Hamlet and an empty stomach

To be or not to be, that is the question

Well maybe for Hamlet that is the question, for me it is more like To cook or not to cook ……

As any normal human being, I am quite hungry and tired by the time I get back from work. But often I do not feel like eating anything and go to bed on a near empty stomach. Now why is that I don’t feel like eating ?

Quote : “Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions”. I am not a Dangerous man, hence I cannot logically explain my feelings, hence I don’t eat.

Can you ever have any doubt that I live by Cogito Ergo Sum ? ;)

My random thoughts are getting really random , aren’t they ?

Well , for the record, I am not drunk nor do I take drugs, lest your thoughts proceed in that manner !!

On a more normal note, I watched Barcelona annihilate Manchester United in yesterday’s champion’s league final. Not very unlike a Maruti 800 going head to head with a Ferrari !! There are indeed few better sights in football than that of Barcelona midfield going at full steam at the opponents.

On the personal front, I just feel moody and restless. All friends have ‘deserted ‘ [ pun intended in some cases ..] , so I end up mumbling to myself most of the time.

If not for Cogito Ergo Sum, how would I even know I exist ?

Or a better question right now might be , is there a point in existence ?? :-((

Does an empty stomach make you a philosopher may be another relevant question. Wonder if Socrates could cook …….

All righty, this is getting too random even for me. So signing off for now.

Reflections on volunteering

I was looking up some quotes on volunteering, trying to come up with a catchy line for a volunteer recruitment drive being planned in office. Predictably there are tons of lovely quotes and stories out on the net. One of the better ones from Winston Churchill reads “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give”

Speaking from my own experience, it is very tough to find one quote or story that spans the whole range emotions that you go through as volunteer. It is indeed quite a journey that is definitely worth undertaking !!

I’ll make no bones about that fact that I was dragged into volunteering kicking and screaming. I did not want to do it, it was more or less rammed down my throat by someone higher up. I had a hundred reasons on why not to do it, and I was quite vocal about them too.

Finally one of my volunteer friends looked me in the eye and calmly asked “At the end of the day, if you go and teach a bunch of kids, would you have done something right or wrong ?” I honestly had no rebuttal to that [ and that holds true even after 5 years :) ]

So what does it mean to be on the other side of the fence ?

To pull out another quote : “I always wondered why somebody didn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody”

Sure, there were times at which I have shed a tear or two, there were occasions when i contemplated giving it all up and there were times when I went through soul destroying experiences. But at the end of it all, I am glad that I made a choice to be that “somebody” around 5 years back.

I still have not scratched the surface of what I want to do.

Robert Frost says  “And miles to go before I sleep” and I agree fully.

However it is 11.45 in the night and I definitely need to sleep :)

Doctors and the weekend

Finally got over my huge inertia and kick started my volunteering again !! Feels nice to be back, I do enjoy teaching and have been missing it quite a bit.

Wifey’s MD exams are fast approaching, starting on 27th May to be exact. My respect for doctors has gone up quite a few notches after marrying one. Did I hear some married man snicker in the background ? “Did you have another choice other than to respect your wife”, did I hear them say ?  Come out in the open buddy and say it in front of your wife . And if you survive tell me about it :-))

I mean the sheer amount of effort that Doctors have to put in is quite mind boggling. Compared to my wife, I practically slept through my engineering and Masters :-))  

And to think that I was considered one of the better academics tells you all that there is about the effort levels needed to get by in engineering ;)

Except for a select few Doctors, I doubt if it the paybacks are in proportion to the efforts put. Unless you are one of those rare genuine human beings who think that helping to heal another human being is the reward in itself !!

You win some, you lose some

66.67% success rate for the weekend cooking.

Thumbs down for my experiment with Chicken curry ( odd taste, chicken a touch undercooked) .

Tasted major success with my attempts at Aloo – Mutter curry and Chole-Bhatura !! Recipes , of course courtesy of my ever present consultant a.k.a driving pupil a.k.a chatter box !!

I can write a thousand words, this time I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Looks professional, does it not ? :-)

I am really happy with my weekend’s cooking effort !!

As a token of my gratitude ( for the recipes and expert guidance) ,  I baked some experimental ‘chocolate chip -raisin muffins’ for my consultant. They too have received rave reviews :-)

The legend of the Master Chef continues to grow …..

