Need A Website? Phone My Friend!
Jun 13th
Okay, here comes another shameless promotion. This time it’s for a friend who has started his own little venture in web-designing. I won’t bore you with details, so just go ahead and visit Raindrops Infotech. Yeah, that name sounds a bit cheesy, but who cares as long as they get the job done? They’ve got SEO optimization, CMS and what-not.
P.S. – I’m NOT getting paid for this. Honest.
The Final 3rd
Jun 13th
A small group of football fans have started a new blog – a footie blog with an Indian touch. We call it The Final 3rd.
We’ve got contributors from all over India, yours truly included. Check it out!
That is all.
Follow The Final 3rd on Twitter!
Chennai Life – Ep.4
Jun 9th
Is this little mini-series turning out to be some sort of weekly soap? I hope not, because then I’ll have to down shutters and move to the mountains to regain my sanity!
I hoped that I wouldn’t crib about the weather again and my prayers seem to have been answered by The Almighty. The city of Chennai (or in my case, the outskirts of Chennai) have been receiving rain showers daily since the past 3 days. I would be lying if I said that I was expecting rains here at this time of the year. One of my friends actually expressed his amazement at this natural phenomenon thus – “Bloody hell! It rains in these parts too?”. We made it a point never to curse the rain Gods ever again.
Meanwhile, I had another misadventure with a Hindi+English-illiterate shopkeeper. I wanted a 500ml bottle of Sprite and if that wasn’t available I was willing to settle for a baby bottle of LMN. My attempts at guiding the grocer to the goods using a combination of hand gestures plus broken English bore no fruit. Finally I had to use the linked-list concept of ‘next->next->element found’ to get what I wanted. I left with a cold drink and a hot head.
Another curious incident that occurred last week was when me and my friends went out to dinner. In order to avoid any conflicts, we go Dutch as a rule. I was bored of the usual stuff, so I ordered a Paneer dish. At times like these, it’s easy to make assumptions about the price and I dismissed it as a non-issue since I considered myself to be a regular at this particular restaurant, fully acquainted with the pricing structure. Dinner was served and midway through the dining I realized that my order was beyond the capacity of my tummy. There was no way I could finish it. None of my friends were willing to lend a spoon/fork/handful since they had already filled up their tanks. Leaving the plate half-full (optimism, you see) was the only option. As I walked up to pay the bill, I was shocked to find that my ‘for-a-change’ dinner cost double of what I usually spend on a meal. I turned back and saw my (still) half-full plate being carried away by the waiter, the contents laughing and sticking out their collective tongues at me.
“Hey! Bring it back! I’m not done yet!!”, I almost shouted.
So that was the week that was. Next week has already begun and that means more trips to the coffee machine and if the weather stays pleasant, maybe I’ll get to visit the real Chennai too!
Chennai Life – Ep.3
May 29th
The past week just flew by and before I could make sense of it all, it’s Saturday already. Learning from my past mistakes, I spent the afternoon in the confines of my office, shielded from the 3PM heat. I had never imagined that writing PL/SQL code could be so relaxing.
I spent the week pondering about my second tutorial regarding Firefox. I’ll probably work on it tomorrow, since I’ve got nothing lined up for Sunday. The first one is here, if you’re wondering.
Okay, since this was a pretty uneventful week I’ve got nothing more to crib about. I’ll keep myself busy on Sunday by working on that little tutorial and cursing the heat again.
Here’s hoping my next post won’t be full of whinging and whining.
Chennai Life – Ep.2
May 23rd
You all love weekends, don’t you? I used to love them too, once upon a time. Here in Chennai, I wish weekends would be wiped off the calendar for good, to be replaced by 2 more working days.
“Why?”, you ask. So lemme tell you, I live in a God-forsaken place where I’d be lucky to find a restaurant open on Sundays. Saturdays are comparatively better, since most food joints in this area are open. Now this may or may not apply to Chennai ‘city’, so don’t get too wound up. However, the heat is still terrible. Apparently the Sun doesn’t do us any favours on weekends. The heat just makes me wish I could run away to the office and spend the day in the air-conditioned rooms.
So yes, we don’t have an air-conditioner in my room. In any other place, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But when I mentioned this to a friend of mine who was brought up in Chennai, she was shocked. Not having an AC in this city is equivalent to a death-wish, it seems. Still, I shall brave the weather and try to survive the 2×4=8 days of a month or two, somehow. After all, I’ll probably be posted at some place other than Chennai after training is over, right?
Right?
Right??




