Professionalism???

What does this word mean? Dictionary says it is professional status, methods, character, or standards. The next was who is a professional? I searched the same dictionary it says Having or showing great skill;Performed by persons receiving pay;Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career;. Many people believe that professionalism exists in the way you dress, the level of luster of your shoes measures your professionalism etc. The image above was the first one i got when i searched Google images for Professionalism and it shows a man with coat, suit and tie.In companies i have seen many ppl saying that "Come on you are a professional dress perfectly!!!", even in colleges nowadays ppl start saying "you must have a habit of tuckin in your shirt wear polished shoes etc, etc. because you are going to become a professional". But in my opinion these things are secondary. True professionalism lies in character, behaviour of a person and not in the dress code. I agree that gud and smart dressing is required at places but in the same time i find ppl stressing too much on it. If a person who is your senior dress smart speaks gud english and starts bullying you whenever he gotta chance,is he a professional? No definitely not, instead i wud say that a senior who inspires you, and knows how to get the job done without creating a difference of opinion is a better professional than the former even though he doesnt know any english or dress a bit casually. I wonder how these ppl speak about professionalism without even knowing the meaning of that word. Kudos to the management of my college we didnt have a dress code during my tenure of 4 years in that college.That doesnt mean that my college allowed semi nude dresses, they jus mentioned that wear something decent, tats all. Instead of speaking too much about dress code, rules and regulations i think colleges shud focus more on how to create true professionals who can make a gud society. One more thought,perfection cannot be achieved by imposing rules instead it can be achieved iff each and every individual realise for themselves....

Disclaimer:
Yet another random thought from my brain. :)

Kumbakonam times contd.....

Atlast i found out what was the problem and why my blog didnt accept any photos. I use Opera instead of IE and that caused the trouble, instead of manually scanning the fotos myself i ordered a foto cd from the lab, i believed in their professionalism but they let me down, they ve scanned the photos with the lowest resolution possible. Some are gud some are bad, anyways i ll scan them manually and post it here, the 1st photo i wanted to post is the samadhi of the great Sri Thyagaraja Swamigal.
When i went to this place the famous Thyagaraja Aaradhanai was taking place. I found many maamis sitting near the samadhi and performing some classical vocals. After they completed i went to one of them to ask "Why is this person worshipped while there are many others who can sing?". She replied me with a "R u a Gnana Sooniyam?" look :). She didnt answer my question directly, instead she told me to get a book about Thyagaraja swamigal's life history that costs around Rs.3.00 from a nearby shop. I did it, the book was around 20 pages or so and i completed it in 20 minutes, then she came back to me and said "Ippo puriyardha", i understood. This person has composed around 24000 keerthanais in Carnatic music in his short life span of 60 years. There is no similarity between each other it seems. I find many ppl learning Carnatic music who boast too much on singing one keerthanai. Inspite of lucrative offers from Kings and Landlords Thyaga Brahmam only sang about God(Sri Ramachandramoorthy). How great it is. He lived from 1767 - 1837 according to that book. Visit this link for more info. The lady who told me about the book was very much enthusiastic and told me that she visits the place every year for the past 15 years and there are many ardent carnatic singers like her who spend the entire week in Thiruvaiyaru. She showed me an itenary in which i cud see some big name like Unni Krishnan, Sowmya, Yesudas etc. She told me that each of these persons will be given a max of 20 minutes to perform on the stage except for Yesudas who sung 7 kritis of Sri Thyaga Brahmam non stop for more than an hour. That is a separate world. While speaking about Yesudas i remembered a saying "Music has no language and religious barriers" and Yesudas is a living example for justifying these words. Myself and my cousins looked at some locations there and told "Dei idhu Anniyan padathula varume " etc. I was ashamed of myself that i had to know such places thru' movies instead of knowing the true prodigiousness. When i listen to Sankarabharanam i used to believe that the songs like "Maanasa sanchara re..." ,"Dorakuna etuvanti seva..." etc. have been composed by K.V.Mahadevan but last week i came to know that they ve been composed by Sri Thyaga Brahmam himself, i cud do nothing but laugh at my ignorance :).If i had known Carnatic music i wud have appreciated these things better than what am doing now......

