Book I read..

This was the book I read two month back but didn't get time to write about it. RIGGED by Ben Mezrich. I have read this author's previous book Bringing the house down. Seeing his name and the tag line I grabbed this book from the shelf.

Backdrop of this story is the Mercantile exchange of Newyork were commodities gets traded,one of the hot commodity which makes people rich or poor in an short span of time is Oil. Now the hero of this story wants break the monopoly enjoyed by some traders. He gets help from an unexpected counter part and they decide to build a sister exchange in Dubai, a conservative Muslim hub where trading is unlawful as per Islamic laws.

It was an interesting read , teaches us how wealth properly utilised can make a nation prosperous.

~~My absent mindedness~~

Yesterday was an eventful evening. My grandma lost her 'metti' and she needed a replacement,I had promised her to take her to Tana street to get a new one. I asked her to get ready by evening 5pm. When we were about to leave ,my cousin asked whether she could join us for shopping.Oh noo.. ! My original plan was to take my grandma in my bike ,go directly to Tana street get the metti and return home.If travel takes 15 mins getting metti some 30 mins at the max ,the job should be over by an hour. Now since she s joining us I was prepared to slog the entire evening.

We took an auto, in the short span of time she convinced my grandma to make the first stopping at Naidu Hall. Once inside I was feeling awkward since there was no section in which where I can go and kill my time.Finally I ended up near bangles and earrings section trying my best not to look like a Jackass.Grandma and grand daughter took their own time selecting their stuffs,finally while paying the bill she asked for some extra cash to make up the total purchase. I usually keep my a maximum of 200 bucks in my purse , if the amount is higher than that I usually pay by card.

After that my cousin entered a Rajasthani handloom exhibition, after 10 or 15 mins I realised that she is not going to buy anything here ,I said I will get some cash from ATM and come back .In the mean time I called my mum and checked whether she needs anything from Chennai since the next weekend I will be in Trichy,she asked to get her a big plate made of German Silver.Then I went ATM got the cash and returned back to handloom stall. She was still browsing through the stuffs, testing shopkeepers patience(mine too).After 30 mins my cousin got some enlightenment and said nothing is nice here lets leave ,grabbing that opportunity I hurried them out of the place.

Next we went to Ratna stores I went to the plates section ,looked for a big plate. Took 5 minutes to look at different models and choose one. I went ahead to bill it and then collect it in delivery section. Once I got the plates and was ready to leave ,only to see my cousin absconded. Thank God my grandma was there to inform she went cosmetics section to get some stuffs.I was standing like beggar with a big plate in my hands.After some 15 minutes she got some stuffs and we were ready to move again.

At last we took an auto Tana street a place I should have been there some 2 hours earlier. We reached the jewel shop. Once inside shop keeper showed us various designs ,my grandma insisted on a simple one with an apt size. We got a set of four which suited my grandma's size,I checked the same it was looking fine. When we were about to buy it my cousin took those and gave an observation one single ring is 0.002 mm bigger than the rest of the set.Shopkeeper gave an 'aaramuchutangaya ' look and digged inside his collection and took some other piece which made no difference to me but my cousin was satisfied with the new one.

The bill came around 400 bucks and I opened my wallet to take my card out. OH MY GOD.... WHERE IS MY CARD???????? I looked at left right inside outside and on all the opening of the wallet but I couldnt find it. It began to sink in ,after withdrawing the money from the ATM I never took my card back and by now the machine should have swallowed the card. Felt helpless to see grandma paying for her Metti. On the way back I stopped near the ATM and checked with the security who said I need to contact the branch office to get the card back.

My cousin suggested lets eat outside ,I said since I m penniless and cardless it should be her treat. But she was too intelligent to be bogged down and called her dad to join us for dinner and later made him pay the bill.

While we were eating the dinner my grandpa called and my cousin picked the call talked with him,conveyed to us grandpa had dinner. After we reached home grandpa asked me where is the parcel??? Dont know what those two talked , right away I took my bike to Saravana Bhavan and few stuffs for my grandpa. Then I told my him about how I lost my card , he immediately called my bank manager(whom he knows personally) and asked for the procedures to block the card. I called the customer care and blocked the card temporarily.

Withdrawing cash from ATM will be never same again for me!

~~My friend's Salsa experience~~

My old room mate Raj in cochin will always be keen on trying on new things . When we were in Cochin he with much enthusiasm tried to learn many things . Only problem is after a month or so he will lose interest and will be searching for other new things to try out.

Now he has relocated to Bangalore , this week begining he throwed a bomb mentioning he is going join Salsa class. When asked what the reason he mailed back

summa irrukkuradhu bore adikkudhu...Blore vandhu ennatha kizhicha nnu yaarum ketka kudadhu illa... adhaan atleast indha karumathayaavadhu kathukkaalamm nnu dhan..

