Doodles of a crazy man!

I had heard a lot about Chennai (mostly bad things!), but never been there before. As I reached there, I realized how true they were. If Bangalore is the 'hot and happening' city in India, Chennai was just 'hot'! Chennai looked a cool 10 years behind Bangalore - the railway station, the flyovers, the autos, the buses - everything looked so 1990ish. I checked into one of the better looking hotels in Wall Tax Road. But, the hotel room did not have any towels. "No towelz. Khatam vogaya saar. Paisa do. Main tumko laatha", was the reply I got from the receptionist. Even the lift there had a major bug. It would go from ground floor to fifth floor properly, but while coming down, I had to walk down to fourth floor and take the lift from there to ground floor! By afternoon, I took an auto and reached the visa consulate. As I was walking towards the consulate office, a policeman near the gate asked me, "Do you have mobile or any electronic devices?" "Yes...

I have not done too much R & D, but this should help. Get "Nudi" from http://www.bangaloreit.com/NudiWebSetup/Nudi/Nudi4.0setup.zip and install it in your machine. Just installing nudi fonts(and not the entire software) might work, but I recommend installing the software itself, as 8 MB disk space is not huge and you can learn typing in kannada as well. Believe me, typing in Kannada is not as difficult as it initially seems! Visit http://krishnamurthyu.blogspot.com for help if you are planning to open a blog in Kannada. There are a few things that are not working fine. 1) In the "Previous Posts" section on the right, the names of the posts are not coming up. 2) I tried to comment on a post in Kannada, but some junk characters are coming up. If you notice any other issues or get a solution to any, please tell me.

I've started blogging in kannada. Check out my kannada blog at http://vsmaya.blogspot.com/ Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Last tuesday, I was travelling from Bangalore to Mysore by my car. It was a cool evening and the Mysore-Bangalore highway was great. Was I all alone? Not exactly! I remembered what I had told my friend a few days back - "Diamonds are a woman's best friend and for a man, its his iPod" :) Prem Joshua was playing sitar as only he could. Not many things in the world can be as blissful as music! In less than an hour I was almost near Maddur. Suddenly, some weird song was being played from my ipod (which was almost scary!). I just stopped my car to the extreme left of the empty road, to change the song. On the other side of the road were a few dhabas. The song being played was "Spirit", by a group called "Atman", from the album "Buddha Bar 2". I just scrolled through a few songs and selected the song "Shiva Moon". I kept the ipod on the seat next to me, placed my left hand on the gear and turned my head to the right. Just two feet aw...

A few days back, I was talking to my room mate in US. He asked me, "You dont eat chicken?" I said "No". "How are you surviving in this country, man?", he was surprised. He felt pity for me, an almost extinct species relying on vegetables, and he was proud of his 'chicken-eating' abilities. I asked him, "Do you eat beef and pork?" "No way", was his strong reply. I could clearly see his respect for the sacred cow and the aversion towards the ugly pig. I could not help but smile, as I remembered the comments of one of my colleagues, "Its very difficult to survive in this country without eating beef and pork". I dont say that vegetarianism is great, just because I dont eat meat. But, all I wish is that people should respect others' preferences, even when others are different from them. Just got a funny thought on this. The word "non-veg" does not give the proper picture of what people eat. So, how about havin...

Just a couple of days left, to go back to India, I still have to do some shopping - at least one thing I cannot afford to miss - chocolates! When I was in LKG, my grandfather used to take me to school in his bicycle. He used to get me a chalk piece or a chocolate everyday. I still cherish those moments and probably they were my very first memories of chocolate. Even my dad likes chocolates very much and he used to spoil us by getting them (that too in those "chocolates-cause-toothache-preaching" era) He still keeps a few chocolates in his pocket all the time. The cheapest chocolate available when I was a kid was Kadlekaayi Peppermint (made from groundnut), which costed 5 paisa for 3 chocolates! It was at that time when Cadburys Eclairs was considered a great luxury! I still see kids loving Gems or Poppins, and the reason might be, it gives them satisfaction of eating more number of chocolates! Jujubes or "joojips" as we used to call it(its soft with sugar coating), ...

When was the last time you did something for the first time? Me? Yesterday! Yesterday was a rare saturday, not just because I woke up as early as 7.00 AM (For me, this is too early for any day), but I was going to ski for the first time! By 8.00 AM, I was at the 6600 S bus stop along with my colleagues Aravind and Pramod. The Wasatch mountains looked beautiful from there - as fresh as a girl who just had a shower, water droplets dripping from her hair! We boarded bus number 92 and to my surprise, all the seats were filled. I had to stand in the bus and I did not miss Bangalore buses at all. There were people of all ages, with their skiing accessories. Many of them had the ski membership cards, and I felt as if we may be the only beginners. Within half an hour, we were in the snowy mountains. The snow gave a 'black-n-white' look to the surroundings - all the colors seemed as if they are different shades of grey. Only a few people got down at the Solitude ski resort. I felt as if...

