Five Point Some Potter...

Hi,

I had watched the play 'Five Point Someone' staged by the group EVAM in Chowdiah Memorial Hall last Saturday. It was a nice adaptation and there were some nice creative techniques used in the play to make the stage look like a classroom the Insti roof and also the hostel room of the 3 main characters. They have a website where you can book tickets for any of their forthcoming plays http://www.evam.in/

Neways, I have been reading 'The Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'. Yeah don't blame me but I had always thought that Harry Potter was meant for kids and never got the interest to read it. Now, I have given in to the hype created by the release of the 7th book in the series and am aiming to get to the 7th book in a month or 2. I have almost finished the first one. Though I have watched the movie, I find the book a very book read. JK Rowling is an amazing writer. The simple language she uses makes it a very light read and to her imagination, all I can say is 'hats off'. Will compare the different books in the Harry Potter series in the coming posts. So keep visiting.

New initiative at work - iPAD

Hi,

I have taken this new initiative at work iPAD to make Project Activity Documentation easy. Basically, I have been handling the audits of our team and had got several comments from the quality team over the documentation of team's activities. The team is supposed to maintain an activity log, peer review records, Minutes of meetings, delivery mails, appreciation mails, Issue Register, Weekly status reports and what not. Each of the above has a prescribed format and whenever an activity happens at work you need to save a file in the prescribed format at a particular location. I myself had faced a lot of problems trying to save these files. So I had decided to create one excel sheet with each activity log as a tab so that you can fill in all the data at one place (you can give it a geek tag - data integration but this is more from the enduser perspective - the enduser's headache gets reduced a lot as he/she just has to keep one sheet open all the time and fill in data whenever an activity happens in his/her project).

Since this sheet is a log of various activities that happen in the project, I decided to call it PAD (Project Activity Documentation). It also sounds like a notepad, so gives an intuitive feel as to what it is meant for. And then suddenly I got the idea of naming it iPAD or myPAD (inspired from google's iGoogle, Apple's iPod and MSN's myMSN, Yahoo's myYahoo etc) and then we agreed upon the name iPAD since i would stand for Integrations which is our team name. So finally I have created an excel sheet template with 7 tabs and named it iPAD (Integrations Project Activity Documentation). I see some initial success in using it. Earlier, it would require some n reminders before getting the teammates to fill in various sheets. Now, everyone keeps their own iPAD sheet open and fills in the required data. Hope this carries on well and yeah I am really going to boast about it in any interviews I face later in my career. I personally am very satisfied with the initiative.

Acting Classes

Hi,

Yes, I have joined acting classes. There is this group called MiSF!T owned by this theatre actor cum director Ratan Thakore Grant which holds acting workshops for beginners. MisF!T stands for 'My Interest Stys Firmly In Theatre'. Quite an innovative acronym. Ratan is a very nice individual with absolutely great brains and also a very energetic personality. The kind of energy he puts into the classes will make you want to perform your best whenever he asks you to enact something out. Also, the theory he teaches is so very logical and makes great sense. Kallu, Chauhan and all have already started making fun of me, but theek hai, I am doing what I enjoy.

There were 2 exercises Ratan had made us do which have really made me less nervous than I was before (not just on stage but also in the real life). In one of the initial classes he would ask everyone in the class to give every other person in the class a Page 3 kiss (you basically do not touch the cheek of the other person but just act as though you have given a kiss). Initially you blush to do this, but after doing it, most of your inhibitions are gone. Last week he has made us blindfold a partner and make the partner walk on the road. When I was blindfolded and taken out by my partner, all my senses got heightened and I really started observing things better. One of my old friends had recognised me and asked me if something happened to my eyes. I laughed and told him nothing happened. Neways, after you go through a lot of raodside guys and vehicle riders staring at you in sympathy and curiosity, you lose your inhibitions and nervousness. Also since your eyes are closed, you start observing with the remaining senses and realise how much confusion eyes really add to your mind...

