26 October 2006

Goodbye Suse 10.1 ?

After having faced a lot of issues (acpi) with my laptop, i think i may have to either switch to debian (Ubuntu or Kubuntu) or replace my laptop. Since i am facing a financial crunch, i think i am better off in trying out Kubuntu. Oh the choice of kubuntu is simply because i hate gnome ;-) and hence i hate ubuntu !!
Shall post up the results of my experiments shortly.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 9:42 AM 0 comments

24 October 2006

Don - The Chase Begins Again

If it weren't for the last five minutes, you would be better of renting out a dvd of the original Amitabh movie. Some pathetic acting and screenplay and still worse re-recording, and lifting scenes straight out of con-air, diamonds are forever and matrix make it a complete pain in the ass to sit through the movie. However, the last five minutes save the movie from a complete disaster.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 8:34 AM 2 comments

17 October 2006

Equal Rights for all ?

I got this from a friend of mine who drives around bangalore in his Royal Enfield Thunderbird. About a week ago, he was on his way to work in Bagmane Tech Park in C.V.Raman Nagar. Without going much into too much details, i shall just mention here that there is a narrow and almost always flouted one-way road.
So one fine morning on his way to office he sees a Santro driving on the wrong side of the road with full headlights on. Being a highway traveller himself, he flashes his lights and continues on happily, advancing menacingly towards the santro. The santro brakes just a few feet ahead of him and out emerges a 30 something male, hurtling choiciest abuses at my friend. My friend undoubtedly shocked, parks his bike just before the santro, removes his helmet and gives back the expletives in equal measure.

However, as he told me later, what puzzled him was what the santro driver said in chaste kannada "We are the original settlers of this place. Before you s/w guys came here, we were freely driving around in this road. You have come and spoilt this place. I live in this place and only if you live here you will understand how hard it is for me to take a 1km detour just to come and go out of my house. I will not respect this one-way." Most importantly this gentleman was not even the chauffeur of the santro. He was the owner !

As we were later discussing, if such educated guys have this kind of feeling, how long will it take for the daily wage labourers and other people to get this kind of feeling ? What would it lead to ? I am not even talking about the concept of foreign people and that kind of hostility. This is plain anger against a section of the population.

I don't know the situation in other cities. Why, i don't have the faintest idea of how the situation is in my own motherland-Madras. But what i do know is that the Gentleman in santro is not an isolated one. Circa 2004 when i took Bangalore BMTC buses to travel from Indian Institute of Science to Domlur where i used to work, i have seen lots of people grumbling whenever empty buses with "Infosys" logo go past them and they are crammed and jammed into one bus that takes ages to come to the bus stop. Who is to blame for this ? Who is to take action to rectify this mess ? And more precisely, what can we as ordinary individuals do ?

Has such a situation arisen in bangalore because all it had prior to this software mess was public behemoths like NAL, HAL and others and a few government banks ? Or is this the price to pay for rapid and haphazard urbanization ? Disturbing questions that seem to have no convincing answer.
K.Shyam
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Posted by Unknown at 1:29 PM 3 comments

16 October 2006

Power of a Gumbal ?

Desipundit for long used to point to those articles that came up in the Indian Blogosphere.
PutVote is rather a new site that too tries to highlight the interesting articles that appear in the Indian Blogosphere.
Not quite. Actually while Desipundit is driven by a few people, (I am in no way qualified to say whether they are good or bad, or whether the posts they highlight deserve to be done) PutVote is driven by anyone and everyone.
Which is why i don't think PutVote would close down like Desipundit is doing now. In fact, if things go very well with PutVote (I mean here quite a large number of users and more articles, which i am sure is bound to happen), it could very well be one of India's "community based internet's (the likes of Digg)" success stories !
Therein is where i believe, lies the power of a Gumbal (tamil word to denote a group.) ;-)
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 2:03 PM 0 comments

Deja Vu

Circa 1991 or 1990. It could also be 1992. A musical genius stands up for his rights (some say it was an egoistic fight) and is slowly and steadily removed from the music scene.
Cut to present 2006. Another musical genius (some including me contend that he is not even half as talented as the first one ;-)) is now trying to fight for his rights and starts loosing projects.
Does history have a knack of repeating itself ?
K.Shyam
PS: No prizes for guessing that that first and only musical genius was Illayaraja and the second one now is A.R.Rahman.

