On saturday - 23rd of june. Part II

Did you read part 1?
Cool.
Note: The following events happened; exactly as described. No exaggeration.

We started from our house bright and early as planned (at 11am). We boarded a bus to the airport and were on our way; looking forward to renting a nice car. Perfect. One little hitch. Siva forgot his IDP (international drivers permit) without which renting is car is complicated; to say the least. After some debating we concluded that it is most logical for Enterprise rental to give their car to a complete stranger who has a drivers license that's valid in a small state in a country named India.
Anyways we reach the airport. Walk up to this blond standing at the Enterprise counter.
ASIDE: Exactly a month back, 3 of us took a car from the same enterprise outlet and went to niagara. We paid for two additional drivers and a GPS navigation package. The total bill was $65. We got a BRAND NEW Suzuki Forenza. Awesome!!
Back to reality:
The blonde chick punches her calculator for a couple of minutes. I, in the mean time, am busy doing some mental calculation. Will it be $60? Nah. This time we have just 1 additional driver. Should be less.
Chick: It will cost you 140 dollars, sir.
Me: : I am sorry. Was that 40?
Chick: $140 sir.
At this point Siva tactfully reminds her to include ALL possible insurance cover (stressing on the word 'all').
Chick: Yes, I have done that sir.
Me: But clearly there is something wrong. We have rented car from this very office many times. Its never more than 70 dollars.
Chick: For the GPS it costs $8 and for the additional driver it costs an extra $7.
Siva: But CMU covers for our insurance. So you should not be billing us for that.
Now the chick digs up a big document and quotes "CMU will cover only CMU employees who travel for official purpose" and she looks up triampantly.
After some scuffling we manage to bring the rate down to $100. This means that only siva can drive the car. We choose not to add me on as an additional driver. (I love driving and the combination of 100 dollars and not driving has sent me into a state of depression). Also Siva hates to drive.

On the way to the temple from airport, we all agree that the day couldnt have started any worse. At exactly this point, Karthik tells us that the GPS is not working. Shoot me!!!
Interstate 376 is closed for maintenance. This means (a) it is going to take much longer to reach the temple since we have to negotiate thru obscure neighbourhoods. (b) we don't know the route to the temple really well and have to depend on the GPS (which is still not working)!!

Judging by the standards we had set so far, the next two hour was quite event less. We some home reached the temple in one piece. Thank God!!
Oh forgot.... Siva jumped a red signal in a busy intersection. We were honked at. I am thanking my stars for being still alive and Siva chooses this moment to say the most unbelievable sentence I have ever heard in my life....
Siva: : Yes, the signal was red so I went straight. Whats wrong in that??
Me, Karthik and Saketh (in chorus): Exactly, the signal was RED. You cannot go straight.
Siva: : Oh, is it? So far I have been thinking that if it is red we cannot turn right but can go straight.
Me, Saketh and Karthik take turns to look at each other with a sense of disbelief. At this point I realise that I should be driving the car. It does not matter if I dont have insurance. It does not matter that even if I cause so much as a small scrach in the car I have to pay a few thousand dollars. The only thing that matters in that all of us have to be alive. (ok I am over reacting a bit here. But hey, a red signal is a STOP!!)

Finally we reach the temple, have darshan and buy 3 packets of Puliodharai, 3 packets of sambar rice and 2 packets of curd rice (most important!!). We are on our way.... from temple to cinema theatre. The distance is supposed to be abt 30 miles. One hour easy.
Btw, inside the temple a few important decision were taken,
(1) There is no time to go home and change into veshti, lungi. :(
(2) I convince Siva to let me drive the car.
(3) By an act of God, the GPS starts working.

ON ROAD: (4pm):
Target time to reach destination is 5pm: Movie starts at 6pm. Perfect.
We are all very very hungry. So, while I am driving the other 3 decide to feast on the temple food. I can only watch them eat. The puliodharai smell is driving (pun unintended) me nuts. Now that the GPS is working, we key in the theatre address and start following it blindly.

4:20pm :
I somehow beg, plead, coax the others into letting me eat n drive at the same time. Anyway since the interstate is closed we are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic in some unknown neighbourhood. So I have plenty of time to eat. In the meant time we have become completely dependent on the GPS. We have no idea where we are going.

4:40pm :
We have just cleared a 20 minute stretch of start-stop driving. The worst traffic is behind us. Man, that was a terrible stretch. GPS tells us that we will reach the destination at 5:15pm. Thats ok. We should still have enough time.

