ExpertDabbler

We had a team lunch in kebab factory inside the GRT Radisson with office folks. We had a budget to spend on stuff like this, and people were encouraged to consume. ‘If you don’t spend now, you will not get this money next quarter’ type of encouragement always works wonders.
And consume they did by having glass after glass of ‘Long island iced tea’ for 800 bucks plus taxes, not to mention sizzlers and wide variety of kebabs. The bill? close to 50,000. I was wondering if my mom will get a heart attack if only I reveal the amount spent by normal folks on a group lunch + liquor.

Just then, my wife called me to inform that one of my friend who runs a voluntary initiative, has helped her student with some funds for the student’s semester fee. The student was short by 50,000, and my friend with a group contribution has managed 25000. I could not help but think that one group lunch in a five star hotel is worth a budding dentist’s annual fees.

Whoever said the world is fair.

My aunt (mother’s younger sister) passed away in a village near Aruppukottai on Wednesday. She was not keeping well for some time.

As is often the case with death and funerals. Logistics became a total nightmare. Force of circumstances made me land in the village at about 1 AM in the night. And after multiple rounds of tea, and walking the entire stretch of the village thoroughfare-cum-only-road, it became apparent that I had nowhere else to stretch my back but on the wooden pavement on this roadside shop. This is bang on the Aruppukottai-Tuticorin main road.
Fortunately, they have widened this road, and the by-pass goes nearby.

The only saving grace was Radio Mirchi’s non stop music played by a happy but busy Taylor nearby. Indeed it was a different experience.

It made me more aware of the fact that millions in India go to sleep in this way all through their lives.

For all the talk about a budding metro, the attitude of some of the old time business folks in Coimbatore seems amusing and petty minded to say the least.

Sample this, I was in Coimbatore this weekend, and booked a room in HOTEL THAAI, part of the RHR restaurant. The room was not for me, I stay in my friend’s place as usual. But I had some guests coming from nagercoil. The guy at the reception immediately asked ‘how many will stay?’. I told him nobody is going to stay overnight, all would leave in the evening, and yes there will be three people. Apparently, these guys charge not on room sizes but based on the number of people in the room. Now, I can understand if some extra money is charged for the extra person, if they are providing extra bed. But keeping the room tariff flexible sounded new to me. What followed was heights, or depths.

I made the full payment, and went ahead to receive the guests from the Railway Station just opposite, the guests had just arrived in Nagercoil Coimbatore express. It turned out one of the guest had one known person to receive them, and clearly I was not aware of. the plan was to have all if them ready after their baths, so that we can get some work done outside. and so we all proceeded to the hotel. On seeing us, this guy literally stopped us from entering the room under the pretext that we are trying to hoard more people while claiming only three. I clearly told him that we(me and the other friend unison to me) are locals, and the room is only for three people, and we just need to take the guests out as soon as they are finished bathing. The moron claimed they have video cameras installed by the management, and if more people enter the room, the management will vacate the guests, and so we, the non-guests(local) should stay in the reception while the geusts are done with their bath.

I don’t know about others, but after paying close to 2000 bucks for a 12 hour stay, restricting entry to guests friends under some narrow minded pretext sounded way too cheap to me. There was a minor altercation as some of the folks got offended and offered to cancel the reservation, to which came the stock reply,’ sorry we cannot refund you the money’.

When all came out of the hotel in the next 60 minutes after getting ready, this idiot came running asking for room key. Apparently, they take the keys with the hotel guests, to do the house keeping chores. When asked who will take responsibility for any loss of valuables, all we got again was a response given by lunatics.

I know one of the owners of this establishment ever since my school days in Coimbatore, this guy was my school senior. I thought of using this name, but decided that was not of any use. If this is the way HOTEL THAI, coimbatore wants to treat their customers, then to hell with it, and to hell with my school senior. They do not deserve my business anymore. These guys still have that old ‘naicker land lord’ mentality not fit for a modern Coimbatore. I won’t be surprised if they say, ‘dude you have used the toilets 3 times in a day, and so should pay 200 Rs, more besides the agreed upon room rent. So much for a prominent looking hotel which charges almost 2000 bucks and is located bang opposite the Coimbatore junction railway station. I guess it was my mistake, I should have stuck to the usual THE CITY TOWERS.

