Yuck

I am one among those unfortunate few who have come to office in between Christmas and New Year. As I don’t have anything to work on for this period, the sheer embarrassment on what to account for working from home made me come. Alone in my room, it’s not a great fun watching outside the windows – at least for today.

Taking coal to Newcastle

As anybody would be, I was also surprised to read that a British company has secured a multimillion order to export sand to Dubai. The news item I read did not give any other details about the deal.
That made me curious to search this on web and now this news item reveals the details behind.
But still, if it’s the Sales executives who have convinced the Dubai Prince then this can be a perfect case study for Marketing!!!

Last week was so busy (both personal and at work). The days were long and I even slept in the train in the morning one day and woke up at the terminating station. This has happened never before. It just reminded me how we used to laugh and bully one of my friend, when he used to sleep on his morning trip to office in a crowded 47D PTC, miss his stop at Ramco Adayar and wake up at Thiruvanmiyur.

Dubukku of the week

Read these in Metro.

A Romanian husband who lost the divorce case didn't want to give away his property as part of settlement. He changed all the locks and swallowed the keys. The enforcement authorities didn't know how to retrieve the keys as the husband was adamant. (The Metro story ends here...what wud have happened after that?)

Ada thevuda…

A burglar dropped his mobile at an incident spot. He was promptly caught when he came to collect it from the police who advertised about the lost mobile. Do I need to say this happened in the US?

Sadam

I was curious to know my Arab world friend's view on Sadam's arrest.
My friend commented

"One down, Two to go"

"Two to go?"

"Yeah Bush and Blair"

:))

Satyendra Dubey

My sincere condolences to Satyendra Dubey’s family.

“While IIT Kanpur made a good engineer out of Satyendra Dubey, it never taught him that corrupt government projects often lead to the road to dusty death” - NDTV

Shame on our politicians.Shame on us for electing such corrupt politicians and government. Shame on us for getting adapted to these corrupt practices.

Haircut

I always use to sob for having to shell out 6 to 8 pounds for haircut. After reading that this model had a haircut at a cost of £30,000, I don’t think I will ever do that again.
Any modeling vacancies in Artistry? Link

Attention: Project Managers

I have put this on display near my desk @ office.

Attention: Project Managers

I am skilled, but I cannot produce miracles. My work can be described as Quick, Cheap or of Quality. However, it can only possess TWO of these attributes.

If you want QUICK and CHEAP work,
Don’t expect it to be of QUALITY

If you want QUICK and QUALITY work,
Don’t expect it to be CHEAP

If you want QUALITY and CHEAP work,
Don’t expect it to be QUICK

You choose, don’t complain later!

Dubukku thinks...

Isn't an Irony for all those runner-ups in beauty pageants to pose to be overwhelmingly happy when the winner is announced while the Title winners cry?

PS : Now if any of you comment/think the title “Dubukku Thinks” itself is an Oxymoron…You will soon receive a communication from Mr.Mogombo from Uganda for money transfer assistance. :)

Krithigai

This post contains lots of South Indian terms. Non-South Indians pls excuse as I can't find any appropriate links.

Yesterday we celebrated Krithigai in a typical "Desi" style. As we didn't have that many 'Vizhaku's' we decided to substitute with candles. We wrapped small thermocol blocks with foil paper for candle bases(as these were standalone candles). Traditional attire was the theme with my wife in Silk saree and my 3.5 yr old daughter in Pattu Pavadai and me in Dhoti. My little daughter was suspicious from the beginning about all these hoopla's and came out with the doubt "Am I getting married today mummy?". I had to struggle to explain her about this krithigai funda, but I couldn't tell her any stories about this (Is there any??). hmmm...It would have been more fun for her back home with whole city lit in lights and her grandparents telling all these background stories.

Where are we going?

I can't believe this. It was shocking to read this news about a cannibal who ate a (allegedly) willing victim after advertising in the internet. If the willing victim part is true, I can’t imagine how mad enough this person would have been to take a casual leave to attend this cruelty. Or was he mentally depressed?
On the other hand Cannibalism... Where are we going? To stone ages? The worst part is eating human flesh is not crime in many countries including Germany still.