The humble passenger blog

How would you commute to work if your car were out for repairs for close to a week ?
(a) Walk to office
(b) Take an auto
(c) Take a cab
(d) Take a bus
(e) Take a lift from your friend

Asthma rules out ‘a’ & ‘b’, depleted condition of wallet rules out ‘c’ and the desire not to lose wallet via pickpocket rules out ‘d’. So pretty much option ‘e’ is the only one left .

Well, what’s so bad about ‘e’ ??

Nothing, apart from that fact that a few nightmares from the past need to be relived. Beggars cannot be choosers, they say. And so the beggar began his adventures again :-)

Pickup happens on outer ring road at around 8 am. First thing that I notice is 400% increase in driving aggression level of my former mentee. Lanes are being switched needlessly and at high speeds. Couple of deep breaths and I calm down. Pulse rate around 95 / min

A sharp switch from left to right lane at 80 kms /hr , narrowly missing the back of a van ahead. A cold sweat begins to run down the back of my neck. Heart rate approaching 150 per min

A poor two wheeler guy is slowing down in front of us to get over a speed breaker. We are approaching him at 60km/hr. My driver has not seen the hump.

“What ?????? wait !!!! slowdown !!! there is a hump !!!! you’ll hit him ……. oh my god , i’m still too young to die !! “ pulse is at 280 per min

Sharp 90 degree twist to right, missing the two wheeler guy by the merest whisker, flying over the hump violently, and somehow managing to escape the traffic on our right. We were pretty close to hitting escape velocity and going into a geo-stationary orbit around the earth too.

A quote reads : “A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice”. Hmmm, the next time around, I shall stick to the advice.

PS : As usual, a few creative liberties have been taken in the description of some of the incidents ;-)

Facebook tests

I just started getting more active on Facebook. My cousin invited me to have a look at an app which says what you birth date reveals about you :) Here is the output

“Your Birth Number : 3

3’s are idealists. They are very creative, social, charming, romantic, and easygoing. They start many things, but don’t always see them through. They like others to be happy and go to great lengths to achieve it. They are very popular and idealistic. They should learn to see the world from a more realistic point of view.

“
Hmmmmm … I don’t know what to say …

Took another attitude test on Facebook, it says I am like this :-

”calm and quiet
you are the sort of person who likes to take life slowly... just one day at a time.. you usually know the difference between right and wrong. you believe in yourself. you put yourself in other peoples shoes and see how it feels to be them and then handle a situation accordingly.your attitude towards life is very positive.... you are liked by all and are a great friend.the flip side is that sometimes you care too much about other people and don't do what you really wanna do.”

Well, maybe some of it is true …

Hyderabad blues

Just got back to Bangalore after a 2 days business trip in Hyderabad. And I am happy to be back, only when you go away from Bangalore do you realize how awesome the weather here is !! Hyderabad was hot and miserable. And with the same traffic snarls as Bangalore.

What’s with Taj Banjara ? The lake in front of the hotel stinks, I mean proper 5-star rated stink. I wonder how they are running their outdoor restaurants !! No wonder they were offering a 30% discount on food :)

Due to our packed schedule, we did not really get time to taste the Hyderbadi Biriyani. Senior and Daya parceled the biriyani from Paradise and brought it to Bangalore. Apparently it was not good. Hmmm, the taste of hyderbadi biriyani may be just another myth …

And now at Bangalore you have to pay a Rs.260 user development fee !! Outrageous !!!

I am again wandering around sleeplessly, fed up :((

Daddy, I wanna be ………

I am sitting in my living room, reading the morning newspaper when my little princess strolls right up to me and declares 

Princess : “Daddy, I want to act in a TV serial”
Daddy : …………………………………………………………………
Princess : You know, I want to do something else also
Daddy Thinks : ( Finally she is going to say what she really wants)
Princess : “I want to become a reality TV judge”
Daddy : !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess you can figure out what my daughter watches on TV by now !!

Wonder what she wants to do next ??

I remember that I had clear ambitions of becoming a bus driver. Sort of satisfied,  don’t you think , from the following evidence ? link-1, link-2 and link-3 :)

Jai Ho !!

I had the good fortune of being able to attend AR Rehman’s Jai Ho concert held in Calicut on 3rd May. This was of course my first ever experience of a live concert and I absolutely loved it !!

I’m no music buff, I tagged along just for the benefit of wifey, who happens to a big time music fan. The concert was also held to raise money for the rehabilitation of AIDS infected children. They showed a touching video of a small kid narrating her story of how she is banned from playing with neighbours, on how she was thrown out of the school in which she was studying, and how people would throw stones at her even !!