4:50pm :
At the exact same time, me and Karthik get the same sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach. "Didnt we just cross this point sometime back?" We look at each other and let out a "oh-my-god" (a la Chandler's GF in Friends). Karthik quickly grabs the GPS and checks. Our worst fears are true. Somehow the destination had not changed. Instead of going to the theatre, the GPS was still trying to take us to the temple!!!!!

5:10pm :
Now GPS says that we should reach the destination by 6:10pm - correct destination
Me (polamb'ing): Gone, Ballelaka song gone. Superstar entry gone. **** it!!!
Some other friends of ours are supposed to have reached the theatre by now.
Siva does some smart thinking and calls them up. He requests them to put kerchief on 4 seats. Thamizhan thamizhan than!!

6:30pm :
Traffic is terrible. We have still not reached the theatre. The movie must have started by now.
The day cannot get any worse!!!

6:45pm :
We finally reach the theatre. Ah, what a sight. Summa jay-jay nu oru kootum. Americans are staring at the spectacle with their jaws dropped.
A long queue is standing outside the theatre.
All the mamas, mamis, their hot ABCD daughter, F1 junta, H1 junta... all are assembled.
It turns out that even the previous show has not yet finished.

Cool.
Thaaaalllllllaaaaaiiivvvaaaaaa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS:
The trouble is surely worth it. For the next 3 hours we had great fun.

On saturday - 23rd of june. Part I

Ever felt that gazillions of little events in our everyday life are chance happenings? That there is some force above; that makes sure that everything goes according to 'our' plan? That there are invisible strings attached to us and we are mere puppets? And if God looks away, even momentarily, it is complete chaos. . If you haven't felt so, you probably need a day like the one we had on the 23rd of June.

Yes, if had read the last post you might remember that 23rd June (Saturday) was the D-day. The day we were supposed to watch 'Sivaji - The bass' at 6pm. For one whole week before D-day there was a sense of restlessness amongst us. For us it was not just a trip to the theatre. It was a festival. It was a chance to revitalise our identity as a desi and as a tam. Sivaparamesh was coming all the way from Harrisburg to watch the movie with us. From one week before the D-day, every single day I would call Siva and remind him to come early on Saturday morning. I bugged him so much that he ended up being at our place on Friday night itself !!

At this point I would like to digress a little to emphasize the sense of restlessness that was growing amongst us. Do you remember the days when you were a little kid and your parents were taking you on a summer vacation to some hill station. I remember those golden days with great nostalgia. I used to derive greater pleasure from the sense of expectation on the days leading up to the vacation than the vacation itself !!
We felt the same way now. We told every friend who cared to listen that we were going to watch THE MOVIE on saturday. On friday, we felt www.behindwoods.com and www.sulekha.com should quicken their autorefresh rate!

Coming back to the main story:

So, we woke up bright and early on Saturday. The plan was to go to airport, rent a car, then visit SV temple, come back home to change costumes and reach the theatre at 5pm itself (one hour before the movie begins).

At this point, it is very important that you realise why we HAD to strictly go by the plan. We had the go all the way to airport for renting the car because only in airport we get the insurance covered by cmu. Consequently the rate gets very low ($50 for a day). We were very sure about the whole 'going-to-airport-renting-car' thing as we have done it many time before.
Why go to SV temple? Being the true desi s that we are, we felt that we would not be utilising the rented car enuf if we just went the theatre and did nothing else with the car. So we had to go somewhere else. And Pittsburgh is not exactly popular for its tourist spots. We could either go to valmart and buy stuff or go to the temple. We decided on temple.
Alrite, I get the airport and the temple part; but change costumes??
Yes, we wanted to do something that could be called "veri thanam" (sorry, translation impossible). So we decided on wearing lungi and going to the theatre. So we had to go back home from the temple before going to the theatre.
Ok, but why go to theatre at 5pm itself (a whole one hour before the show timing)?? Unlike India, cinema theatres here do not have seat numbering system. So the very first row costs the same as the last row. As one enters the theatre, he/she can she can seat himself/herself anywhere he/she wants. (aaah.. being gender-neutral is a pain in the *** ). Knowing desi mentality, every 'uncle' will be there with his family well before the show timing. So we had to beat them!

Alright; so this was THE PLAN. What actually happened? Hmm... if everything went according to plan life would be sooo boring. :)

(to be continued...)

Yet Another Sivaji Review.................................