He walked into the crowded bus stand of Bangalore. He was in his mid thirties, and looked totally out of sync with the city, which was his home just five years back. This was the first time he was coming to India after he had settled in New Jersey. "Uff...too many people here", he said to himself. He walked towards the inter-state platform, which looked empty. He approached the old ticket issuer sitting behind the counter, to check the timings of the next bus. "Excuse me, is this inter-state platform for Coimbatore?", he asked with a slight accent. "Yes", replied the ticket issuer, in a bored tone, even without lifting his head. "Are there no buses now?", he asked politely, a tone which he had learnt hard in the last five years. "There are, please wait for some time". "Okie, what time is the next bus?", obviously not happy with the reply. "Cant say, we dont know what time the buses arrive...", trying hard to control ...

Two weeks after coming here, I had been to Walmart for the first time. I had to get many things for the apartment. After some unsuccessful minutes of wandering and searching, I decided to ask someone. I went near the billing counter and asked the old lady standing there. "Excuse me, where can I get a foot rug?" She went blank for a moment and asked, "A what?" "Foot rug, which we put outside the door" "Oh, a door mat, its right there in the next aisle". I was speaking English and the only language she knew was 'American'. I picked up the cheapest foot rug available, as I anyway needed that just for three months. Then I remembered I needed a dust bin too. These people might not know what a dust bin is. There must be some other term. I thought for a while and went to the same old lady at the counter. "Hai, where can I get a trash can?" "A what?", her expression was as blank as the last time. "A Trash can, to put all ...

Downtown has become one of my favourite hangout locations over the weekends. Last saturday, I and Aravind went to the trax station and took all-day pass from a ticket vending machine. I love travelling by trax. Its full of life and I can see all kinds of people there. A young boy got his bike into the train(people call their bicycles as bikes, and they can bring it in the train. The funny thing is, they have separate places for boarding the train with their bikes!) A couple were sitting opposite to me - the girl seemed to be very angry and the boy was using all his skills to calm her. I was watching them from the reflection on the window glass ;) The girl did not relent for quite a long time, and then the boy said something for which the girl could not control her laughter. Persistence pays! An old couple sitting diagonally opposite to me were playing with the kid of a young couple sitting opposite to them. It made my belief stronger - that deep down, people are same everywhere - their...

The most frequently used sentence I have heard here is "Hey, howz it goin'?". The first day after I arrived here, I had gone in a taxi. The taxi driver had asked - "Hey howz it goin'?" For a moment, I had not realized what that "it" was - is it his taxi or my life? I dont know why the people here dont use relatively shorter phrases like "How are you?" or "How do you do?". Even strangers whom I meet on the road(though very rarely!) greet me with a "Hey, howz it goin'?". Yesterday it was heights. I met a person at the restroom, who asked me - "Hey, howz it goin'?". With so much difficulty, I controlled my laughter and said - "Fine"!

As I held her, I was ecstatic! I always had a dream of having someone like her in my life, long before I even knew about her existence. And today, we had met. Our union, though delayed, was inevitable. She was fair and slim, exactly as I had seen her in the pictures. Somehow, she seemed broad for her height, though it suited her! She was too cool, as if she was unaware of her own greatness. What attracted me most was not her gorgeous looks, but her capability. I fell madly in love with her as she started singing songs for me, which she will continue doing for a long time. She was my iPod! The romance had just begun!

Before you let your imaginations run wild, let me clarify - "First Night" here means the night on January 1st when they welcome the new year! Honestly, "First Night" seemed amusing to me too. It could have been "New Year Day", "New Year Eve Night", "Jan First", "Jan Night" or anything. Just imagine a person here talking to another - "How was your first night? Enjoyed? Had fun?" :)) December 31st started like any other saturday. I got up pretty late, had a long sleep, though my laptop was awake all night downloading the movie Rashomon. I had seen this movie more than a decade back on doordarshan. Surprisingly, I had liked this Akira Kurosawa classic. The story was a bit weird but very captivating. From the last few months, I had a strong desire to watch that movie again. I made full use of the amazing internet bandwidth here and by noon, I was watching the movie. I loved it even more this time. This saturday was turni...

