Paracetamol rocks!!!

Nice to be back after two years...

UK thrives on paracetamol...most of the visit to the GP here ends with a couple of paracetamol on your prescription list...everything from a simple headache to post surgery medication revolves around paracetamol. 

The beauty of Paracetamol is that it seems to do the trick...was watching the movie space jam (in Tamil) yesterday and there is a scene there where Bugs bunny fills the bottle with water and puts a label saying"Michael's secret stuff" and the cartoon characters in the movie drink it and starts winning the match...Paracetamol is just the same. Had a minor surgery last week and guess what i was discharged from the hospital with just Paracetamol on the prescription. You know what Paracetamol rocks!!!

Happy to be...

One of the most happiest parts of my life...It is nice to wake up everyday with a smile, nice to get phone calls, messages and chat window pop ups. Only wish now is that it lasts for the entire lifetime and as of now i feel it will...

Reminds me of Steve Jobs speech - connecting the dots...Never understood why my US visa application was rejected, why i landed in UK and a number of other things but now when i look back i can connect the dots and i am happy all those things happened.

Railways

Whenever a train in India is delayed , one thing that you can be sure of hearing is people comparing the Indian rail with the networks in the west and saying that we have to learn a few lessons from them as to how to operate. My experience with UK network rail just proved it wrong.

I had to travel from London to Manchester last Sunday and i had reserved a ticket by the 17:05 Virgin trains. Reached London Euston station at 16:00 and found it jam packed. When i saw the train departure board, it showed that most of the trains were cancelled. There was an announcement that there was a technical fault with the line side equipment outside London so National rail has permitted only 4 -5 train per hour. Due to this constraint, Virgin trains operated just one train to Manchester every hour instead of the usual 3 trains per hour. The problem started at half past 12 in the noon and they had operated just one train at 15:30 after 12:30 so you can imagine the crowd waiting for the next train.

At 17:30 there was an announcement that the next train to Manchester was ready for boarding. As soon as the platform number was announced, there was an exodus towards the platform. It looked like a scene out of the Mumbai metro station - all you had to do was stand and the crowd ensured that you reached the train. The train was jam packed and most of us stood through the entire journey which was 3.5 hours instead of the usual 2 hours (due to track problem, more stops than usual)

Now how many times has this happened with Indian railways?

My driving lessons

Just finished my second driving class and the instructor has reached the conclusion that i am a trained assassin sent to kill him.

We tried meeting traffic for the first time today and after 10 minutes he took me to a silent estate where there was absolutely no traffic!!!

The flight that was jinxed!!!

I flew via Paris from Bangalore to Manchester. The flight from Bangalore landed in Paris at 08:30 and it took an hour to finish the transfer and security process at Charles de Gaulle airport. The flight to Manchester was scheduled to leave at 13:15 CET.

At 12:30, there was an announcement that the flight was postponed to 14:00 hrs as the incoming flight from Madrid was delayed due to some brake problems. At 13:30, there was one more announcement that the flight would be taking off at 14:30 instead of 14:00. I had started the journey 16 hours before and i was really looking forward to reach my home at Manchester. Boarding commenced at 14:00 and was completed by 14:20. At 14:30, there was an announcement from the cockpit that one passenger was stuck at the security and was not able to make it to the flight but his luggage was already loaded onto the flight. We waited in the flight for another 30 mins to get the luggage out.

Finally at 15:00, the flight left the parking bay. We were all so relieved to take off after sitting in the flight for an hour. The plane reached the runway but instead of taking off, the pilot announced that we would be returning to the bay as the autopilot was not working. When we heard this, We gave up and most of them began to doze off, leaving it to fate to get us to Manchester. After an hour of repair, the flight finally took off from Paris at 16:00. I started saying my prayers for the flight to land safely in Manchester.

Finally we landed in manchester after an hour and we were all so relieved. But luck still had some more plans for us under its sleeve. We cleared immigration and we came to the baggage carousel and we found that it was empty. After waiting for 15 minutes, there was an announcement that there was some technical problem with the flight's luggage compartment. We got our luggage after an hours wait and finally i reached home - 5 hours later than my expected arrival time

Hair cut

I wanted to have a haircut on saturday. Since i had some other work lined up for that day, I went pretty early ( 9 ish). My usual barbershop was closed so I walked a little further and found another barber shop.