All this in the supposedly highly literate state of Kerala. I guess this is further proof that literacy and knowledge does not go hand in hand.

The concert itself was superb. It was held in the corporation stadium ( where I have witnessed many a football match in the past) and was filled to the brim with people. A variety of singers including Hariharin, KS Chithra, Sadhna Sargam and the maestor AR Rehman himself came on stage. The sound systems were superb, so were the lights and background displays !!

I should definitely go to more of these live concerts !!

A word of appreciation for the much maligned Kerala police, they were simply outstanding on the day. Making sure that a crowd of close to 40,000 does not get out of hand is no joke. They were helpful , courteous and enforced discipline smoothly when needed.

Maybe all of us are guilty of passing judgments based on the stereo-type images formed in our own minds.

Update , Sunday May 10th

A few videos of this event from YouTube

Inroduction

       

Tu Muskura

Masakali

     

Jai Ho !

Wallet

“Of all the things that I’ve lost, I miss my wallet the most” – Pradeep

Well, technically I did not lose it, I just forgot it at home. The bottom-line being that I was left without any cash. So I had to borrow money for breakfast ( Rs.17) , then again for lunch (Rs.100, of which I ate for Rs.60. And , yes, our caterer rips us off !! ).

All this is fine, except for the fact that I had a call till late that night (My theory is that the later the hour of the call, lower the likelihood of something useful happening !!) , which left me very hungry .

Now normally this is not a problem as I can stop by at any of the restaurants nearby and hog. Unfortunately, just as I was about to pull into a restaurant , I was reminded of the bare-bones financial situation sans the wallet. 40 Rs would not even buy me a glass of lime-soda there :-(

Sadly the master chef reversed out of the parking and headed home hungrily, the MasterCard ad inspired verses, swirled in his head

“One liter of juice - 85 Rs
One tandoori chicken – 150Rs
Meal for one at Chilli and Pepper – 600Rs
Carrying your wallet when you are hungry – Priceless”

On stories and names

Inspired by the fake IPL blogger, let me also come out with names of characters that may appear in my blog in the near future.

Disclaimer : Any resemblance to any one living or dead is purely co-incidental. These are purely fictitious characters

Disaster, Daya, Lion, Senior, Windy, HBP(High Blood Pressure) , Senior, No-logic, Cucumber, Fat-drip and Chatter-box

Let us say No-Logic, Cucumber and Chatter box are of the fairer sex and Fat-drip is in the U.S :-).

So last weekend, Disaster, Daya, Lion and myself decided to have a bachelor cookout.

Bachelor ???, you might ask 

Well Daya and myself are not exactly bachelors, but for all practical purposes we can be assumed to be that for the next couple of weeks. Chatter-box was invited, but was busy with something or the other and No-Logic went on the usual weekend escapade to home. Windy was not yet a bachelor and so was not invited.

Intense discussions on menu followed for several days. Finally clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities was done. I would make Appam and Chicken Tikka, Daya would make fish fry, Lion would make egg curry and Disaster would make Dal. Saturday evening would be the time, and venue would be my house.

Saturday started off for me with purchase of chicken ( bone-less of course, bones are for dogs !! ) and appam mix. Kept the chicken marinated in a mix of lemon juice, curd and various top secret masalas for close to 6-7 hours :). Daya & disaster arrived with marinated fish and Lion too made his presence felt soon there after.

We were all set to start. The evening started with a magnificient display of chicken tikka by yours truly ( Hey, my blog, I will write whatever I want) .

Lion started with Egg curry and immediately started demanding ingredients which I did not have. Fresh green chillies, tomatoes etc .. A deep dive into fridge revealed some mildly rotten tomatoes and wilted green chillies. Lion was shaking his head as if he were the main chef of The Taj. After some severe sledging, he proceeded to reluctantly use the available ingredients and start cooking. Intense pressure was heaped up on him , with sarcastic comments flying thick and fast. Showing true Lion like qualities, he delivered under pressure with a very nice egg curry.

Daya proceeded to fry the fish in Goan style, and ended up eating half of the first fish to make sure the frying and masalas were in order ;). He also tried to use some un-named powder in my kitchen thinking it was rice powder, luckily we caught him in nick of time. BTW,  I still don’t know what that white powder is ……….

Disaster meanwhile just wanted to boil dal with salt ( and sugar !!! ) and add nothing else. After some not-so-gentle coaxing, he came around to making a version of dal that us normal human beings could consume. I must add here that Disaster has zero threshold for spices, show him a green chilly and he will start sweating like a pig !