One of my friends replied back

Hello Raj

Iyer guitar vaasika..neenga salsa aada..atha naanga ellarum anandhama paarthu rasikkanum..
Voice expert , Voice from bckground: endha rendula aethu nadanthalum oolagam azhinjudum..

after few more mocking mails from the group he replied

romba pesaadhinga...
dance is an art, i want to learn just the dance and practice it....no other intention....

then another friend replied

Dey.... dance oru art ...hmmmm.... epdi solli thaan da nee,

guitar class pona

driving class pona..

swimming class pona..

gym pona...

Makkale!!! ungalukku ellam theriyum avan evalavu naal olunga classku ponnannu.....

Then yesterday after his 1st class ,since we didnt get any mail from him I dropped a mail

Raj

neetu over scene ooda gujalsa class poniye , eppadi irrunduchunu badhil ee kaanum ????

enna as usual angayum bulb vangiyacha :)

next class pora maari idea irruka ???

His reply

Hello all..

naa vandhutaen...naa vandhutaen...

i never knew this dance so exciting ...may be its interesting because you dance with ur partner (obviously a girl;) ).....First the tutor is a lady, nice to see her dance and learn from her....she taught the initial steps, the basic ones and asked the guys to form a circle...

then she asked gals to choose their partners.. :) ...

I surprised to see my partner immediately choosing me as soon as she announced that...i know her pretty much and she is a PL for a team here and got married too..... i gave her a stare, she understood that meaning of my look, and said "Its better to dance with a person whom u know rite"....

i thought myself, "hmm....ungallukku ok, ennakku dhan , naa koduthu vachadhu avalavu dhann nnu nenachaen".....and i convinced by saying to myself that, "we have come just to learn n enjoy dance and nothing else "....innum oru vishayam...atleast evangalaavadhu nammala choose paanaanga nnu oru sandhosam vera....

After five minutes of dancing with the first partners, the tutor asked the gals to move to the next guy.....so got another gal for dancing....it continued on and finally ended up dancing with around 5-6 ppl........cool experience...

enna konja kaal dhan valikkudhu.....it ll be alright...

sari sari...yaarum stomach burning aagadhinga...

Our group is expecting the next mail from him mentioning he got bored of the class :)

~~Missing Onam~~

For the last three years I have been in Kerala and this time of the year ,the full state will be in festive mood. In our office we used to have celebrations for the whole week.Pookolam,Onam sadiya,tug of war,Mahabali visit and lot more. The whole week used to be filled with lots of activities.

This year I came to know its Onam time only from one of my mallu colleague. Attaching the pookolam our team put for the last year Onam in our office.

~~Taking a telephonic interview~~

Today after having lunch I was looking forward to a lazy afternoon but my PL sent across a mail asking me and my colleague to interview four candidates. I have taken face to face interviews before but never taken telephonic interviews. Since my colleague has taken those before I said I will just observe it pulling in when its needed.

The first call ,once the person took it what we could hear was lots of background noises he said he's travelling and not the right time to call. Wonderful start.

Second one we got through the call and my colleague started with few simple questions andwe noticed that the guy was slow in answering and my colleague decided that he might be up to something. There are many ways to forge a telephonic interview ,simple one is to search for answers in google then and there and reply the same.So we need to ask some real time scenarios for which searching in web doesn't help much. Then my colleague was asking him few random questions and scenarios .After 20 mins I lost my patience and said to end it soon. But my colleague insisted one interview should last atleast 30 mins. In the end the conversation lasted for 40 mins and finally he said that candidate is not suited. I was wondering why cant this could have been decided in 15 to 20 mins ,at least saving my time.

Since there were two more calls to go I was praying that this boring routine should end soon.

My prayers were answered .On the third call,a woman picked the call and said the guy was not well and the final call left unanswered. I dint know whether I will accept these kinds of tasks once again.

~~Ashes back to England~~

Its better late than never to blog about England regaining the Ashes ! I remember the year 2005 when I have just finished my college and had a 4 month break to join my job. One of the favourite pastimes at the time was seeing the ashes series and later discuss about the same with my gang.

In fact we were thrilled to see England regaining after a gap of 16 years.

Even though they were -thrashed badly for 5-0 defeat in Australia during 2006-07, it was great to see them coming back strongly this time. Thanks to CAS in Chennai I was not able to watch the series and Internet was my only source for any information regarding Ashes.

Got this link from you tube which shows the winning moments from the final test!

~~Weekday shopping~~

If you ask me when is the best time to go for shopping ,I would say its on any evening between Tuesday to Thursday. These are the days in which you can beat the crowd and select your things patiently.These are the days you can park you bike in a space where a bus can be parked. These are the days in which you will get royal treatment from the salesman, you need not wait for your turn for the trial room nor wait for crowd to move away from the place where you need to pick your stuffs. nor you need to stand in the queue to get you things billed.Last you will get a feeling that you really enjoyed your shopping .

Today I left office early to pick up my bike from the service center ,since I was home around six o clock I decided to go to Shopper s stop where a sale was going on . I was badly in need few T shirts. Since I went alone I took time to select them. After trying out more than 10 t shirts got two shirts for 600 bucks(after 50% discount).