——

On the contrary, the new Mercedes Benz plying between Ernakulam and Chennai by Parveen Travels, clearly rocks. The bus was at Hopes college stop, CBE at 11.45PM in the night, but I alighted before 6.30 AM in CMBT the next morning. Thats about 6.45 minutes journey for a 500+ km distance, with real push back seats, AC, good foot rest, comfy bed sheets, water, snacks etc. If one is prepared to spend 750 bucks on a Cbe-chennai journey, and if no train tickets are available, this one is worth a try.

I really don’t remember the last time I visited Ooty before my trip last weekend.
I remember going there during my +2 days. I vaguely remember going there once with my uncle’s family when the entire family except me vomitted their stomachs out while coming down. I also remember a photograph I took of my mom and dad together with the botanical garden lawn in the background. So yes, these were very old times.

In the meanwhile, I did not hear many positive things about Ooty. People have been unanimous in their feedback that kodai rocks and Ooty sucks.

But our experience was different. Probably the time of the year, or the group or the fact that everything went according to a plan did the trick. We had a blast in Ooty. We started in the chennai Coimbatore intercity on Friday afternoon, got down at Tiruppur, and took a privately arranged TATA 407 to Ooty. We reached our hotel at 1.45 in the night. En route the gang managed to catch a glimpse of the elephants roaming near the Mettupalayam Ooty highway in the night.

The next day morning, we moved towards 6th mile, 9th mile spots, and PYKARA.
The weather was perfect. We had slight drizzle, and less crowd than what one encounters during the peak season. The folks, especially those who had never seen Ooty before enjoyed every bit of this.

The next day was saved for the usual Botanical gardens, and doddabetta. Nature was at it’s breeziest best in doddabetta. It is not usual to have the rain drizzle and cloud come and hit you from below. Throughout the journey, I managed to watch the much talked about Santhanam comedy in Boss engira Baskaran. I laughed my heart out.
In the afternoon we started our return downhill. We reached Mettupalayam and had very well made Raagi Pakoda at our friends place in Mettupalayam. The dinner was at People’s Park Annapoorna in Coimbatore.

Since the trip was planned in short notice, getting a return ticket from coimbatore on a Sunday night was out of question. We decided to risk it with Parveen travels yet again. We boarded the Coimbatore - chennai Delhi registered DL15 9730 Volvo at 10.30PM. Out of the four times I have boarded a Parveen in recent times, thrice I have taken this precise bus. And Parveen did not disappoint. We started at 10.30 pm from Coimbatore omnibus stand near GP signal, and I was at Koyambedu Rohini bus stop at 6 in the morning.

All in all a satisfying Ooty trip complete with Varky ( at the Indian Bakery in Coonoor) and the Sambhar Idly at Sree Annapoorna, Coimbatore.

Whoever contemplating early retirement should read this book called ‘The 4 hour workweek’.
One, you will get a morale boost.
Two, it gives some perspective about life can atrophy to post retirement and what to do about it.
Three, entrepreneurship is not rocket science.

And so on..lMO worth reading.

Implicit associative test:

Try this video first:
http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/anthony-greenwald-on-the-psychology-of-blink/

Try this URL and the subsequent tests to see the stereotypes.
http://implicit.harvard.edu

Try the demo test.

With all the terror attacks and bombings,I found it hard not to biased in Islamic/middle eastern names test.

Is thrice good enough to publicly endorse a service? Especially if the industry is travel?

I travelled to Coimbatore last weekend. Yet another night-morning-roaming-night-morning trip for 1000 odd kms in a span of 30 hours. This time the added feature was the entire trip was via BUS.

I think I have to mention this about Parveen travels - they know their business well.
And I define ‘knowing the business’ based on - safety, punctuality and politeness to customer.