My first Photo

the best SELlers....

The SEL in caps stand for Shankar Ehsaan and Loy , the 3 awesome ppl who performed on Saarang in the eve of Republic Day 2006. Luckily we got a leave on Republic Day
:)and who wud miss the mother of all culturals, 14 of us made it atlast. This time the number of tickets were minimised due to the IISc incident and other security threats by terrorist lunatics.
The show started at around 7:00 and Shankar made us stand breathless for the 1st 5 minutes. Amazing exhibhition of vocal wizardry. Compared to last year the show was very much interesting coz Shankar made the entire concert interactive. Usually whenever we stand up and start dancing immediately the volunteers wud come to stop us. But this time Shankar himself declared that none of us shud sit. Similar to last year our dudes and dudettes performed a candle light like dance with their cell fones. Everyone has a mobile except for my friend Muthu who doesnt want to get 1 fearing his manager might call him to office :)). The Urvasi song from the movie Kaadhalan deserves a special mention, the way Shankar changed the tempo in the due course of the song was amazing. Then came the magnum opus of these 3 ppl, Dil Chahta Hai we were very much excited when they sung each and every song of this film. Shankar and co. was accompanied by Mahalakshmi Iyer and Blaze. Srinivas and Vijai Yesudas were surprise packages even though they sung just a few lines. Shankar changed our mood alternatively by mixing his fast and melodious numbers. The other guy Ehsaan did a gr8 job with his guitar, he was playing with it, and thats when i understood why some ppl say "i play guitar" mind blowing performance. When Shankar performed Pretty Woman from Kal Ho Na Ho he called some cute looking pretty women on the stage and danced with them. In the middle Shankar said that he composed some songs which is close to his heart but didnt make it well with the audience and he sung "Aaaona Aaaona..." from some movie in which Vivek Oberoi paired with Ash,that movie was a flop but i loved this song it was so melodious. While singing "Ganan Ganan.." from Lagaan Shankar stopped in the middle and said it wud rain if he completed the song, and it rained yesterday night. Simple coincidence huh. but it happened.
We all danced througout the show and had a great time, in fact we returned to our college days. Shankar ended the show with his patriotic pop number "Hindustani..".After the show some of my frends even started blabbering that "PL, TL thollai illama inniku nalla thoonguven da","College Dayku appurama inniku thaanda sema kuthu" etc. :)) in short we had a very gud time and enjoyed to the max.
Now lets come to the cons, Shankar jus sang a few lines of tamil songs, i understand that majority of the crowd likes Hindi but he shud have sung those 2 songs that fetched him national awards,(Varaaaga nadhikaraiyoram from Sangamam and Sandhana thendralai from KanduKonden). The next thing was girls, they were infact in both pro and con category. I cud c some girls delibrately overexposing themselves in the name of westerb culture, some girls standing behind me even started dancing with sleeveless mundaaas banians by waving their over coats in air. Our country has not matured enough to take this gesture in the right sense, i think it is too early to accept such changes among girls. Anyway Kadham Kadham. :)

Sandakozhi!!!!

Happened to watch this movie 2 days ago. Again a normal tamil movie with luv, sentiment and some extra action, not bad definitely watchable once. This is the story, hero is a gud boy and goes to his friends native , meets heroine makes love( i mean the romance) due to situations happens to kick the villain's ass. Then villain wanst revenge and the movie goes on. But one thing was different in the story, hero instead of being an ordinary guy turns out to be the son of a bigger Dada in Madurai, so that the villain cannot take him up so easily. The villain is like some gym master with beard, he also growls like King Kong frequently in the movie, made me laugh instead of creating a weirdness.
There are 2 thinga i liked about this movie.
1. Meera Jasmine's cute actions, she has tried imitationg Jo, but not bad and the movie proves why she is a national award winning actress.
2. One song - Dhaavani potta deepavali....
Sung well by Vijai Jesudas and composed beautifully by Yuvan, both are successors of genius, they ve honored their fathers. I started humming the song after this movie.Definitely in my playlist.
Apart from that nothing special. Gud movie overall compared to other contemporary releases.