Posted by Unknown at 9:30 AM 0 comments

13 October 2006

For a change

I have profiled or rather written about quite a lot of Raja's (Illayaraja who else dumbo ;-)) songs. For a change, here is one of A.R.Rahman's neat works. Check out the song "Thirakadha" from the Movie "En Swasa Kaatre" Here. In particular check out the violin and piano interludes before the beginning of the second stanza ! Neat piece.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 7:06 PM 0 comments

Self patting my Shoulder

Okay, i did not know about this till i got a mail from a source. Check out This article. Oh yes this blog is featured there ;-) and the writer is talking about This road trip we did.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 6:03 PM 1 comments

For Travellers

This is a good site for travelers, including yours truly, as most of the reviews are written by actual travelers instead of arm-chair journalists. And yes, on an unrelated note, this blog will shortly have lots of travelogues (hopefully). Keep watching this space ;-)
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 5:40 PM 0 comments

12 October 2006

Staying Focussed

This goes to show that if you are focussed and do what you love to do, there is always money to be made.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 11:58 AM 0 comments

10 October 2006

RTMC 5A the party

It all started with the mail from madras-bulls-newbies about the fifth anniversary celebrations of the RTMC. After having done quite a lot of solo rides, i thought why not for a change ride with a group ? In the end, it didn't matter much as everyone in the group sped up far, so far ahead of me during the drive, but then again after the drive was when all the fun started !

The meeting point was decided to be the Shell petrol bunk in Hosur Road at 7.45AM. As usual, with all things being Stretched, the timings to became Indian Stretchable time, instead of Indian Standard Time. At around 8.45 or so, the bikes started off, with the first meeting point being the HP petrol bunk, a few kms after the flyover in Hosur. I did meet quite a lot of people outside the petrol bunk, Harish (Vodka) in his 535CC, Srinivas (Maami), Vikas who had just returned back from Germany, Manoj with whom i had just completed the Bangalore Marathon a few weeks back.


So finally the bikes gathered at the petrol bunk for a quick bite. Quite naturally, by the time we went, the masala dosas were almost over, with Shiva getting the last one and Senthil the last Pongal. Was happy to note that in addition to vetti (Jobless) S/W guys like me, there were a few doctors there as well !!

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A view of the bikes Parked. Yeah, we also had a Honda CDR 900CC (abhijeet) and a few BMW's (Beamer Sam).

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The restaurant in the Petrol bunk where we stopped for a bite.

Once the bites were done with, we moved on, the next stop being Hotel Saravana Bhavan in Dindigul. As usual, since i drive pretty slow, i saw quite a lot of guys overtaking me and them voom ! They just disappeared. Anyway, i managed to reach the hotel and took a lil bit rest.

The next stoppage point was supposed to be Salem for lunch. However, when i reached salem, i found out that the group had already gone ahead and there was another group that was coming behind slowly. I just decided to carry on reach the destination. On the way from Dindigul to Salem, i saw this.

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A grim reminder that Indian roads are still not that safe after-all !

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This was a nice looking falls like thing on the ghat roads towards yercaud.

So reached Hotel Shevroys in Yercaud at around 2.00pm and had a quick lunch along with my brother Sathish. Once food was done with, got around to meeting people and general introductions. I met Adrian, Abhijeet, Mahendran, Sam and a few others and was listening to their share of fun they had in various previous trips.

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A shot of the bikes parked there. The junta were waiting for the Madbulls to arrive. They did arrive quite late as a few of bikes had developed some technical snags.

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That was b'day boy ranga of madbulls getting belated birthday bums once he came in
;-) He is being carried by Vodka and Mahendran. Ranga now knows whom to get even with for giving him bums :-)

So after the general bonhomie it was time for the party. Well well it was essentially a throw back to college days when in the name of dancing, guys just jumped around in the dance table (okay it was just me jumping around. quite a few guys were making some real terrific moves !! i am a pathetic dancer).

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Sameer was playing the DJ and was belting out some real dinjak dinjak numbers ! In fact, he also organized the games the second day. Great show i must say.

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That is ranga doing a vettiya madichukattu (fold up the veshti) dance ;-)

I generally hung out with Goldie (Ganesh), Arul, Veekaa and a few others and had a real good time jumping on the dance floor.

I think i must digress here to mention my off repeated cliche that it is a small world after all !
1. Ajith (bald one) tells me that he met his school classmate in an RTMC meet after twenty or so years.
2. Pops (Mahesh) my roommate during the stay was someone whom my friend/colleague had mentioned about so many times as the guy who was involved in a very nasty accident !
3. Vikas the guy who came from Germany, is in the same team as my seniors from college (NIT Trichy).