Don’t read this if you are light hearted. Link

Concccccenntration

I don’t know if this is a negative or positive quality of mine. My concentration level during non academic reading is a bit very high that I don’t hear or see the world around me. (Note - only for non academic reading) My Mom had troubles with this habit of mine and now it’s my wife. This dates back to my school days. It all started when the local library in my hometown shifted to our street very near to my house. I used to be one among those few waiting for the library to open in the mornings (on weekends). Magazines would be available only in the reading room and are not generally available for lending. And because of this concentration habit I would hang around in the library from morning 8 till 12:30 when they close for lunch. It was a regular scene on Sundays for my mom to come to library and call me for morning Tiffin after the cut off time 10:30. Because it was a traditional house stretching horizontally that was converted to library and my mom being orthodox, she would not come into the library as there would be lots of men. Instead she would call out for me from the entrance. The reading room is the last in the horizontal stretch. My response time would depend heavily on her luck. On this particular day "India Today" overruled her luck and everyone in the library was calling out my name on her behalf. I was in my “India Today” world at one corner. After an intensive call out my mom was told there seems to be no one responding and was suggested that I might have returned home. After an hour, the librarian’s lunch time call brought me back to the world. I hurriedly took my books to him for getting it registered in my account for lending. And when I signed it, the librarian was shocked to learn that I was the fella whom the whole library was calling out. Needless to say I became a funny specimen to the whole library. I don’t remember any gains out of this selective hyper concentration except for those "Special Archana tickets" from the victims. My gains may soon drive me to search for a program/course to help reduce my concentration level. :)

Chalo foreign

I met this guy recently in my home town in India who was surprised to know that despite being in UK for the past 3 years I don’t listen to pop or western music. He was very much surprised to know that I am still a vegetarian. He was shocked to know that I don't smoke or drink even on formal occasions.
What is surprising to me is that, even in these days some people have this myth that you loose your qualities when you go abroad. When I asked my dad’s permission for my abroad trip his only condition was that I need to get married and take my wife along. Not that he didn’t have confidence in me; it was just the strong belief he had in foreign trips.

Last week...

Last week I was busy at work and with an important personal work. Thats the reason for my poor blogging last week. Hoping to get back to normal pace this week. Though this page doesn't get that many hits, just for those few who visit.

Daddy is happy!

My wife is pregnant. Having used to the service levels of NHS in UK, I was very nervous about having the delivery in London. But as my daughter is starting school in January we had no other options. We called our GP to register for the midwives clinic and were informed that we would be called only after 14 weeks for the initial appointment and registration. This further fuelled my fears. Luckily we had diagnosed this in India and brought some initial medicines and vitamin tonics.
To our great surprise we got a call our from our GP Yesterday.(still its just 7 weeks for my wife). We were thrilled when two midwives dropped into our home today and spent more than an hour on general advice, collecting blood samples etc. They gave their mobile number and asked to contact in case of any emergency or problems. Mann that was really a consolation when you didn't have your parents or elders near by.

Murphy's law

I am a great believer of Murphy's law. The worst thing about it is If that comes to my mind when I am tense, it always worksout. I was late to office today with the usual morning tensions. Missed my first bus seconds before it started from the stop. Waited another 15 mins patiently in the stop. Missed my second bus when I bent down to tie my shoe lace. The driver mistook that I didn't want to board the bus and sped away. Then I missed my connecting train and as a result my main train. Finally I was late to office by hour and a half. Luckily Murphy's law was out of my head by then.

Malgudi Days

Though I have heard a lot about this masterpiece from R.K.Narayan, never had a chance to read until I was lucky enough to buy this book during my India trip. It was such an interesting book that I didn't want to finish reading and prolonged it as far as possible. I wish I lived with all those wonderful characters in Malgudi.
Have you ever read Sujatha's "Srirangathu Thevadhaigal" in Tamil?(the orginal collection – Not the latest series in recent Vikatan) Its another master piece. I guess this book might have inspired Sujatha's.

Now I am in search of R.K.Narayan's other collections.

Mr.Mogombo

Many of you might know Mr.Mogombo(or whatever) guy from Africa. He often associates himself with designations like Director of African National Bank, African Treasury etc. etc. claiming that he has full control of billions of dollars unclaimed. He would nicely ask for deal for helping to transfer the money using your bank account. All these nonsense was happening so far only through email, but to my great surprise I had a snail mail yesterday delivered from some African country with my address hand written. It had the same shit typed and photocopied. I am just thinking whether I need to escalate this to Police or just ignore or like one of my friends wittily said to be prepared to receive him one day when he knocks my door to handover million dollars!

Observations...

Following are 5 of my observations during this India trip.

1. Auto drivers have become little polite.
All my Chennai auto drivers were polite and helpful. Dunno if this is bcos of the call taxi competition pressure or I happened to be lucky.

2.TV Serial mania has reduced a little. People have started avoiding the afternoon "azhugai moonjigal". But evening slot is the worst and I had a very tough time getting the remote until Kungumam @ 10:30Pm

3.People are used to water problems and its not a serious topic these days atleast for chennai.
Or isit bcos its was October and not May!