Walked in - there was only one lady in there and she was sitting and straightening her hair. She was the barber and she said that she did not have any customer till then and was bored. She started cutting my hair and she continued cutting for 45 mins till the next customer came in. At the end of it she was very much satisfied with her word - " You look neat and tidy now" was her words when she finished - am not sure if i looked like a cave man when i walked in


The end result - my hair is so short that i can see my scalp - she could have very well tonsured my head :(

Missed payment

I had a vodafone corporate connection in India for 18 months. When i moved to UK, i completely forgot about the connection. But the legal department in Vodafone did not forget me :(

The first missed call came yesterday at 7 AM when i was getting ready to work. Very few people in India know my UK contact number so i thought that it must be one of my friends ringing me to let me know their new number or something. I was busy getting ready to work so i thought of giving a call once i reach office. After 10 minutes, i get a sms stating "Karthik, call me back" - no name mentioned. I call back this number and a guy picks up the call and says my full name. He then introduces himself as a guy from Vodafone legal department. He says that i have an outstanding bill of something more than a grand and i was supposed to pay it by 4 PM (3 hours notice period) else my name would be handed over to the police. I told him calmly that i am in UK and i cannot make a payment by 4. He then asks me for my credit card details so that he can take the payment. I refused to give him my credit card details and said that i will make the payment. Then i asked him how he got my number and he said that he had got it from my parents.

This gentleman had called up my parents saying that he is a friend of mine who had worked with me in my previous company and that he needed my number urgently. I made the payment through internet transfer on the same day

Today, The hutch guy gave me a number of missed calls between 4 AM and 6 AM . He then calls my parents and threatens them with police action. I called him back once i reached office and explained to him that i have made the payment and that he will get it either today or tomorrow. When i questioned him about his behaviour, he just cut the call.

When i am at fault for defaulting the payment , the way the so called legal department guy behaved was utterly ridiculous

1) He claims that he had sent two legal notices to my mailid which is not active. He would have got back a message stating that the id is not active. He has my parent's address, why couldn't he post the bill to them??? He was able to call them and get my number - why could not he have done this???

2) What was the need to lie to my parents about being my friend. If he is calling from the legal department he has all the rights to tell them the truth and demand the money? Why follow a third rate approach?

3) The guy works for vodafone - a leading mobile service provider and he gives missed calls from his number !!!

4) What was the need to threaten me with legal action the first time that he is speaking to me?

5) When he very well knows that i am in UK, why does he give me missed calls at 4, 5 and 6 AM?

I had mailed across a complaint to vodafone about this...lets see what happens.

Slumdig Millionaire - positive sides!!!

Was talking to a friend who said that the movie does infact have some positive things . According to her, the movie depicts a bulk of population in India but it also shows how these people still manage to live happily amidst all this. In addition, it also shows that some people do not give up and fight for the thing that they want - that includes the hero, the blind beggar...the girl and the kids - they all fight to survive!!!

She has got a point there.

Slumdog millionaire - outrageous!!!

Slumdog millionaire - a movie that has been on the winning spree in almost all award functions lately held and might bag the Oscar's too.. Saw this movie last night and at the end of the movie, i tried to summarize how Danny Boyle has portrayed India in this movie. Things that i could remember

1. Poverty in the slums
2. Communal violence
3. Indian men kidnapping kids, making them blind and then making them beg in the streets
4. Child labour
5. Indian kids stealing from the tourist in Taj mahal and posing as tourist guide.
6. A guy stealing his brother's lady love from him
7. Prostitution
8. Kids who can kill
9. Young guys becoming rowdy and wielding guns
10. Indian police torturing the innocent
11. A corrupt showhost
12. Typical call center joke where a chai wala handles a US customer call

The real heights of the movie was the scene where the kids steal all the parts from the car and the kid says "You wanted to see real India - this is real India" and the US tourist says " we will show you real US" and hands a 100$ bill to the kid

Has Danny boyle shown anything good about India in this movie. Nothing that i can remember!!!