Back to Blogspot

Hi,

Its been years since I was able to access this blogspot. I thought my account would have expired by now but thankfully it is very much alive. I had a lot of problems over the past 2 years in maintaining a single blog site. Once I decide upon a particular blogsite, my company would block that address and force me to find a new one accessible. But from now on, I think I will stick to just this one. If I am not able to access it, I will just post my blogs through mail to the same address. The shifting of address has resulted in my identity crisis and also I have lost some fans over the last 2 years. I am not going to let this happen from now on.

Neways, it has been 6 months since I got married and life has been really different since then. My lifestyle has changed a lot. During the months of Feb and March, I was engaged in Aerobics at my company, but after that I had discontinued mainly because of the glue on my ass which doesn't let me move from my seat. I had been learning carnatic music but I had discontinued even that last month. My music sir was a little disappointed, but somehow, I thought of moving forward. My attitude doesn't allow me to practice Carnatic music daily (and believe me that is really essential if you are to learn singing). Since last month I have been attending a theatre acting workshop help by a theatre group called MiSF!T. This has really been a great experience for me so far. Now I know what to think of if I am on stage and how to get that expression right, those dialogues right and the act right. The head of this group, Ratan is a very nice personality who makes you think a lot and at the same time puts you on stage making you apply what is taught. I will update you more on what has been happening in these acting classes in the next post. Till then.... bbye....

Shanker Dada MBBS

Hi,

I was watching 'Shanker Dada MBBS' - telugu version of "Munna Bhaai MBBS'. Well when people ask me,
"Is it the same as Munna Bhai?" I reply,
"It is Munna Bhai MBBS with Chiranjeevi's charm added and Sonali Bendre's charisma added with catchy tunes by my favourite music director Devi Sri Prasad."
Yeah, Sonali Bendre does act in Telugu movies, and you must see her sari to believe how beautiful she looks. And Chiru, well I went to see this movie on the 51st day and on that day they had added one extra song as a gift to Chiru's fans. I did not know this when I went to watch, but was surprised to see many college students on the 51st day because I thought they would have already watched it some 4,5 times. They had all come for the new song... which was towards the end of the movie... and once the song ended.. all college students left and only families were left in the theatre. Chiru is GOD for all college going people, who grew up with his movies.

And regarding the music director Devi Sri Prasad.. watch out for him.. he is going to be in the news soon... quite promising young guy.. and has given some beautiful melodies comparable to the one and only Illayaraja. And his fast numbers are quite catchy.. jus listen to the title song of 'Shanker Dada MBBS'.. you will understand.

In all... as you must have guessed by now, I enjoyed the movie a lot.. and Sonali... man.. Sonali... is simply amazing....

The cryptic way

Hi,

There is a friend of mine, Nikhil who says.. 'Srini you are smart, you know.' But before I blush.. bang comes his remark, 'But you shud realise you are crazy.' Well, many friends of mine often wondered how would I be if I get philosophical.

According to me life is all cryptic. Ask anyone solving crosswords, U will get the same answer. Sometimes you have to frame clues and sometimes you have to solve them. Some girls are like Hindu Crossword which you would like to solve daily whenever you want to exercise your 'brains'. Then there are some gals like Young World puzzle for kids. Their brains cannot think beyond certain level. And all the clues you give them go waste, because they cannot solve cryptic puzzles. They keep framing direct clues for you which you can solve in a minute. Then there are Hindi crossword puzzles who cannot solve English clues. Then there are crosswords like that of 'Times' - the American kind of crosswords. These are the dudish gals (euphemism to pr@$). Like the grid of these crosswords, they lay bare with very few darkened squares here and there. Me being a fan of Hindu crosswords, would like gals who can frame and solve cryptic clues. Well, my apologies to anyone who has not followed this blog. No, don't accept that you can't understand cryptic messages. Instead, blame me for going mad, Young World puzzle solvers do think I am mad ;-)...

Its the time to disco...

