The Review Series !!!

A long hiatus and am back, and from now on would review literally anything and everythin which I feel needs one.

Could be eateries, movies, books, albums and the sundries !!


Starting off with restaurants.

I had hosted a party at Tangerine, Bangalore the other day. Here is the essay !!

This was the second time that I was visiting this restaurant, and nothin much had changed, not even the menu (though it was a whole 5 months since I had first visited it). Menu is good, they have a variety of sizzlers on the platter, with decent appetisers and starters on. The non vegetarian fare, especially, was a better bet (though am a pure vegetarian, my friends helped me out on that above mention). Fish and prawns tasted good, so was the chicken tender. And my bowl (rather my plate), was filled with vegetables of all kinds(had ordered for a mixed vegetable "New Orleans"). The Indian sizzlers are worth a mention, they tasted the best (on both the occasions that I had been to this place). Pasta also is worth a mention.

Ambience was cool. Songs from the college days ... and the mood was set up.

Service - well for a start, one must say that it was poor. Considering the fact that after serving our soups, no one bothered to supply us some garnishing. And to top it all, the serving times are lethargic, though surprisingly this time, our food was delivered short of 30 minutes from the point of order ...


My ratings: 3.5 /5

Summary:

Food: Decent, infact some sizzlers are excellent.
Ambience: cool ...
Price: Comes around to 300 per person(on a conservative basis)
Service: Can be improved ...

An award winning entry !!!!

For those who have not understood the title, this article fetched me a gift voucher of 500 bucks from my organisation, as the best entry in non-technical stuff in our newsletter. Kudos to me ;)

A JOURNEY TO M.G.ROAD

-A.T.Raghuram

The sun rose as usual, so did I. A tiring day the previous one, had set me into such a slumber that only US pounding Iraq may have woke me up. And so was the case, my cell phone ringing the usual “Suprabhatam” early up in the morning, something which has been reverberating in my ears for the past 22 years early up every day, thanks to the traditions set up. A typical South Indian Brahmin, I pondered.

The days that passed by, how memorable were they!!! Out of college, and in these concrete jungles, life takes a twist which one never would have expected for. Sadly, I reached out for my formals, and set out on the morning ritual, a journey to my office place, in 270 E, set to drop me at Shivaji Nagar.

I vividly remember the day, August 7^th, 2006 when I met Mr.Khasim. Slender built, with a back which had perhaps taken more abuse than the roads on which he drives his autorickshaw, the best part of his life had easily overtaken him by then. I had alighted the bus and was loitering on the road musing over the breakfast in the morning, which had set off an alarm in my tummy, when this gentleman approached me, and enquired pathetically “Kahaan jaana hain saab?”

For one moment I was shocked, the next surprised; never had anyone offered their services to take me to my office. M.G.Road perhaps is considered sinister, for any auto driver early up the morning would never be ready to take off to that place. And the worst part was that they never offered an excuse for their denial; rather shrug their shoulders in disbelief, counting me as a moron out to disturb their daily routine of towing people from one corner of the city to another at exorbitant hire rates.

Well, this was to be my day, I suppose. Khasim readily accepted, and we moved along towards M.G.Road. This day was particularly crowded, as is always around my workplace, but never did it take more than a quarter of an hour to reach. The elderly gentleman broke the silence, questioning me about my details, for which I duly replied. He made an observation stating that my Hindi sounded perfect, and so took me to be an outsider to the city, which I am. We then spoke about Bangalore and the sundry, he being an old person spoke about all the changes in the city that he had seen, that the roads were more crowded and the people more rude in their senses.

I pondered over this useless talk as I kept listening. Perhaps the old man had other ideas, perhaps he expected me to shove a token of appreciation in his hands, an extra note or so.

Or perhaps, he planned to tow me daily, which looked absurd a thought, nevertheless appeared on the cards. Or worst still, he might next ask about our address, and plan for some mischief. I made up my mind not to encourage him anymore, and remained mum.

Vijaya Bank was soon in vicinity, and I was getting sick of the Monday morning blues at work. As I was preparing to alight, Khasim broke into tears. This was unexpected, for I was sure that I was no reason for that, and moreover to see such an elderly gentleman in tears was weird. He then said that he has a daughter, 17 years of age, who has a heart transplant surgery, due to some congenital disease which was never noticed as yet. The surgery was to be held on the 10^th, yet he moved along to make money for their daily bread.

Life is strange, I thought. I was just dreaming about the days of my future in Manhattan, about the lovely things I had to achieve, and of the glories to be made. And here was a person, with simple dreams, and a strong hope of seeing a better future for his loved ones. I offered him a twenty rupee note, for the meter read sixteen. As I walked along, he called me, and gave me five bucks, and said that he had no lesser denominations. He blessed me, and requested me to pray God for his daughter.