I was very sick over the last weekend (both physically and mentally), so I came up with the list of american gaadhegaLu, just to cheer myself up! * Fussy husband ge yogurt alloo stone anthe. * Dollar iddavne dhoddappa. * Hotte ge bread illa thale ge Nike cap. * Cent ge hodha maana quarter kotroo baaradu. * Kayyi dirty aadre baayi yogurt. * Yathaa rentu thathaa apartmentu. * Soccer match nodo heNNanna nambabeda, shopping maado ganDanna nambabeda. * MaLLi MaLLi manchakke yeshtu kaalu andre, 1-800-COT-LEGS ge phone maadi andlanthe. * Kempage irodella sause alla. * Cot iddashte kaalu chaachu. * Peter hodha, Peter bandha. * Ondu kaNNige bread, innondu kaNNige burger. * Kunilaaradha street dancer sidewalk sari illa andlanthe. * Maadodella anaachara, apartment mundhe "God Bless You" sticker. * Thaayiyanthe magaLu, wool-inanthe sweater. * Credit card andre coma li irovnoo eddu baayi bitnanthe. * Dude nelakke bidroo french beard maNNaglilla. * Chinnadha fork antha naalige ge chuchchik...

After a few exciting, happening and eventful days, things seem to have slowed down. "May be the powerplays are over. Overs 20 to 40, hang on! Wait for the slog overs", I said to myself. I had leased an apartment, which is just a block away from my office. I packed all my baggages from the hotel, asked the receptionist to book for a cab and started preparing palav. It took a while as I was experimenting with palav for the first time. Packed my lunch box, locked the room and went to the reception. Wow, the world is such a small place, the driver who used "son-of-a-bitch" in every possible sentence, was waiting with his cab. I thanked the receptionist and went near the cab. The driver looked very upset. I had asked the cab to be there in 15-20 minutes, but I had arrived after half an hour. The time on my watch showed 8:52 AM. "I am waiting here from 8.35", he said angrily. So rare, a sentence without "son-of-a-bitch". I silently thanked my reception...

On the first day, I was walking back from the office. I just wanted to prove myself that my road sense was not that bad at all. I had remembered the road, all the landmarks while going to office in the morning by taxi. There is no way I will be lost! Half way, I confirmed all the landmarks and was proud of myself that I was right on track. It was then I saw the board - "Dont walk"! "What the **** is that?" I said to myself. It was a highway and I was not supposed to walk straight at that traffic signal. I remembered my vector class in college. AB is same as AD+DC+CB. So, instead of going straight, go left, take a right and another right, and there you are! Who said that mathematics is useless? I turned left and walked for a few minutes when I got a traffic signal without "Dont walk" board. I crossed the signal and started walking in the vector DC. But, where is DC supposed to end? I was lost! There were no people around to get the directions. I could see o...

As I started writing this from the hotel room in Salt Lake City, I distinctly remembered what the gem merchant had told me not so long ago - "This will be a huge eye opener for you!" The journey was long, almost two days (excluding the half day I had lost in travelling to the other part of the globe) On friday, I had reached the Bangalore airport almost three and a half hours before the schedule and the first sign I saw on reaching the airport was "The flight AF 0191 from Bangalore to Paris has been delayed" I had no idea that this was just a small beginning of a series of "Waisa bhi hotha hai". I carried 2 huge suitcases, along with a hand bag and a laptop. This was the first time after my school days that I was carrying so much weight. Even though the baggage limit was 30 kgs per bag, the "negative-thinking" person in me told me to carry much lesser than the limit, so as to completely avoid any chances of overload. But, Air France had different...

The alarm started ringing. Is it 10.00 AM? Is it 11? I opened my eyes slightly, just enough to see my black timex watch. Oh no, its already 11.50! Time to get up, not that I cant sleep more, but I would get more "lectures" from everyone if I sleep beyond 12.00. Lectures from the normal, "correct" people, who belong to "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" school of sleeping pattern. But, I had slept at 4.00 yesterday night(or is it today morning)! What was I doing, you must be wondering. I was playing FreeCell all night!!! It was one of those days during summer of 2002. I had finished my graduation and waiting(or hoping?) for some company to take me. It was the dark period of IT industry(mine too! However, it was a great learning experience for an immature industry and a person even more immature). Not many companies were recruiting, that too freshers. Still, there were a few companies calling for interviews(making me visit...

Does it mean time? Death? Is it about Death time or timely death? Cast(In alphabetic order) : Ajay Devgan Driver 1, 2, 3.... Esha Deol John Abraham Lara Datta Monkey 1, Monkey 2 Owl Snake Tiger 1, Tiger 2, Tiger 3 Vivek Oberoi (The writer has made a sincere effort in having the names in alphabetic order. He is not responsible for last minute spelling changes because of numerological reasons) THE FULL STORY --------------- Kaal kaal mein hum tum kare dhamaal... "Breathtaking" sets..."imaginative" choreography..."energetic" performances... but why the hell are they in an adventure/thriller/horror movie... sorry, you are not supposed to ask those questions! The night is dark...The place is Orbit Park... The owl rotates its head and gazes at the camera... The bat hangs upside down from a tree... The monkey shows its long white teeth, as if for a toothpaste ad... The snake opens its mouth a full 90 degrees(not sure whether it is yawning or trying to scream)... ...