ExpertDabbler

I had a flat tire this morning in Besant Nagar. I had the same tire flat yesterday as well.

Yesterday the vulcanizing shop was hardly 100 feet away. No such luck this morning. I roamed Eliots beach road, and after a few inquiries was redirected to a shop near the Besant Nagar bus terminus. Since I had similar experience yesterday morning, I decided to change the tube this time.

Two kutti fellows were manning the shop.

‘Enga? Beach road a? angellam vara mudiyadhu saar.. kadai la aal illai… neenga vandiya kondu vaanga!’ Not a very exciting prospect since I had already done my morning exercise routine. But still I was okay.

‘Enna tube poduve thambi?’

‘Nandhi brand saar!’

For a second I wanted to tell him I am not buying any agarbathi dabba! He also said it would cost 180Rs + 20 as his labor. After much thought, I called JustDial and enquired for mobile puncture service. That’s how I got Basha’s number.

Basha came all the way from T Nagar. He told me he starts from Parrys and roams all around the city. He made me wait for an hour, which he informed. I utilized that time to check out the quality aspects of Idly in Murugan Idly shop – not bad.

One thing is for sure - Basha is expensive. But his expertise and speed is amazing. He fixed my tyre in less than 10 minutes. Basha can also fix car tires.

Basha can be reached on this number: 9382819164. Number updated - Thanks to Ravi

Oh by the way he is remarkably well informed. ‘Office enge saar?… Sholinganallur a saar?…Wipro? CTS?.. software laam paduthidum nu solraanga saar…America la rendu periya company puttkichaame?…’

Wow. I was not prepared to handle that in the morning Overall, if you are prepared to pay something extra and be prepared to wait in a place, Basha is the guy to fix your tires.

I am happy the bail out failed. Like Jim Rogers says, the bail-out was the equivalent of applying band-aid to a cancer patient. Kudos to the US congress for defeating it.

கண்மணி அன்போட….காதலன் நான்..உன்னை பார்த்து எவ்வளவு நாளாச்சு? கிட்டத்தட்ட ஒரு மாசம்… நீ இல்லாம எவ்வளவு கஷ்டப்பட்டேன் தெரியுமா? அது என்னமோ தெரியல என்ன மாயமோ தெரியல.. உன்னை பார்த்த அன்னைக்கு நான் படுகிற சந்தோஷத்துக்கு அளவே இல்லை! உன்னை பார்த்த முதல் வாரம்.. உன்னொட நினைவுகளிலே சுகமா ஒடுது.. அதுக்கு அப்புறம்.. எப்படி சொல்லுவேன்.. ஒவ்வொரு நாளும் போராட்டம்.. மறுபடி எப்பொ உன்னை பார்ப்போம் ணு மனசு தவிக்குது…மரங்கள் அசய மறந்தாலும் காற்று விடுவதில்லை மாதிரி.. நானே உன்னை மறந்தாலும் நான் பார்க்கிற ஒவ்வொரு பொருளும் உன்னைத் தான் நினைவு படுத்துது…என்னை மாதிரி ஜென்மத்துகெல்லாம் நீயே கண்கண்ட தெய்வம்…

போன வாரத்திலே இருந்து ஒவ்வொரு நாளா என்னிட்டு இருந்தேன்.. 7 நாள் 6 நாள் 5 நாள்.. நாளைக்குத் தான் உன்னை பார்ப்போம் ணு இருந்தேன்.. நானே எதிர் பார்க்காம வந்த வங்கி விடுமுறை உன்னையும் என்னையும் ஒரு நாள் முன்னாடியே சேர்த்து விட்டது! வாழ்க Sep 30!

உன்னைக் கண்ட இந்த நாள் ஒரு இனிய நாள்!

PS:
Salary credited

Okay, I am seeing a half page paper ad in front of me, which has a small girl claiming,”Yes dad, Chennai is like New Jersey”. My title is a response to that! It does not take a genius to figure out who this ad targets at. Especially after seeing they’ve given out the price tag as well, ‘Starts from Rs.99 lakhs’. This is clearly not for the 30-40K per month earning local IT masses. Someone offered me a row house in Madurai for Rs.65 lakhs. They dont realize that I am a poor fellow clearing dustbins in OMR, not NJ.

And for those of you who are wondering if its Boat club road which is being compared to NJ, hard luck. Its right next to a lake on the Sholinganallur - Medavakkam main road.

I don’t see the emperor wearing any clothes. Either something wrong with my eyes, or the whole junta is being taken for a ride.

Now WaMu.

I guess a few people are kinda pissed off that I, sitting in India write about the banking crises in US.

I think I know not to confuse between events holding global repercussions and what is local to one particular country. I generally do not write about incidents like Virginia campus killings even when a Tamil Nadu professor was killed, or even this one, with the same generalization strokes as the banking crises. What I think is local is for the locals to write.