Slumdog Millionaire is a typical white man's view of India where they can see nothing good about India. I am not even 1% happy about this film winning all these awards and my heartfelt sympathy to Danny boyle and others who cannot see the real India .

Naan Kadaval

Naan kadaval - A good tamil movie after a long time. A different story line - hats off to Bala for taking a topic about beggars and portraying it so well. He has done his homework well and his cast includes people with physical and mental disabilities that you usually see outside temples or other common places. Arya and Pooja have done a brilliant job. Illayaraja has done his usual magic throughout the movie.

Naan Kadaval is not a commercial movie, not a movie with the usual masala, not a story about lovers or revenge - is a story about the people whom we see almost every day and about whom we do not give a second thought.

I felt the end could have been different but all said and done your heart really feels a bit heavy at the end of the movie. If you are looking for a movie which is different from the usual movies then Naan kadaval is a must see!!!

Numerology & astrology

A couple of months back when i was in India, i was surfing through some TV channels one morning and came across a program on numerology. People were telling their problems in life to the numerologist who inturn assigns a number to each alphabet in the name, then sums up the digits to reach a single digit and finally compares it against the date of birth and voila - he finds out the reason why the person has so much trouble in life. Then he suggested a change in name by adding an extra alphabet or an extra initial in some cases!!!. I have a question here - names like Karthik, naresh or vinay are 100% pure Indian names but then you calculate the weightage for these names using english alphabets - how is this possible? How did our ancestors survive with their name before the Brits came to India?

One more thing that the numerologist asked the person was to write the name X times (Something like 103 times) every day morning for y number of days - The numerologist forgot to say whether it should be before breakfast or after breakfast!!! How in hell will this help? The person is still the same, he is going to be called with the same name but writing his name down with an extra alphabet is going to erase all his problems in life...

Another scam is the lucky stones one...all the stones that were supposed to be used jus for ornamental purpose have become lucky stones!!! Nowadays you see some people with lucky stones on all 20 fingers.

Astrologers are supposed to predict your future using the position of planets. A Pythagoras' theorem can be approached in n number of ways but the end result is always the same. I expect the same with astrology - who ever is the astrologer you should get the same results but you do not. Nowadays you go to an astrologer and you find n number of troubles awaiting you and all this can be nullified by doing some pujas.

I am not sure if all the above methods solved any problem but they have helped the numerologist and the astrologers to become rich

The fall

Went to the frozen lake this morning - walked on the frozen lake, walked on snow which was 1 feet high and came back safely to the hotel.

I then went for my lunch - stepped out of the hotel and was walking towards a restaurant hardly 500 m from my hotel. I turned at a corner and next minute i was flat on the ground :(... It was so embrassing

Follow your heart

Never thought that things would take such a drastic turn in a days time...when i left India on 14th September, the job market was quite cool and a day later when i landed in UK, Lehman brothers had declared bankruptcy, US govt was trying to bail out AIG and Lloyd's announced Halifax Takeover...How the heck did these guys came to know that i am searching for a job :)

All said and done, i am sure that things would work out fine...i realise that i am over confident and i am taking a stupid risk in my life but if i do not do this now, when will i get the chance to take such a risky decision again without thinking about all the dependency factors!!! Some well wishers advised me to take back my resignation but i am not going to - i have taken a decision and whatever be the outcome, i wanna go ahead with my decision.

Sometime back i saw a video of Steve Jobs delivering his commencement speeches to Stanford univ graduates . In his speech he mentions about how he dropped out of college, about him taking the calligraphy instructions, etc. Using the above instances from his life, he mentions about connecting the dots looking backwards and about trusting in something - guts, destiny, life, karma and trust that the dots will connect somehow in the future- this will give you the confidence to follow your heart!!!

Guess this is the time to follow my heart :)

Things that i miss been away from India

Was chatting with a friend sometime back who is in Australia and we were talking about the things which we miss been away from India...so here i go with my list :

• Food - i miss the morning breakfast for sure - hot dosa, vada, idli,pongal...Am bored of eating cornflakes and bread. Want to have nagarjuna/nandhini Biryani or the avakkai andhra food nowwwwwwwww.
• The refreshing tea/ coffee with vada / bhajji at the corner shop.
• Cable TV - I miss the regional channels like Sun music, movies and the comedy shows.
• I miss the long number of hours that i spend over the phone talking to my friends- what a freedom it was to pick up and call any friend whenever you like...Also miss the text messages a lot
• Hanging out at Garuda/ forum mall with friends
• Watching movies at the theatre
• The ice cream at Garuda mall food stop
• The office coffee breaks
• Times of India
• Lays Tomato tango chips - you get so many brands and flavours of Crisp but i do miss lays tomato tango

When will this end?