I boarded their Mercedes Multiple axle Ernakulam bus in Coimbatore to Chennai saturday night at 11.10PM an I was in CMBT next morning by 6.40 AM. I usually wake up once in a while and notice the place ( my mom thinks I am usually awake but doze off once in a while in any overnight bus journey), bus speed etc. I did not find any instance of rash driving, overspeeding in all the three occasions. They have two drivers and they have a consistent place to stop for changing the drivers in the Chennai-Cbe route - Salem.

The drivers are usually polite and try to accommodate customer’s rest room request - for both gents and ladies.

The buses start late from Chennai - the 10.30 PM Cbe Volvo invariably starts at 11.10 because of a mess that is called CMBT omnibus terminus.They mention 9 hours time and they stick to it. If done without killing anybody on the way, I’d settle for this.

Is twice sufficient enough to avoid a service, especially if the industry is travel?

I tried KPN twice. Once i was conned from taking the bus i had booked the ticket for, and was forced to take the last bus to bangalore.

Another time, i boarded their bus to coimbatore, and it took a sweet 11 hours. And they made SETC buses look superfast. As a bonus, they demonstrated the nitty gritties of logistics business by showing me around in salem one early morning. Granted, this was several years ago, but i have avoided KPN since then. When the ill-fated Tiruppur bound KPN sleeper killed 21 people, some of my colleagues were cursing KPN for the overall lack of concern for customers they show off late. The first step to keeping the customers happy is by keeping them alive.

A famous blogger called Robert Scobble recently wrote a post on why he wants three people working in Apple fired.

I want to add one more to the list, the person who designed and developed the spell check in iPad. Make no mistake, the feature works fine. What I do not like is the typical American assumption that people will write only in American english using English alphabets.

I address my close friends as ‘Dei’ in my emails, and iPad changes that to ‘Die’without fail.
This is just the beginning. ‘Appa amma sowkiyama?’ will turn out as ‘Apparent amma soak Yama?’…

And no, these Apple guys do not just ’suggest’ they assume users are dumb and change it the way they think is right.

I had another grievance, they were not supporting Tamil. Now things have improved for the better:) and its sheer bliss to read jeyamohan ( iPad thinks am stupid and changes the name to Meta Khan ) and savukku in my iPad.

Those who are connected to me via Facebook know that i am more active there than here. Whatever remaining time goes in reading the gorgeous iPad (one year and going stronger).

I specifically wnated to write abbout two apps which has completely bowled me over ( no, not Angry Birds).

Pulse - Pulse has got an Apple Design Award, which is like getting ‘Brahmarishi’ title from… never mind! Try this app and you will know why

The other app is ZITE, ZITE calls itself the personalized magaine for Ipad, and for once lives up to the name to a great extent.

These two along with the ever so famous FLIPBOARD has completely changed by online reading experience.

Those who have iPad should try this and enjoy

i am just thinking out loud here. But this thought is not without any rationale. While many NRis are contemplating R2I. Those who are from smaller towns but currently living in the metros can also contemplate R2ST - that is ‘Return to a Smaller Town’

Here is what I think now,
- whatever the information and exposure arbitrage the bigger cities had till date will go away in future as more and more people begin to consume information from the net.
- Kamal Nath’s 20 km per day road dream going sour notwithstanding, smaller towns will get better roads and better connectivity say 5 years down the line than what it is now. What this means is that commuting to/from a smaller town will not be a problem.
- Thanks to Maruti and Tata, getting a small car will cost less in real terms.
- smaller town means less traffic and less pollution
- smaller town usually costs less in terms of children’s education.
- one does not have to handle this ‘hot hotter hottest’ climate
- no need to provide/pay for 25 Rs. Per can of drinking water.

Let me think and list some downsides.

The smaller towns I have in mind - Coimbatore, Madurai but essentially any Tier 2/3 town in Tamil Nadu which has a corporation in it’s name is a decent candidate is what I think. Or for that matter any small town in the vicinity of 50-100 ams from the metros should not be a bad bet either.