Last week, the whole world was shaken by the rise of a new super power - sivaji (the boss). Orkut was flooded with messages like "Did u watch the movie", "Dude I did it", "The movie rocks" (Sivaji became so popular that no one uses the name anymore...Its simply the MOVIE now). The MOVIE was screened in pittsburgh yesterday and almost every tamy hit the theatres. Fearing a threat to our tamy status, we decided to watch the movie and booked the tickets a week in advance. This post as the title suggests, is going to be yet another frank (read as completely biased) review of THE MOVIE.

I know that sivaji is a rajini movie..Not to be reviewed and all that... Blah..Blah..Blah...
But nobody is perfect and we must accept that...
On that great note lets look at some things that I personally felt bad about...

The comedy scene with angavai and sangavai is disgusting.......It was not so great of rajini and shankar to make fun with the color of the skin ...Yet another male chauvinistic rajini scene i guess...

Certain contradicting rajiniisms can be seen throughout the movie (is shankar to be blamed....???). Dialogues like nammala aasai paduravangala vida naama aasai paduravangala kaatikitta life nalla irukkum seems like a direct opposite to previous rajini punches....

It seems like certain silly scenes were taken just to showcase splendid shreya(shriya..watever..), for example the scene where she runs with her red saree waving to stop the electric train seems to be right out of a fourth standard textbook...Amazing how the electric train could stop so soon and the driver saw shreyas red saree while he couldnt see super star shivering with fear (Probably the driver was designed to be like me )

The technique to convert black money to white money seems to be intriguing. (I mean to me it appears that the better way would be to make a movie like sivaji.. ). Wont that money become black money in the US??? or maybe is that the whole idea?

The rich get richer..The poor get poorer...Obviously deud...With sivaji the producers get richer by a few hundred crores..And the audience get poorer by a few hundred bucks...

Well anyways, I am not trying to be cynical but the whole idea is that we should try to treat the movie as any other movie..I know its a super star movie..Meant to be enjoyed..Like a super hero (superman, batman and all that...) but certain ideas should be clearer at this level because as we all know the superstar has a super fan following and good morals will lead them to good ways (no not BABA...but something more nice like a MGR movie...)

In order to balance me bad karma with the better karma, I should definitely mention what I liked about the movie...
The way in which medical colleges were portrayed was as real as it gets...The last time I heard a medical college seat is 40lakhs (No wonder we hear cases of patients being donated extra-organs like knivers, scissors and watches for operations and guiness records for youngest surgeries...). Shankar seems to constantly showcase this sad situation right from gentleman and he does it realistically....
The songs were just too good...Wonderful art work and music (rahman rocks..as usual)...Shankar has literally created a lot more world-wonders than those that exist...The glass houses and colossal constructions just drive me nuts...The other thing about the songs is that shreya and nayanthara have been portrayed more beautifully than ever...Shankar has also used rajini style to the max, "athiradi kaala machan machan ..." song is perfect for rajini...Thala thalai thaan...style style thaan...

Interesting statistic that india has more than 20 Lakh Crores in black money...Nice to know that atleast the CBI is still the more straight-forward department in the country...
Rajini must have been really really brave to show this movie to his political friends...The movie doesnt portray a pretty image of politics but it does show the truth (yeah...we cant help it..If the truth is ugly).

The movie is high-tech in lots of areas (in stark contrast to low-tech funda like red sarees stopping trains....) like the voice-based encryption scheme to save important files...
Good intentions like free education for the masses and making everybody pay taxes definitely stand out in the movie...
The movie is an all-in-all entertainer...I guess from a business point of view it is important.

The climax with mottai boss rajini is just awesome..Sama style...Sama scenu...The last few minutes of the movie will make it a mega hit for sure...And ofcourse there is the rajini brand name to make the success even more monumental)


More about our wonderfully worsssssssst day in the next post..So stay tuned....

Desire Lasts a Dozen Days...Passion Prolongs a Few More...

This is my vain attempt at translating the tamizh saying "Aasai Arubathu Naal Mogham Muppathu Naal". Now that the initial enthu has died and the despo guys have gotten back to their work, life in this part of blogosphere returns back to normal.

If you pay special interest, you will notice that this saying applies to almost everything in life. Take internship or grad school for an example, you initially think that it is the most exciting thing in your life. You put in lots of applications, attend strenuous interviews and make tough decisions. Life is exciting for the first few days, you see new people and work on new things. Once the "Honeymoon" is over, its time to send your Honey to the Moon (HeHe..just some spice). You feel the monotonicity setting in, you do the same things everyday, meet the same people, work on the same thing and feel like a machine. In fact you may even retrace the steps that you take every day and find that the standard deviation is epsilon.