Kumbakonam photos have come up well, had to scan them, i feared the lighting because the roll was just a 100, but Surya Bhagavan saved me, all the photos took under direct sun light came out best. Will post them soon.

Kumbakonam times....

I was on a short tour to Kumbakonam last week from Thursday to Saturday. I shud rather mention it as a pilgrimage because i didnt visit any place except for temples, Wah what a place. Definitely nobody shud miss the place and its surroundings for its cultural richness, beauty and heritage. It is in India and obviously the roads are bad. It takes atleast 2 hours to travel 60kms there. I visited the surrounding temples like Thiruvidaimarudhur, Swamimalai, thiruvaiyar, tanjavur, govindapuram etc. The primary reason that i visited these temples is for their architectural features and next is bhakti. That entire area surrouding Kumbakonam has a divine touch. Each and every temple in that area has a unique heritage or legend. The places made me realise the richness of Hindu religion and how it flourished in the past. The Brihadeeswara temple deserves a special mention. A monument of such magnitude cannot be built nowadays(without computer schematics and simulation plans). The Lingam in the Moolasthaanam of the temple is so big that its base dia is the size of around 12 feet. I observed that many foreigners stood there stunned on seeing the temple and its beauty. While travelling i observed some things and enjoyed some, i will try to recollect and put it here. I passed thru' many villages which stand as the first name of Carnatic biggies like Kunnakudi Vadiyanathan, Umaiyalpuram sivaraman, Semmangudi, Chembai etc. I dont know why they are so great but they have come from ordinary remote villages which dont even have a population of 500. The area is lush green which has made it far more cooler than Chennai. The misty air in the morning with a tea in roadside tea shop is worth a mention. The Nandhi in Tanjavur Periya koil was superb. But some issues there disturbed me, i was able to see a kwaater bottle inside the temple compound. A foreigner started smoking inside the temple prakaaram, they removed their chappals wore Indian traditional dresses etc, but this particular guy didnt show any respect for our culture and the temple. But his guide approached him immediately and asked him to stop it, else we wud have blasted him. There was some Bharat Naaatiyam arranged inside the temple for these foreigners, even though i dont know anything about BharathaNaatiyam the girls who danced were cute and i photographed them with their permission :) . The inner portion of the entire compund wall of Periya Koil was painted with Tanjore art. But our citizens ( i shud call them ass!@#$s) engraved theyre own love stories there, they have scratched the surface of the painting by writing Roja loves Mani etc. Why do these ppl do such insane things instead of preserving these priceless possesions of our country. Thanks to the archaeological dept. they have fenced it now. The area is well watered with Kaveri and has ponds everywhere. In my opinion these areas shud remain as it is and need not develop into some hitech cities like Chennai.I was accompanied with 3 uninvited guests,(cold, fever and throat pain) but that didnt prevent me from enjoying the trip, thanks to Crocin and Amrutanjan :) . I wish i were born in some village near Kumbakonam,join some veda paatashala and settle there in my next birth(if i have one).I have taken photos of temples i have visited. Will upload them later and will write more about this trip...

Tagged!!!

Ricky has tagged me, the rules of this tagging stuff are given below:

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.

P.S: Rules cut and paste courtesy Ricky

Now my answer:
Target: Obviously a female Homo Sapien

8 Qualities i expect in her:
1. Great sense of humour.
2. She must be a music lover and preferably a Singer
3. Open minded and straight forward.
4. Must be my best friend.(best friend means a lot)
5. Should adjust with me and my family and understand other's feelings.
6. Should be modern and at the same time respect ethics and values.
7. Must be romantic and gud looking.
8. Must be the best Cook, coz i luv eating a lot.