Global issues are like the way free markets should ideally be - free access to all. Almost anybody except probably Bernanke will have the same level of knowledge, thanks to YouTube and Google. I personally think the banking crises is almost the financial 9/11. It will have its impact on the whole world in some way. Some of the steps taken by the Bush administration cannot be seen as a mere Government’s response. They are revisiting the country’s entire economic philosophy during a time of crises without saying so, very similar to the way Manmohan Singh took some decisions in 1990-91. Only that the decision to nationalise AIG stands in stark contrast to the decision to privatize biggies in India. My two cents.

But America rocks in important things like this. This will never happen in India, not with the current crop of university heads who are busy minting money with their political connections. Like Sundar says, there are problems galore in US and India, only that the problems are different in nature and magnitude.

Update:
I might be seen as an idiot, but i do see some parallels between the US housing market and the Indian one. I personally know of a few individuals who are betting big in the real estate. Their total monthly EMI bills come close to Rs. One lakh — no exaggeration.
I guess things will look fine till the Indian economy maintains its 7% growth. It remains to be seen what happens when India Inc. slows down.

I guess Economics is called dismal science primarily because all of its doomsday scenarios turn out to be true, while the most optimistic scenarios does not.

The one and only M R Radha at his best

http://www.tamilvanan.com/content/2008/09/23/mrradha-speech/

It was all fine till I started to calculate the calories burnt by my morning jog/walk.
Apparently a 4 km jog/walk helps me lose a miserly 250 calories. A single idly (and it is never a single idly for breakfast) will add roughly about 70 calories. Maybe add another 20 calories for ‘ketty chutney’.

I learn that it takes a deficit of 7700 calories to lose a kilogram of body weight. Deficit here refers to the difference between calories lost and calories consumed. My Base Metabolic Rate is about 1800 calories. Assuming I consume exactly the same calories I burn (which is optimistic to say the least), I would need to run for 31 days to lose a single kilo of body weight. Or more realistically, I would need to keep running just to prevent from adding further weight too soon.

Last week, after a heavy lunch in ‘Ente Keralam’ I asked my friend how many calories would’ve been added to the system. It was an unlimited meal with two special pradhamans - he mentioned a ball park figure of 700-800 calories. And we are not even counting the many butter dosais, podi dosais, nendhram chips….Aah… Life is difficult.

Very often, i keep getting e-mail forwards about the harrowing experience of patients in Lifeline Hospital, Perungudi. Just how bad is this one? Does anyone have/know a true, first hand/second hand bad experience there?
Please feel free to share your experiences at prabukarthik at gmail dot com with your contact information.

Has to be Jeyamohan

He is just amazingly prolific. I was talking with Keerthi on Sunday and during that chat, I admitted my reading is not as fast as his writing.

For starters, just read Jeyamohan’s analysis of E V R. Its hard to find a more honest analysis from a well known writer on a topic like this. Kudos to Jeyamohan for his guts.

http://jeyamohan.in/?p=368

http://jeyamohan.in/?p=271

There was a time when mainstream magazines formed and changed my opinions on various topics and issues, nowadays its people like Jeyamohan. I would like to think its a good thing.

Kudos to:
To Ada-paavi, for his josiyam that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will soon transform themselves to full fledged banks. He told me about a week ago and it is turning out to be true today!

Volga vilirundhu Gangai varai:
This book is a tamil translation of Volga se Ganga. This is a masterpiece and will remain for long in my memory. I had my own doubts before opening the book. The author, Rahul Sankrityayan was a Marxist, and I also thought he had too strong a faith in the Aryan Invasion Theory. Despite those, I still think it requires a ‘soorathanam’ to write a book like this.

‘Ente Keralam’ restaurant:
Agreed it is expensive, but the food they serve makes it well worth the money. It’s high time some of the mokkai three star/five star hotels learn how to cook from these specialty guys.

Lessons from:
USA is fast becoming into USSRA - United Socialist States for the Rich in America would be more apt.

Qualitatively, I do not see much difference between free color TV, free 2 acre land, reservation to IAS officer kids, 60,000 Cr. farm subsidy in India and the seven hundred billion bail out package in US.

Lehman was my first big client. Some of the names of the applications I worked on include: Global Credit Risk, Firm Risk, etc. I only wish they had something like Lehman Risk, Tax payer’s money risk etc.

When ten people commit a crime, it is easy to implement law and order and punish those ten. When only ten people obey the law, it is much more pragmatic to redefine what is right and wrong and punish the same ten people who obeyed the law in the first place. That is what governments do. This is what happens be it US or India. The issues vary, but the end result is the same.

via Ada-paavi