Hi,

Let me continue with my blasting of Delhi. I talked about Delhi babes but not of Desi dudes. I call them hydrogen peroxide dudes. At my school our principal liked a guy who had his hair greyed by hydrogen peroxide. The principal happened to be a chemistry lecturer and he liked the idea that some student of his is making good use of some chemical he had worked on during his PhD. Coming back to Delhi dudes, these desi guys with a singing accent of Delhi never even bother to fake a good English accent and the so-called babe just falls for their biceps. The chidiya and thotha will startof there and go to the malls, go up and down the elevator spreading their deo smell everywhere. Then he takes her to Ansal Plaza where he answers one of her touches and slowly they cross the barriers and smooooooooooooochhhhhhhhhhh...... From there they will go to Nirula's, sit in the corner seat, the gal puts her lap on his and acts as if she has done something entirely socially acceptable. Lemme divert again. Talking of socially acceptable behaviour, one of our profs at IIT who also was our sysad used to appeal to us - 'Please don't open the web sites which you won't in front of your mom'. Arre...so much senti to stop porn viewing. Ok where were we..Nirula's... So this culture goes on. It reflects in the latest hit songs - 'Its the time to disco', 'Fanaa' - well, that is all ok. But the dudes should become modern in more ways than growing biceps and using deos. English with a bit more pseud accent would make him look more dudish... And for heaven's sake walk straight...

Rewind

Hi,

Now that my summer project is coming to a conclusion, I would like to get back to my original state. I would like to come back to the belief that business is all ethical and global. Companies actually are customer-oriented. They like to offer service to the customer because he is so important and they have got nothing else to do. I also want to believe that something called organisational culture exists and it distinguishes an organization from others. I want to believe that the source of motivation for the employees is not money alone. They don't work towards their personal goals but work in teams for the betterment of their organization. I also want to believe that HR cares for the company and their job is not just arranging cabs and giving pay checks. Bosses care for their subordinates and don't keep pressurizing them for their targets. Performance appraisal is done not on the basis of sales done alone. Other factors such as personal skills, commitment, blah blah.. play a major role in the appraisals done. Organizations work for offering good life to their employees and also their customers. Woww.........world looks great again....

Google....find this

Hi,

The other day I was browsing through net and gave a search string 'IITM blog' and was surprised that my blog was not there among the results. So I have decided that in my today's blog I will include all the terms that any friend of mine would have to enter to come upon my page like IITM, IIT madras, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, IIMK, IIM Kozhikode, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, Aalayance, Kans mama, KNS Srinivas, K.N.S.Srinivas, Danger, Phyter, fighter, GE Consumer finance, GE Countrywide, lunatic, mad, crazy, blog, web page, home page, webpage, homepage, blah blah blah

Kyonki main Kashtamer hun

Hi,

After having tried my hand in selling loans, I have found the right spelling of customer - 'Kasht'amer. Kasht yaani difficulty. Though I am wearing better clothes than him and am well groomed and educated, there is only one mistake I did. I approached him to sell something. That makes him my boss. Kitna time loge? Kya kya documents dikhaana padega, kitna charge karoge, agar mera income itna hai tho kitna loan milega. Main bhi kuchh kam nahin hun - Mujhse marketing ka gyan poochho, is product ke positioning ke baare mein poochho, kuchh bhi global poochho jawaab de doonga. But don't ask me practical questions. I will never give you direct answers.

The other day I approached a pakoda shop waala to ask him for some permission for using his shop for our marketing. I asked him, "Kya aap meri madat karoge?" He shoots his answer in perfect English, "What will I get in return?" Arre waah..yeh tho angreji bolne lagaa. His pseud accent and polished English reminded me of a bike ad. Don't remember clearly, but some gaonwaali ladkiyan suddenly speak in English when the bike passes by. Other than this pakodawaala, all other customers of mine would speak like, "wohi pichhwaade gali mein laal bathhi ke paas hai na aap ka daftar?" At the beginning I had some trouble understanding them. But now I am kind of accustomed to laal bathhis, phaataks, rail patri and gol chakkars.