In short she must be like Kakka Kakka-Jothika(not in looks and complexion, but in attitude and character).
I am tagging Nallavan and Veda.....

Roads are not Circus grounds

This is the message i saw on a hoarding kept by Chennai City Traffic Police near Gemini signal while returning from office today. I can see many guys in bikes performing stunts on cities roads with heavy traffic.It reminded me of an incident couple of weeks ago, i was on the way to a bank in Madipakkam. It was a sunday and a school in our area had some special classes for 12th students i guess. The students of that school were coming out. Suddenly i cud c 2 guys coming in Pulsar showing too much of gimmicks and circus in the vehicle, they skid around cut some vehicles in the road etc. they wore the same school uniform, the bike was remodeled to spoof a race vehicle.In the process of showing off to their classmates of opposite sex they hit a cycle. Only one sentence came to my mind "Ivanungala solli kuthamilla ivanunga appana thaan seruppaala adikkanum". I cud not frame or translate this in English. When i see many ppl like this in roads i feel that it is their parents who are to be blamed. Why does a school going boy need a bike? if at all he needs it why cannot it be a TVS champ or so. Since becoz they ve lotsa money the parent may think that let his child be comfortable and provide them with such facilities, but the immatured mind will most probably think the wrong way. Not only the bikes it is cell phones, computers etc. Remember the Delhi MMS incident, it is parent's foolishness to provide a school boy with cam in mobile, he thought of himself as an ambitious porn movie maker and published that MMS to show off on how he had succeeded in gettin that girl. If that boy had been provided with a NOKIA 1100 then atleast the matter wud not have come out right. Am not saying that parents shud be very stingy and be strict or stubborn,because that ll also spoil the child the other way.am saying give your child only the necessary accessories. There is nothing to be happy about your son/daughter using the latest phone, bike or car. Similarly a broad band net connection for a leser than 10th std student without proper vigilance can spoil him, and it is happening in many places. I used to fight with my dad 5 years back when i was in 12th std, for a vehicle(geared bike), i had a cycle at that time. Now i understand why he didnt get me one. In short it is the parents who are to be blamed if a child get spoilt.

Disclaimer:
I am not against students or children who really make gud use of facilities and there are many exceptional cases in which children get spoiled even if parents are perfect, i am talking only about the majority.

The great debate

Warning: If you have 0% interest on technology and computer science Please skip this post.

There are lots of never ending debates in this world, this is definitely one of them. "Which is great,Linux or Windows". I am not a computer expert or OS research scholar but i have used both of these operating systems for a while, so i think and feel that i can comment on both of them. The idea for this blog struck thru' my mind when i read this link. So far linux supporters mention 2 points primarily,
1. Linux is free of cost.
2. Linux is secured compared to Windows.
The 1st point is clear and cannot be confronted. Coming to the 2nd point Linux has very minimal viruses or Trojans compared to Windows, why is this so, many critical systems or PCs dont use Linux, so the hackers have not turned their eye towards Linux, but now it is becoming increasingly popular and theyve started.One more addition is that Linux does not have the concept of MBR, normally virus creators target this area because the booting process of the whole system depends upon this place. A lot of white papers and technical articles have been published in this regard. In my opinion Windows is the best choice for a PC which requires multimedia stuff. Linux is a mimick of Windows using UNIX Kernel, but Linux has its own advantages like setting up an own mail server etc. is easy, and the superb file permissions(owner,group,others) which is not available in Windows, i am saying this because i have worked on both these OSs professionally and personally. Comparing the performance criteria, in terms of desktop applications like media player etc. Windows is very much faster than Linux, i think the Linux requires some more optimisation in this regard. But in terms of other softwares like Application servers, database servers etc, i feel Linux is the better performer, Oracle works faster in Linux than on windows and same with WebSphere and stuff. File transfer from a CD to harddisk in Linux takes more time than on Windows. Another major problem of Linux is the support, since the development of Linux is sporadic, there is no single place or company to provide all in one. Thanks to the Fedora initiative which combines some major Linux vendors. In the end am not able to decide which one is the best, because both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages. Putting it short the best OS depends upon the requirement of the User. If ppl wanted to try Linux it is available as free version in this site, all you need to do is register here they ll give u any number of Linux cds with free shipping.