Terrorism in India in the last 15 years

12 March 1993 - Thirteen bomb explosions(RDX containing shrapnel) in Mumbai. 257 people dead and 713 injured.The first bomb blast was at the Bombay stock exchange at 1:30 PM and the last of the 13 bomb blast was at 3:40 PM

13 December 2001 - Attack on the Indian Parliament by Kashmiri militants - Five gunman infiltrated the parliament house in a car. 7 people were killed and 12 injured.

6 December 2002 - Bomb blast in a bus at Mumbai killing 2 people

27 January 2003 - A bomb exploded near the Vile Parle Station in Mumbai killing 1 and injuring 28

14 March 2003 - A bomb exploded in a train killing 10 people and injuring 70

28 July 2003 - Bomb explodes in a bus killing 4 people and injuring 32

25 August 2003 - Twin car bombings at mumbai killing 52 people and injuring nearly 150. One explosion was at the Gateway of India and the other near a hotel

5 July 2005 - Five militants attack the site of the destroyed Babri mosque. One civilian died and the five terrorist were shot dead

29 October 2005 - Three explosions in the capital of India , New Delhi just two days before Diwali. The bomb blast happened in two markets in Delhi. Death toll - 62 and 201 people were injured. The first blast occurred at 5:38 PM, the second at 6 PM and the third at 6:05 PM

7 March 2006 - This time the target was the hindu holy city of Varanasi. 28 people died and 101 injured. The first blast occurred in a Hindu temple and another occurred at the Varanasi cantonment railway station. Six bombs were defused from other ares in the city

14 April 2006 - Two explosions in the courtyard of Jama Masjid, a mosque in Old Delhi. At least 13 people were injured

11 July 2006 - Seven bomb blast that took place over a period of 11 minutes on the Mumbai Suburban - 209 people lost their lives and over 700 injured.

8 September 2006 -Series of bomb blast at Malegaon, Maharashtra. One bomb exploded next to a mosque at 13:15 IST(just after the friday prayers) killing 37 and injuring more than 125 civilians

18 February 2007 - Bomb blast in the Samjhauta express (a twice-weekly train service connecting Delhi & Lahore). 68 people Killed and at least 50 injured

18 May 2007 - Bomb blast in the famous Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad. Blast was caused by RDX bombs which were activated by mobiles. Death toll - 16 and atleast 100 were injured

25 August 2007 - Two bomb explosions - first one was at Lumbini amusement park and the second at a restaurant. Two more bombs were defused in other parts of the city. 42 people died and 54 injured in this blast

13 May 2008 - Nine bombs exploded within a span of fifteen minutes at Jaipur, Rajasthan. Tenth bomb was defused. 63 people died and atleast 216 were injured

25 July 2008 - Nine bombs exploded in the IT hub of India, Bangalore. Thankfully they were low intensity bombs. 2 people have been killed and 20 injured

26 July 2008 - 16 Bombs in Ahmedabad killing 30 people and injuring 100

=====================================

We are not a country who is in war and still we have lost 891 lives and 2685 lives in the last 15 years to these cowardly act of terrorism. Think about the fear & unrest that spreads among the Indian people when such a bomb blast occurs - people from all over the country are trying to reach their friends and relatives in the city where the bomb blast occurred and it takes a couple of hours and sometimes days for peace to return.

We cannot expect the police to have an eye on the one billion population to find out who is going to trigger a serious of explosions next and there is no way for the civilians to protect themselves against these terrorist. We would have to eliminate the root of terrorism...We all know where the roots are but are we too soft as a nation to hit back on the cowards who have been playing with the life of Indians? Should we not teach them a good lesson?

Praying that someone puts an end to all these meaningless killing of innocent civilians and just let us live in peace.