After gorging on the food, i crashed for the day at around 12.00pm or so. It had been a loong and interesting day.

The second day dawned and after a quick bite for breakfast and general hi's and hello's, there were some events planned. The first was slow biking. I did try my hand in it only to to get disqualified as my leg touched the ground right at the start. Me thinks i need some more practice.

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That is director vodka (Harish) co-ordinating a photo shot

Once that was done with, there were some real more fun games.

To begin with the entire gumbal was organized into groups.

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The grouping being done.

The first of the games was to find the polo hidden amongst powder. Boy, the guys can really blow !!

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Guys getting down to do the blowjobs to get the polo out !! (oh yeah, pun intended of course !! whaddya think man ?? :-) )

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That's Ajith of Madras Bulls (Also the winner of the slow motorcycling, as someone mentioned his weight did not make the motorcycle move :-)) after a winning the blowing event. Ya, we were team mates for the entire set of games.

The next event was putting up rubber bands in hair.

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That is Shakthi getting his hair done !

The next event was balloon blowing.

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And boy the guys can blow !!

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My team-mates sukku and tiger blowing out ;-)

Then the balloons were tied to the legs and the junta had to break them.

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The last men standing with their blowjob efforts tied to their legs ;-)

I could not get shots of the remaining games as i became active participant in them !

After a short break for lunch a few of us, David, Arul, and co decided to explore around. So off we went in and around yercaud. In 1998, i remember a few friends and myself covered the entire yercaud by walking around including a very difficult trek to killiyur falls. We had to climb across some hills using some tree roots and such. I reckon things are pretty easier now. I did not check out the path this time around.

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That is a shot from one of the mountain peaks.

Once back there was a game of kabbadi between rtmc and madras bulls with the bulls winning pretty easily. The ground was slippery after the rains and that made for some real dirty clothes and a few scratched hands and elbows.

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The game in progress.

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The winners all. Team Madbulls.

Once kabbadi was done with, we had a short tech session by Mr.Subash Chandra Bose of UCAL. Perhaps the best thing he said was "My hobby is my job and my job is my hobby". Well that is what i call having the cake and eating it too ;-)

After that we trooped back into the auditorium for a few phone calls and rtmc website inauguration.

And then there was the cake cutting ceremony and memento presentation by madras bulls to rtmc.

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The Cake.

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Being Cut.

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And smeared up on Bamboo and Anil ;-)

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The memento presentation.

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Birthday boys subin and ranga getting a cake facial ;-)

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Subin getting the bums. What is birthday celebrations without them ;-)

Once these things were dispensed with, it was back to jumping around (dancing) ;-)

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Dude, there's a rtmc badge in my drink ;-) Imagine muthu's reaction when he found out that one of the dancer's badge in his drink.

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Vodka and freya setting the dance floor on fire !

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Dosai the second day DJ being honoured with (what else ?) cake on his face.

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Junior most member of RTMC. PP Junior.

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Muthu and vodka with a full throated customized rendition of vaa munima vaa (if you dont know about it, check out the original version "Kothamalli vaasam" from the movie Indhu Here). They rocked !!

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General shot of the people dancing away !

And then since we had to start early the next day, we crashed off to bed.

It was indeed a good party and for a change it was fun riding in a group. Let's see how many more times i can do it.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 3:57 PM 0 comments

08 October 2006

TATA Sky - Take that SCV monopolistic idiots

So finally we have moved to TATA Sky DTH service at our home in madras. IMHO, the service is pretty good. I think since we are the early adopters, it might be good. Anyway, the best part of it was watching the run feast, ie, the Standard Bank ODI series between Australia and South Africa, where Australia got their lil blue asses whipped clean, and where a certain Mr.Lewis returned figures for 113 for none in his quota of ten overs !
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 8:23 AM 2 comments

05 October 2006

RTMC-5A & Others

The fifth anniversary celebrations of the Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club was held over the past weekend in Yercaud. Oh yes, i do have lots of pictures and trip report to write up. That is coming up shortly.

I also managed to catch up Gabtun's latest movie "Perarasu". Full paisa vasool for his fans. Picture his first dialog in the movie : "Vetriya ulla vara sollu", meaning "Ask vetri to come inside". BTW, vetri is also the name of a man in Tamil and it also means victory ;-). Fully loaded with political double entendres, it is definitely a must see for Gabtun's fans.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 10:06 AM 0 comments