Disclaimer:
The above mentioned are my personal opinions and experiences, i have not conducted any performance tests or something, nor i am promoting any brand here.

Interesting article

Just got this link from another blog. Thought that evryone should read it to understand a foreigner's perception of India and our economy. This relates to my previous posts. The section 2 says that even if India is grown the booming middle class will buy only American products. True,But what if we manufacture our own? The time has to come and hope it is near.

Are we really dumb....

Got this one as a forward, but it made me think a lot, jus wanted to share with others so posting it here,

Are Indians really dumb?


'The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a product and mainstream it -- that can only be done in
the US. It can't be done sitting in India. The Indian part of the equation is to help these innovative US companies bring their products to the market
quicker, cheaper and better, which increases the innovative cycle there. It is a complementarity we need to enhance.'


-- Nandan Nilekani, CEO, Infosys, quoted in The New York Times, March 7, 2004.


Translated into plain English, this means 'Indians lack creativity and cannot come up with the ideas to create and sell a product. Indians can only do
the backend slog work that helps US companies create and sell their products.'


How about this?


ISRO -- the Indian Space Research Organisation -- is the result of Dr Vikram Sarabhai's vision. Its first rocket, like the one in the picture, was
launched 40 years ago. Over the past 40 years, a multi-disciplinary group of electronics, mechanical, electrical, civil and chemical engineers has
designed and built 32 satellites and three generations of launch vehicles culminating in the GSLV.


This was done with almost totally indigenous R&D, battling US sanctions. Each time that a technology or component was unavailable, ISRO went ahead and
developed it on its own. ISRO's satellites help India in telecom, television broadcasting, weather forecasting, disaster warning, telemedicine,
education and fishery. Technologies in areas as diverse as optics and artificial limb manufacture have been developed and transferred to Indian
industry.


Jamsetji Tata wanted to make textiles in Nagpur in the 1800s with the cotton grown there. Nagpur had no textile industry then, and in Manchester
Jamsetji was told that Nagpur's weather was not suitable as it was too dry. He said, 'Alright, I will bring the Manchester weather to Nagpur.' He
imported humidifiers and started India's first textile mill in 1874.


When Jamshetji started the Tata Iron and Steel Company and wanted to export steel rails to Britain, a Britisher called Sir Frederick Upcourt said, 'Do
you mean to say that Tatas propose to make steel rails to British specifications? I will undertake to eat every pound of rail that they make, if they
do that.' The Tatas did manage to make steel rails and export them to Britain. Upcourt must have developed a massive case of indigestion). In World
War II British tanks were called Tatanagars because the steel was made in Tatanagar.


To paraphrase Nilekani, Vikram Sarabhai and Jamsetji Tata got an idea, put together a team, raised the capital, created a product, and mainstreamed
it. They did it sitting in India, 40 years and 125 years ago respectively, when India's technical capabilities were far less than they are now.


So we now have two Indias.


One has a severe inferiority complex and is unwilling to do anything creative because it thinks it is incapable of it. It thinks being called the back
office of the world is the ultimate compliment, missing the implied insult in the word back. It thinks its ultimate destiny is to do all the slog work
of the world.


The other is confident about its capability, dreams big dreams, then goes ahead and translates the dreams into reality. There are innumerable success
stories like ISRO and Tata Steel in India today, in manufacturing, electronic hardware, pharmaceuticals, software, fashion design, or any area that
you can think of. The problem is that these are not highlighted. Creative individuals and organisations who are developing products or technologies
with a lasting impact are unsung heroes.


To be a hero in India today you just have to make a lot of immediate money. Creativity is irrelevant, and maybe dreamers like Vikram Sarabhai and
Jamsetji Tata would be considered fools.