4.Pondy Bazaar's loosing its charm and not much crowd these days? (isit the case or am I wrong?)

5.Kids now attend "Slogam" classes too(espl. Bagavat Gita ) in addition to their computer classes.

Dubukku is back

I am back. Had a great Deepavali. Hope you all too!!
India trip was great as usual except for the sickness during the return trip. I was having very high fever and weekend was horrible.
I am ok now..but still the after effects of sickness are there. Will be in full fledged action soon.

Maa tuje salaam !

I am off to India. Will try to post from there if time permits.
If not..will resume when I am back.
Have a great Diwali and Deepavali folks.

Well...

Just happened to go with a pretty gal in her 20's in the lift. It was the first time I saw her. She started the conversation with "How was the day?".We both were walking towards the tube station. She didn't have any hesitation in talking to me as a stranger, while I had a frog in my throat. Had it been in my Singara Chennai with me intiating the conversation, the gal might have giggled to her friends saying I was a BJP.(bayangara jollu party)? Problems of being a boy....

2 more days

Just 2 more days...I will be heading off to India for Diwali....!!!!!

Bush - All mixed up

I dont want to post any email fwd's here but this one was too hard to resist.
I couldn't control my laught while reading this.
********
In case you don't know the new leader of China is called Hu He. Read
on..............

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China.Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk.And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.

Diwali..(Contd)

If you did not read my Diwali posting read that first and come here

After a long meeting yesterday...my PM has confirmed 95% that I will be able to go on holidays!!!!

Hurrayyyy I have called up the travel agent and have checked....tickets are available for 18th to Singara Chennai.

But still my PM wants to do a final consultation with the business people and will give the final go only on Monday!!

I have not informed my parents about this trip and I am going to give them a pleasant surprise. I have spoken with my sister and brother and they have also happy and are going to come with me to my native for diwali. All of us have agreed to keep this a secret.

I called up my parents today and didn’t give them any clue about the whole thing. My parents were sobbing a lot that nobody is going to be at home this time for diwali. I am going to let my little girl knock the door and watch their reaction when they see her and all of us.

Diwali...

I got a mail today from my boss gently reminding about the company policy that you cannot carry forward your leave and it expires on Dec 31st. I have got 19 out of 20 days of my holidays intact.
And if you didn't know before, I am a greaatttt fan of Diwal aka Deepavali and crackers.
I was already sobbing a lot to my wife for missing all the fun of Diwali back home in India and my kid would enjoy if we were in India. The last time we celebrated Diwali with family with lots of crackers was 3 years before when my kid was 4 months old.
Coming back, My boss's mail tempted me a lot and I started thinking why can't I try to arrange a travel to India for this Diwali (just 13 days more!). I called my wife and we discussed all about this and she's now game for this idea. She is also now dreaming about this and giving me call every 5 mins asking for the result.
I have enquired about tickets and they are also availableeeee!!!
Only thing pending is my leave approval from my current project manager in line with my current work. We are going to have this discussion now .. I am very tense...Dunno what the outcome will be.
If its a yes then will be there in Indiaa for Diwwaaalllii..
If it’s a No....Nope let me think of this case when it comes...and let me dream happily till then....

No offences meant to anyone , but I am curious to know why we abbreviate names even if they are short? Isit customisation, that gives a personal touch? or isit style? or isit that we don't accept anything in original form?

I understand if the names are lengthy- its definitely for convenience. But even the short ones get abbreviated. Ramesh to Ramy, Radhika to Rads/Radhu,Aparna to apsy, Shoba to Shoby, Harsha to Harsh. There are much more shorter names that we still abbreviate- I can't remember any of them now.

Just curious and thinking aloud!

Movie Mania

While I was at Chennai, I very rarely go to theatres to watch movie. But that too completely stopped after my marriage bcos of the cable tv's. "Mugavari" was the only film I saw with my wife at Suriyan theatre while at Chennai.(That too we went just to break the record of not having seen any movies at Chennai)
After moving into UK, blime! I started watching movies at the rate of one per day!
It all started with the Srilankan Tamil shop owner near my house offering a deal of 5 movies for £3. It became a friday evening regular ritual for me to visit his shop and rent 5 cassettes. Initially we started with the backlog of famous movies, which we had missed. Very soon we were upped date with the latest releases including the Telugu/Malayalam dubbed movies.
I was so addicted that I started doing a revision from the old movies again. My wife who was complaining that we never watched any movie while at Chennai started complaining that we were watching too many movies. Also I realised that I was spending too much money on movies only after moving into my current house where it costs £1 per cassette.
I am little successful in bringing down my movie addiction now. It has come down to 1 or 2 movies per week! and I have skipped two weeks without watching any new movie (mind you - new!!)

