Monday, December 22, 2008

In Pondicherry

The teacher was taking attendance. The teacher called out roll no 40. The student shouted Present!

Last couples of weeks were good; I was involved in a lot of traveling from Chennai to good old Bangalore back to Chennai. Bangalore weather was fine, I loved it and most of all loved the reason why I had been there – for my cousin’s marriage (and obviously to meet a couple of my friends). The marriage was a nice moment for the couple but for me a nice opportunity to meet my lost cousins. We planned a trek to Nandi hills the next day. I must say that was more than welcome, for people in Bangalore who love traveling and most importantly sick of coffee days and malls this is a place you can visit (There are many such places though – that’s why good old Bangalore).

To spice it up further I moved to Pondicherry from Chennai (literally from Bangalore) on work and then during the weekends travel back to Chennai. I was going to Pondicherry (lucky enough that I avoided Kerala and more lucky it was plural – I had a team now) for 6 months on official duty.

As expected, we had set up a home at Pondicherry (The Indian French town) - we set up a house at Kakayan Thope (Does it sound enough French? I hope it does, but it’s not). This place is quiet remote to the city centre but believe me it’s an awesome place to be staying in. The company that I got for staying in this place is just next to perfect. And thanks to broker Shahul Hameed – next time you are in Pondicherry you just have to contact this guy for anything you desire.

Talking on all this I trivial things I almost forgot the point. This weekend when I was in Chennai attending PAN IIT. I had got an opportunity to listen a few lectures on India, Terrorism. The lectures by Stephen Cohen and Amartya Sen were most inspiring and more importantly who can forget the night before. Also the networking was great. I was proud about my institute hosting the meet, the feeling of not visiting the institute for quite a long time had paid off; it was better feeling this time when I went to the institute. And one more moment of satisfaction was when I came to know that all my friends in the institute had got placed – they did the right thing – not to panic. Congrats guys! Now my future visit should be not until Saarang – but let’s see. The next PAN IIT is going to be in Chicago during October; so all my app friends make sure you make it there. You will definitely come back and comment!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

This is not funny

You barely finished understanding my last post is when the terror strikes again. Mumbai…The brutality that these people displayed is simply atrocious. I would describe it as a class and mass attack. Attacking *******hotels (7star hotel) as well as crowd filled railway stations, did you imagine! Whom did they want to target? Class or mass? Look, the terrorists are also confused people here! I hate computer games, but after looking at this act, I certainly believe that these people who invented those games are better people, atleast they give us a chance to attack, they just don’t attack us by making us unharmed. Give us weapons too and we will show what it means to attack! (trivia: The institute after the LAN, has produced fabulous quake players)

Back home, it was raining cats and dogs and life was tough here as well, I would have been equally tough for the dirty people as well to attack here (that’s why Mumbai I guess). Anyway, Life is slowly getting to normalcy as it stopped draining, raining.

Shocked with, all these happening, with a fit of rage and more emotion, it’s time for us to realize that Indian government needs a fundamental change, and the public needs to change their attitude towards the government as well.