. Where as, here in India, somehow I am not feeling like buying online though many good sites are available.

To avoid queues, may be we are using the online travel ticket booking facilities though they cost a bit more. But, even if it comes for a cheaper price online, we give a second thought about it. I am a perfect example of this. I bought shoes from the shop paying 300 bucks extra when it is available in www.futurebazaar.com for a cheaper price…I felt I should try the shoes before I purchase. And I am bound to think that my fella Indians are like me.

So, what’s your take on this?