L.B.W

There's this anecdote about Chandrashekar, once in England, getting a batsman plumb in front twice. Both times, he was turned down. A ball later, he sent one through and bowled the batsman. Chandra goes, Howzaaat? The umpire looks puzzled and says, he's bowled. Chandra's reply was a classic: "I know he is bowled, but is he out?"


I was feeling nostalgic about my school day cricket after reading the above in ematchfixing.com .It was one of those sunny days in May, a cricket match was arranged between our town and the nearby town,for a bet of INR Rs.20 (a very big amount during those days). My streetmates wanted me to play for our side as the match was with one of the tough teams in the area. Generally for our matches, the umpire's will be from the batting side and so obviously it would be impossible to dismiss any batsman catching leg before wicket(LBW). Match started and we bowled first.As expected the opponent team was very tough and they had set us a near impossible target.
Our batting started.With some surprise extras and with the skill of our scorer we managed to raise the score near to the target. It was the final over and we needed 11 runs with one wicket in hand. I was standing in the leg umpire position with one of my friends from our team as the Main umpire. We managed a single,four,three and a single in the first four balls of the over. Everyone was very tense. The fifth ball got the batsman plumb before the wicket and there was a huge LBW appeal. The bowler was a gigantic fella. My friend who was the main umpire panicked by the huge threatening appeal from the bowler and others, unconsciously started raising his forefinger signaling the batsman out. This would mean that we have lost the match.Thats it! before my friend raised his hand above his shoulder all my team-mates including me gave a very big shout "NOT OUTTTTT". Wakenup by our cry my friend realised his mistake. Everyone was looking at him what he is going to say. My friend coolly brushed off all those cries and shouted "One more ball to go!!" and without raising it over his head he moved his arm with the forefinger signaling for one. The opponent team was totally dumb founded. There was a huge argument after that but we managed to win the argument and match finally.
It was one of those classic incidents of my school day cricket and my friend was then unanimously accepted as the star umpire of our team. This incident made him popular in the area and he even got offers for umpiring for other matches in our area too!

(Osama) BIN Lad-en

No this is not about that guy. Its Bin story of mine.
My council has provided all the houses with large individual bins for dumping the household litter. The bins are labelled with the house numbers. The council collects the bin garbage once in a week. For some reason the council guy who empties the bin misplaces and swaps my bin for my next door regularly. My next door bin is not maintained and cleaned that great and it stinks a lot more than my bin.
I generally notice this in the late evening when I return from office and I would do the job of swapping the bins back to the original houses. I always would be a bit nervous when doing this bcos what if the neighbour wakes up during this act and what would he think of me?(now! why the hell do I get that feeling when there is nothing wrong on my part? do you get that ever?)
I was fed up when this council guy did this recently and decided to have the bin of my next door itself hoping he would replace them correctly next time.
To my surprise both the council guy and my neighbour didn't notice this and I continued to have the next door bin. After a month finally I got this off my head and one day I cleaned the bin also as it was stinking a lot.
As luck would have it , the very next day the council guy realising his mistake very promptly placed the bins in the right houses and brought my original bin back.
Guess what! My original bin is now stinking, but I have decided not to clean this!
I am going to wait for another 4 weeks and if the council guy does not bring my cleaned bin back, I may strike a deal with Osama to fix this council Bin Lad(en)

Forgive me Saraswathi !

Yesterday was Saraswathi pooja - The second happiest festival of my school days ! (Diwali comes first)
The ritual back in my home is to place all the academic materials and tools before lord Saraswathi for Pooja. And this is called "Yedu" generally in TamilNadu.
You don't need to study or read anything for the whole day and let Saraswathi do all these.

Coming to the point, Yesterday being weekend I decided to do this ritual in a very professional way. Pooja room was re-organised, flowers to offer, me in professional pooja attire, Everything was ready. I was hurrying my wife to get ready for the pooja. Just before starting the pooja I started looking for my academic books for the "Yedu".And there began all my trouble. The last time I was in touch with academics was 4 years before. Hell with electronic reading, my last purchase of a technical book was more than a year ago and I had no clue where that book was after moving into my current house. My wife started retaliating for all the trouble I was giving her so far. After a gruelling search for 30 mins I finally found a old outdated book of friends.
My wife teased that Saraswathi would be certainly ignoring that one as it is outdated and as it was not mine. She also suggested that I better put all my books into the yedu and keep it aside full time before lord Saraswathi as I am not reading them at all and also I don't need to search them for next year !!

Forgive me Saraswathi !!

Rule of Thumb?

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
Recently Scotland Yard started a campaign against domestic violence.

Was all those arrests made after applying the Rule of Thumb?