Learn to respect your nation

I have got this "Know it all" Indian colleague of mine. Just to give you an example of his "I know everything" attitude- He is a pure vegetarian who has not even had egg till date but can talk about chicken and fish food varieties for hours togather starting from how it has to be cooked till how the bone tastes!!!

For the last one week, a colleague from prague has been joining us on our way to office and back home. The Prague colleague asked us as to how the Metros are in India and Mr. know it all blurts out "Not as good as in Prague". He has not been on either one of the metros (he has not visited Prague til' date) and still he says that the delhi metro is not good. When asked about the crime rates in India , his response was that the crime rates are too...How many times have you or your family been robbed or beaten up?

Come on guys- If we dont respect our country and the good things about our country, how will the foreign nationals respect India? Are we not the brand ambassadors for our country? Lets spread good things about our country

The wait...

Every day has 24 hours, each hour has 60 mins and each minute has 60 seconds .........hrrrrr...Why the heck do we have so much time in our hands - this is the way I feel now - waiting for two important decisions but i have no say in both the things...

Dasavatharam - 3 hours of unadulterated fun

Before i start, let me make it clear - i am not a die-hard fan of Kamal [:)]

If we take a look at Kamal's previous movies, it would fall distinctly into either one of this - A serious movie carrying a message or a full fledge comedy movie. Before going to dasavatharam, a friend forwarded a link to a blog about dasavatharam which tried to explain Chaos theory and Butterfly effect - the theories which forms the base of the movie. Read the blog and got the impression that it would be a movie with a serious base.

Got a team of eight musketeers and stormed the theater on a saturday afternoon - a week after the movie got released. The 12th century scenes at the beginning of the movie confirmed my thoughts of dasavatharam being a serious movie. The song "Kallai mattum kandal" is quite meaningful and is well filmed. When the movie moves back to the current times, it is jus another normal movie - good guy vs bad guy. Initially, I was trying to figure out as to where the theories fit in to the movie and after sometime gave up and started enjoying the movie for what it is...The movie turns onto a lighter note and has all the usual masala item that is required for an entertainer. Balram naidu character makes the theater roll with laughter.

10 characters by kamal - kudos to him for the idea but were the 10 roles necessary? Fletcher, Balram naidu, the 8 foot giant, Poovaragavan and Krishna veni paati avatars are commendable and Kamal has once again proved his mettle.

I was not able to understand as to why chaos theory and Butterfly effect was needed for this movie - dumb me :(. This movie has been hyped too much with the 10 characters and some theories and i think it is the high expectations which has got the bad reviews for Dasavatharam. Do not go to see this movie with too much expectation and you will enjoy the three hours of this movie - a fast paced movie with good comedy.

UK - from Hate to Love

60 days have passed since i came first to UK and there has been some serious changes to the impression that i had developed abt UK in the first few weeks.

The first 2-3 weeks here... i was seriously wondering as to how i am going to spend the next 13 months out here - i had my reasons for that but now i am enjoing my stay ...People who i have been meeting in the last few days have proved to me that the impression that i had earlier about the UK public in general is wrong. Folks out here are very polite... Thanks / sorry and please are the words that you hear very often but sometimes you feel it is a bit overdone - ex a friend went to have a haircut and told the lady at the reception -" I want to have a haircut " and the lady at the parlour corrected him "you have to say - i need a haircut PLEASE"...and at the end of his haircut, it looked as if he had a fight with the lawnmower. The country side and the beaches out here in the Uk are awesome . I also love the fact that you wind up your work by 2 PM on fridays. Indian food is much easier to get in UK

Some drawbacks - Cost of living in Uk is a bit on the higher side. Taxes here are crazy - you have tax for anything and everything...even "Garbage tax"- come on whey do you have to pay tax for generating garbage. The cost of a liter of petrol is close to 1.2 pounds (100 Rs) and 62% of the cost is tax.

Looking forward to make the best out of my stay at UK...Cheers!!!

Will it be an adventure?

Planning to go home this evening - there is some tension prevailing in the TN-Karnataka border and people form both the states have resorted to violence and they have been pelting stones on the buses that ply between both the states - hoping to reach home safely!!!