When you dream a big dream, maybe a small part of it gets translated into reality. If you do not dream at all, what do you finally get in reality?An
entrepreneur must have self-confidence bordering on arrogance. Why is it that this confidence is missing in the heads of India's biggest software
companies?


Back to the Raj?


Every Indian child's history textbook says something to this effect: 'During the British Raj we exported cheap raw material to Britain, then imported
the finished products at a much higher price. We were paying for the value addition done in Britain, and the Raj prevented us from doing the value
addition here. We were being exploited by the British.' The IT industry is considered to be India's biggest success story, but in reality 99% of it
involves the export of cheap (human) raw material and the import of expensive finished products.


We are happy if Microsoft starts a development centre in India and employs a couple of thousand people. We develop the software modules that go into
Microsoft Windows XP at a low price, and then pay through our noses to import the finished Windows XP.


There is no British Raj to exploit us today, so what prevents us from doing the big value addition here now instead of exporting cheap man days? Why
are we exploiting ourselves? The standard argument is that the software industry is evolving, and will 'move up the value chain.' There is, however,
no evidence of any motion up the value chain. Some of the biggest IT companies are on the contrary regressing into BPOs. Everyone is happy making a
lot of money today, and there is no thought of tomorrow.


Another argument goes: 'Oh, but see how much foreign exchange the IT industry is earning for the country.' Agreed, we are making a lot of money
selling our time, but we would be making many times this amount selling our creativity through technologies, designs or finished products.


Current government policies, value systems and the education system are creating a whole generation of people who believe they are second class
professionals unfit to do anything creative. During the Raj the British convinced us we were fit to only produce raw material and not finished goods.
They'd be proud of us now -- we've learnt the lesson very well and are now convincing successive generations too.


In today's India Jamsetji would probably have said to Frederick Upcourt, 'Maybe you have a point and I'm taking a big risk trying to make steel in
this Third World country. I think I'll just sell you the iron ore from my Noamundi mines. Besides, I can start selling you the ore from next month
itself, while it will take me 5 years to build the steel plant and start making money.'


So are we really dumb?


A century ago, Jamsetji Tata took some foreign visitors to the Majestic Hotel in Mumbai but was denied entrance because he was an Indian. Jamsetji
simply resolved to build a hotel that was even finer, and which would not discriminate against people on the basis of colour or race. Today when we
lose software outsourcing contracts and get thrown out of the US, we go back and beg to be allowed back in instead of fighting back by being more
creative than them.


We need drastic changes in the education system and in government policies to reward creativity and value addition. Changes that produce creative
people, visionaries, dreamers, people with guts, like Vikram Sarabhai and Jamsetji Tata.


We are definitely not dumb. We just have to stop thinking that we are.

What Nandan Nilekani said was absolutely true? We cannot think beyond the backend work, let me not restrict it to software, considering all other indutries we have not suceeded so much in creating products that have earned international acceptance. Why is it so? US has been a free nation for 250 yrs or so, we cannot achieve that growth in 50 and odd years but atleast we shud have made some progress. We are still in the infant stages. We indians boast about being the software hub of World, tech savvies skill sets etc. But 90% of the work we do is the backend procesing except for a few projects. This does not need any innovation or creativity. The MNC's are not outsourcing because of the quality of our services, it is because of the cheap labour. China is cheaper than India but they lack the english and knowledge that we have thats y these MNCs chose India. It is a well known fact. But it is kinda symbiotic relationship in which they get their job done at low cost and we get employment. But where is this going and what is its future? As India develops the ratio of rupee:dollar will decrease and one day may be in another 20 years or so rupee might be equal to 1/8th of a dollar.If that happens US companies will start searching for an alternative, they might have started already. So we cannot depend on this outsourced software industry forever. One fine day outsourcing may not happen and many ppl may lose their jobs overnight, it has already happened once, remember post y2k times. We have to think more innnovatively and come up with some new ideas. I spoke to my friend yesterday who is working for a software giant, in the discussion we spoke about the architecture stuff, he said that architecture will be designed and given by Microsoft, we ll use it to develop the application. This is the same with all software companies, biggies like IBM Accenture EDS design the system and give the framework to us, we write millions of lines using that architecture. I could not avoid comparing this to construction of a house. The engineer designs the plan and gives the blueprint to masons , they build it using the plan. They are engineers and we are masons. Sorry if this line hurts any software pros, am one of them. I hope a time will come when Indian products get world wide recognition, world will use a programming language invented in India, systems all over the world will use OS written in India. Lets wait n see.