Some people take solace in weekends, they spend their weekends differently and break the shackles of their boring life. For the not so fortunate, there are not many options for weekends. Some of them spend the whole day on the net, some sleep all day and many go to work (I am not kidding !!!...Talk to a grad student and you will know). People think that having a great weekend will rejuvenate them for facing the next week. Its like the initial enthu, it pushes them through the first couple of days and they spend the rest of the week waiting for the weekend. In fact If you step back and look at this from a higher altitude, you will notice that this is again a cycle that continues for ever and is as monotonous as anything else.

This brings up an interesting question, Is it ok to have a monotonous life? In my personal opinion :Yes. Everything has been statically scheduled to some extent in this world. Life has the same cycle, birth, youth and death (Atleast in most cases...). Animals have the same life literally every day. Although we may work on different things, we have a simple cycle of sleep, breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleep (Grad students excluded...). I think the reason that we have started cribbing about monotonicity in life is because of our desire for different things in life. Self-content may be the greatest way to feel happy in life. The lone-farmer may be the happiest man on earth though he does the same things in solitude every day, just because he is contented with his life.

Its friday and I guess I am looking for my weekend already....How different is my weekend from my weekly monotone? Well I have plans for saturday and back to work on sunday....
So see you next time....Until then....This is gumbalagumbalak signing off....

zzzzzz... Why's the grp sleeping???

As I was bored of running the same code again and again, and also to get rid of my drowsiness in lab, I thought I will visit and check new blogs. I was surprised to see that no one had. So, I wonder whether the initial fuzz has evaporated ?? whats the so-called office goers doing?? even mr.too fast too furious hasnt mailed today. So yesterday was just a off day, where everyone wanted to make their presence felt.

I was wondering why no one mailed. Maybe their bosses suddenly woke from a long slumber and seeing that when he had slept everyone had too, started giving them death sentences..(work.. work.. work.. till i leave...) ... or maybe they thought lets go back to the usual orkutting or chatting as blogs are boring.. whatever is the reason, moral is slow and steady wins.. so dont be tootie fruitie, and no despos too..

lets start something useful to discuss.. what abt the war in ramallah ??? (zzzzzz....) or what abt new look indian cricket team?? (chi thu..!!!) or what abt sivaji ??? (podhum da saami.. )..

oops.. my code over ran now.. have to start all over again.. :( .. guess this is gonna be t only post for the day.. so enssoy the weather.. its lovely.. i got drenched completely.. couldnt have asked for more..

vanakkam..vanakkam..vanakkam.

Naan LATE (last) a vandhalum LATEST a varuven..!!!!!

This is my 1st blog in this page and I form the 4th member of this notorious gang. People who are wondering why this guy is the last in posting dont mistake that i was busy in office (unlike others) or i am not a blogger..!!!! Its just that I wanted to show off that I wasnt too fast too furious. My post comes as the lucky 7 .. so its all the more significant.

And like others had mentioned, this blogpage is created by 4 vetti grad students who had no better jobs in life and who want to get out of the tortures of boredom created by their proffs.

So, what do we want to achieve by blogging ??

We definitely are harmless as mentioned. So, we want to show the world that how creatively can a grad student use his free time and make his proff proud. I do hope at some time in the future, all our proffs read the blogs and congratulate our efforts in depicting the grad life in their labs in a positive way. ( Beware guyz : we speak truth n only truth . We have ppl in our grp who are regular readers of Bhagwad Gita !!! ) ...

And ya, we r expecting some fan following as well to increase our popularity. Pitts is getting hotter, so having more fans would help.. :D ... already we have comments n encouragements pouring in from outsiders on the very 1st day.. plus the blogs hav attained a log phase without a lag phase.(no. of blogs..) ..

People who read our blogs regularly will be amply rewarded.. by maybe a dose of our cooking..:) .. seri.. vanakkam.. vanakkam.. vanakkam...

kokkarako gummango...
- saki..!!!!

The otherz zzzzzzz....