First, decided on a name for my daughter - Sahana.

As I keep saying to my friends, multiple stakeholders had multiple ideas on this name.
-I wanted a short name (seven alphabets or less). I had enough trouble spelling my name to anyone and everyone who asked (I had to spell it all the time, without missing the ‘prabu la H varaadhu’ part.)
-My wife wanted a name which sounded smooth (without -th, -ki, -tha, -ka)
-I wanted both grandmas to be able to pronounce this name.
-The carnatic raagam factor in the name meant this be seen as a south Indian name (if not a Tamil name) rather than a very north Indian sounding name.
- I initally chose a very short one ‘Nidhi’ but my mother vetoed it. She wanted ‘Srinidhi’. I vetoed Srinidhi because guys had this name in other parts of India. (thanks to facebook). I suspect my mom vetoed ‘Nidhi’ because of that infamous family in Tamil Nadu.
-My uncle wanted a name which works according to numerology when added with the initial P.
-My mom wanted Goddess Lakshmi’s name since she was born on friday, may 6th - akshaya thrithiyai.

Bottom line, it was a struggle. But hopefully my daughter likes it when she grows up.

—————

Second, I bought “Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care: 8th Edition”. My wife looks very impressed with this one for now. Let me know if any of you have any other suggestions.

—————

A good number of my friends see me as a sort of match-making SME and ask for suggestions. Whether this is a compliment or an insult I do not know. Very recently a friend of mine wanted me to look for a girl for her cousin who is in the U.S.A. She also wanted me to write about my two cents on this topic.

First, the sample space may be small from a statistician’s point of view, but the pattern I found was:

- (1) Majority of the folks who ask me this are searching for suitable girls for the guys they know.
This clearly shows who is in demand in the wedding market.
- (2) The guys initially have high expectations. Because of (1) I tell my friends to remember the proverb ‘Beggars cant be choosers’. It is natural for the ‘expectations’ to be high initially but it usually comes down in the long run. Also, a gentle reminder to look into the mirror, and also see their close friends as a stranger would should do wonders. (one will be bald, another will be fat and short, one will be tall and thin etc, yet they make for good friends)

My prescription usually starts with a heuristic review of the tamilmatrimony profile. Some folks simply have some set of data in the name of a profile and hope to find the right person. I also suggest to look in specific portals/channels according to the community. I try to see if there is someone suitable in the circle I know. For all the effort and intentions, except for my very close friend in whose marriage I played a substantial part (in search as well as convincing that guy) my ‘finishing’ record is quite dismal.

The whole ‘arranged marriage alliance seeking’ system works like a series of filters:

- Community is a filter
- Sub-community is a filter
- Horoscope match is a filter
- Education is a filter;
- Occupation is a filter;
- Age is a filter;
- ‘Good looking’ is a filter;
- Veg/Non-veg is a filter;
- Smoker is a filter;
- Social drinker is a filter; Not sure if anyone calls themselves anti-social drinkers but still…
- Nowadays even ‘chemistry’ when boy meets girl is a filter.

So, one needs to pass all/majority of these filters to be short-listed by some-one else. And interestingly, that some-one else might be in the short-list of some other person. This is only till short-listing stage… then comes the family liking each other etc etc…

It is natural for the concerned person to be frustrated with himself/herself, the parents, the system, the whole world if things take time. In fact I think the whole system is designed to frustrate. Frustration is understandable but sustained frustration does not help. One has to just regain the spirits, allocate time, see through profiles for years, go through contacts, negotiate with astrologers, deal with declines by what one thought as an ideal match, deal with acceptances from what is less than an ideal match, indecisions, insults, etc. And I went through all of the above…People who are lucky delegate this to someone in the family and/or have this cycle short … People who are experienced and seen as SME like me usually get the entire package.
So in a way you can see how lucky or how experienced you are at the end. And sorry, this is not the end, this is just the beginning