There was nothing to say about the appam, except that the master chef’s stamp of class was clear in the soft fluffy creations ;)

Overall cookout v1 was declared as a grand success by all parties involved. Cookout v2 was also planned tentatively for the next Saturday, details of that to follow soon !!

Power woes

2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1 …..

No, this is not a new mathematical series that I invented, nor is this my bank account number

2 hours of power –1 hour of no power. The timings so precise, that you can almost set your clock based on it. The electricity company is again trying to push people to insanity.

This pattern continues on into the night also. 2 am in the night I wake up with mosquitoes almost airlifting me off the bed !! Tried Odomos repellant cream, it was simply not rated for this many mosquitoes . Finally I had to burn a mosquito coil just to get some shut-eye.

Of course the fumes from my coil triggered my asthma now :(, but still after a while I was able to fall asleep. Have slept less than 4-5 hours per day for the past several days due to this power situation and other things.

On a side note, there is quite a bit of talk in the US now about Smart Grids and Demand Response programs. Folks, learn about these from KPTCL, who surely have one the best load shedding programs in the world !!

There is no way you will end up complaining about your electricity bill, because the power is almost never there when you need it :-) And due to the scant availability of power, you are pushed to use it smartly ;).

KPCTL should be a pioneer in Smart Grids !!

Sport as mood elevator

Nothing lifts your mood like when one of your favorite teams pulls of an amazing victory.

I was watching Manchester United Vs Aston Villa on ESPN . For the most part of 80 mins, it looked like ManU will slip to their 3rd consecutive defeat.

They were trailing 2-1, their makeshift defensive line getting torn up time and again by a pacy and crafty Villa forward line, injuries and suspensions had caused at least 5 first team players to miss out. With Liverpool going above them in the table yesterday, the ManU title challenge seemed to be headed towards disaster.

That is till two pieces of brilliance turns the match on their head. Cristiano Ronaldo had been a passenger for most of the match after his early strike. He latches onto the ball outside the penalty area and lashes in a low drive to the corner of the net. 2-2

Then in injury time, 17 year old Federico Macheda makes a stunning turn and curls in an unstoppable short. GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL and 3-2

This is surely how Premierships are won.

Liverpool is playing some stunning football, sets up a fascinating final few matches. This season has been one of the best that I have watched

Will to survive

Have you ever felt like losing your will to survive ? [ Now don’t panic, this is not about losing will to live. That one is a different kettle of fish altogether, I have no time for that nonsense !!]

Was reading Paulo Coelho’s Manual of the Warrior of light again, when some lines jumped out at me. These are verses picked out at random from different chapters.

When the warrior of light watches a sunset and feels no joy, then something is wrong …… A warrior of light makes use of solitude , but is not used by it

The warrior of light does not always have faith. There are moments when he believes in absolutely nothing. And he asks his heart ‘Is all this effort really worth it?’ But his heart remains silent . And the warrior has to decide for himself.

The warrior of light has learned that God uses solitude to teach us how to live with other people.

W32 Vitro Virus strikes

Don’t know how this virus got in.

I use Avast Antivirus Free edition and Zone Alarm Firewall.

Avast caught this virus, but was unable to clean it, only option is to delete the file. The pain was that the virus infects windows system files, so if you try to delete the files, you end up with an un-usable OS pretty soon.

Ended up re-formatting the hard disk and re-installing windows !! Pretty bad, I need to be more careful in future.

Some of the things you could try include

• Re-building the windows installation as described here. Please read the discussion at the link carefully, may not work for you depending on the installation CD you have !! Also there are folks complaining that this did not really solve the problem. Worth a shot if you catch the virus really early, I guess
• Trying to download and install some other anti-virus. I tried this and the moment I tried to launch the installer, the virus corrupted it :(
• Sophos anti-virus seems to indicate they can clean this virus, I am not sure how true this is
• Copy your personal data ( don’t copy any exes !!) to an external USB hard disk ( quite cheap these days) , reformat and re-install windows. As mentioned above, this was the only thing that worked for me
• If you are not in a tearing hurry, you could try waiting for a couple of weeks before someone comes up with a fix for this. Unlikely you can wait that long though :)
  

Read more at the following links

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=42709.0

http://www.tech-linkblog.com/2009/02/polymorphic-win32vitro-most-virulnt-virus.html/

http://dcs-tech-corner.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-virus-warning-w32vitro.html