The most recent post was more intellectual & indicates that one of the two despo's ( refers to crazy people who alwayz seem to have some studying to do) on our blog. Now, we will try to use our inductive skills(mathematical induction!!!!!) to zero down on the right guy. The case @ hand is one between Mr. Cell fone sigamani (Cenema) & Mr.Danuku naka tana (Danta) (This is a desperate attempt @ naming & I request someone to come up with something nicer (There goes my f.... e.. :( ) Anyway, let us get down to solving this one. Cenema is most probably jobless & from recent (confidential: what he does best) evidence seems to be sinking some ships on the shores of some famous beach (hmmm That was a definite "boo" statement but I'm gonna leave it. Goes well with my 'crazy' theory). Danta on the other hand is probably working hard ( on his website or on orkut) & could be considered too busy for the same. Upon closer examination of the text, one realizes the text is probably form one who is more a local fellow(Chennai makkal). This biases us towards Danta. On the other hand, the text also uses too many smilies indicating a Cenema like character. What clinces it though is the use of the text 'asai arubathu naal mogham muppathu naal', a text exhibiting a more philosophical person & of course someone good @ quoting tamil adages (Is that one?) .

Based on the above analysis, we(I) conclude this was a work of Danta. Danta is instrumental in setting up this crazy page (bcoz the otherz are too rustic or lazy to do the same) & we thank him for the same. Of course, we would like to add that he must correct his knowledge with regards to the definition of despo as suggested above.......

Chaos Theory

While we all agreed on the beauty of 'Chaos Theory', this is a little too much. Looks like the butterfly is flapping its wings furiously.
From now on,
please sign yout post

lemme start it,

--Tootie Frootie

Flurry of Posts on the First Day

By now you should have got a clear picture of who we are...Let me try enumerating what you have in mind
1. vetti... (Ofcourse...that should have been ur first impression...flurry of blogs on the first day)
2. uncoordinated... (We still dont know who wrote the first blog..[:)])
3. enthu... (As always the aasai arubathu naal mogham muppathu naal... First day blog count / 60th day blog count = infinity ...thats my guess)
4. harmless... (You can see that we have not mentioned any political view, religious beliefs or cinema reviews so far in our blog...we are the most harmless creatures ever to have set foot on planet earth)
5. despo... (The desperation of our solitude has obviously forced us into expressing our crap in this blog..as you can see we still remain despos as not many people are interested in our nonsense)

Anyways if you are reading this blog still...Thank you!!! [:D]
(PS: I keep refering to some anonymous you in this post...Lets just hope that its someone else and not just gumbalagumbalaka)

Damn, didn't I say crazy!!!

You probably just realized how much I understated our craziness(crazyness maybe). I post a welcome message & while I'm typing that out, one crazy guy, letz call him Mr. Too Fast too furious (2F2T: Better as frootie tootie. How about Tootie Frooti. .Hell, I can't find a way to convince you. Yet we'll have it my way. Tootie Frootie it is.) posts about his complete joblessness @ his office ( as if we were any worse). Crazy it is & will alwayz be......

How to name it?

Well, lets take stock of the situation: I am at office. Manager is not here. MSP debugger is bugging the crap out of me. www.news.google.com has not added ANY new article in ANY of its 126 languages within the last 3 minutes! What can I do??
Well, I can write the inaugural post of our team blog: NORMANDY NAATKAL.



I shall devote the next few keystrokes to some of the most pressing (rather perplexing) issues facing mankind today.
Why is our blog named: NORMANDY NAATKAL ? (should it be 'normandy nakkals')
Why is our username GumbalaGumbalaka@yahoo.com ?

If you understand tamil and know that we live in Normandy Apartments and still can't figure out the meaning of our blog name, please lift your keyboard with both hands and bang it on your head for 6 times before proceeding. If your answer is in the negative for any of the above clauses you can skip the aforementioned physical activity. Naatkal in tamil means days. So our blog is meant to be a place to deposit our memories of the wonderful days we are ensoying at Normandy apartments.
Could we have called it Norman-days? Well yes, but we choose not to.

Next
Username: Gumbalagumbalaka@yahoo.com
For the linguistically ignorant: No, gumbalagumbalaka is not the name of the next UN general secretary (a la Buetrose Buetrose Galle). Rather it is a beautiful word in tamil literature steeped with history. Unconfirmed sources claim the etymology of this word from one Mr. Chinni Jayanth.
For those curious cats out there: The password is also equally poetic (hint: think chinni jayanth)

I think my manager is coming... c u later .. taatttaaaaaa

Arjun R V

Crazy world, crazy people

Vanakkam, vandanam, namaskaram, bonjour, guten tag, merhaba, shalom, saluton, hola, hello, hi ............................ whatever. Welcome to this crazy blog where five err six jobless people thrown together by mere chance (could it be otherwise?) share their (obviously crazy) experiences with (hmmmm who? Of course, yet another crazy person) you.