What prohibits us from thinking innovatively?
In my opinion the root cause is our education system. This needs a change.
Will write about our education system later on some other blog, but our system definitely needs a change. That cannot happen overnight, but have to be gradual.

Disclaimer:
Am not blaming our software industry and am not against it, am a part of it. Jus expressing my views.

An Alternative

An Alternative to what? wud have been the first question in your mind. All of us might have used Google, whether it be software engineers or net savvys survival without Google is hard. Google has become a verb now. I got it from a friend this is a new search engine still at its beta stages, if people are fed up with Google try http://www.previewseek.com/. It has some enhancements like categorisation of results etc. but speed cannot be measured now because this will be seldom use. Other parameters like Intelligence are a bit OK. Try this for a change.

31st December 2005

Few days ago we(i mean myself n frenz) thought of celebrating this New Year with great fun and partying, so we started our discussions a week ago , we started with Disco or resort plans but finally what we did was totally different and had a 1000% deviation from our plans. We were very much enthusiastic this time coz the last year we skipped celebrations , reason is very well known. Initially we planned for dicso at some star hotels. Some discos allow only couples. We are a gang of 8 or so boyz so that is ruled out, some other clubs inisist that boozing is mandatory. We dont wanna booze at the 1st hour of a New Year so that is also lost, finally some non alcoholic bashes seemed to be for families and will not suit us bachelors so ultimately we decided to our same old choice, our favourite hangout, the BNB as we call it, Besant Nagar Beach. Since some of our guyz had some personal commitments they have to leave early, after a long discussion at my fren's house we decided to dine at Pizza Hut. 6 of us made it finally. We just had a soup, a pizza on sharing basis, a dessert. The bill was 1200 rs. approx. Does the dishes deserve that much money? Absolutely not. Why does a dosa like item made of wheat dough, applied with cheese and pieces of vegetables accompanied with sauce cost 300 Rs. I searched thru the net. 3 kgs of Mozarrella cheese cost 4000 Rs. this is the MRP, but definitely these ppl must get it in some subsidised rate. Let it be 3000 finally. Hardly around 50 gms will be used for a pizza, may be less than that. Vegetables cost only 50 per KG at max. They use only pieces as toppings. Olives the base and all other stuff i think it should definitely be around 100 Rs. to prepare a large pizza. But they r selling it at 330 Rs. on an average. The rest 200 is for the A/C , cool interiors etc. I realised how we are wasting our money on this. I am not against pizzas nor do i hate them or like them. But why is it so costly and why do we have to spend too much on this? i cudnt justify that. But anyway we enjoyed the dinner moments. Before going to pizza hut we dropped by Moonwalk to get some dvds. I bought 4 of them.
Italian job, Troy, Sound of Music and Karnan(Sivaji starrer). I have been planning to watch Sound of Music for a long time and at last i got one. From the trailor i understood that it is the movie that inspired Shanti Nilayam in tamil. Karnan, oh what a movie amazing performance by Sivaji. The songs are also gud, plannin to watch it some time next week.
I didnt like all the programs in our TV channels, so planned to watch my own. Yes i watched Italian Job for the first time , gud action packed movie a worthy addition to my collection. Then decided to go for Troy in the evening, watched Troy again for the 7nth time with Appa. The first day of 2006 has gone and now am blogging about it. Looking forward for a gud 2006 and wishing you all the same......