As I trotted towards my cubicle, I realized that life is made of subtleties which can be perceived only by our heart, and that a life is less understood if we tend to miss them out. We tend to misjudge many a times, but it’s just worthwhile to think about those decisions again, for we learn from such moments. I trudged along to our CCD machine; the aroma of café au lait filled my nostrils, carrying me back about my daily routine.

Ashes 2006 !!!

One could sense a strange feeling of wanted change, when Harmison bounced Langer at Lord's last year, that the dogged spirits of the Aussies, who ruthlessly butchered everyone in their path; wavered. And for the first time in this millenium, had the Ashes walked into the hands of the proud Englishmen.

The same Harmison, instead, bowled a first ball wide, wide enough to be compared to De Freitas long hop, and that has set the tune for this year's Ashes. England were in, depleted of their captain, who architected the collapse of the Aussie dominion, were without their trust-worthy Tres, who walked out before the series with a nervous breakdown, were without their unheralded "Sultan of Swing", Simon Jones. That made it certain a result, England's win the last time around was no fluke, but this year too, their loss quite expected.

A survey conducted, to pick up the best 11 of Ashes 2005 was:

1 Justin Langer
2 Marcus Trescothick
3 Ricky Ponting
4 Michael Vaughan (c)
5 Kevin Pietersen
6 Andrew Flintoff
7 Adam Gilchrist (wk)
8 Shane Warne
9 Simon Jones
10 Steve Harmison
11 Glenn McGrath

Unfortunately this year around, I find only three of the Englishmen worth a place in this team.

My pick as of now:

1. Justin Langer
2. Matthew Hayden
3. Ricky Ponting(c)
4. Michael Hussey
5. Kevin Pietersen
6. Andrew Flintoff
7 Adam Gilchrist (wk)
8 Shane Warne
9 Stuart Clark
10 Glenn McGrath
11 Matthew Hoggard

Justin Langer did just what he knows the best, grind the opposition into submission. Though not even close to ordinary for the past 2 tests, his show at Brisbane clearly entitles him to walk through as the premier opener for this team. However, only time will tell when his position would be stripped off this team by the reliable Phil Jacques (or by Alistair Cook, the new sensation for England).

Hayden on the other hand is in the twilight zone of his career, yet showed glimpses of why he is rated as one of the most fearsome southpaws to open in Tests. Though no telling scores in this series, he still made his impact at Perth, his 92 paving way for the Ashes to be retrieved by the Oz.

Ponting -- I needn't stress much on the achievements of this man, just a mention, my personal experience is that by the time he hangs up his boots, he would have scored the most number of centuries in tests, without any scepticism.

Michael Hussey -- Just how the Australians failed to find this talent till date is out of my thought box. He averages an astonishing 70 odd in both forms of the game, truly Bradmanesque in nature. One thing I would like to see is how he fares should he play more on the featherbeds in India, against class acts like Kumble and Harbhajan.

Kevin Pietersen -- RSA must be rueing its opportunities on this lost man, and boy what a player they missed !!! The best part with Kevin is that he is probably the only player in this English side for whom the Oz have failed to build a strategy for his wicket. They rather have allowed him to build his own grave, which he seldom does given his big hitting abilities of clearing the ropes by a distance.

Andrew Flintoff -- Though his performance in this series may not have set the Thames on fire, he still is a proud man, and plays with all the determination that Hercules showed.

Adam Gilchrist -- It is just when the critics right him off does this man decide to make his own terms work. He bludgeoned his way to the second fastest hundred, and his pyrotechnics behind the stumps facing Warne and Brett Lee needs no special praise.

Shane Warne -- This man has stopped surprising me, he is there for eternity. Poised at the footstep of the most illustrious career records (700 wickets in Test matches), he is an inspiration not only for our generation but for the future to come.

Stuart Clark -- Mc Grathesque in nature, though bowls the skidders with greater precision. Made his test debut in his early thirties, he is no investment for the future, but for the moment, he deserves every single accolade he gets his way. 16 wickets in this series, and still standing, he is a revelation to the aged Ozzy workforce on the field.

McGrath -- he has always selected his bunnies, this time around, it was Cook. Dismissed three times till date, this man is a machine, he has constructed a cube on the off stump, and bowls relentlesssly quite a number of probing cells.

Matthew Hoggard -- If hype would have won a series, then this would go to Monty, but the dogged efforts of Hoggard are laudable in keeping the series alive even after the recent debacle.
Hoggard perhaps has been the best swing bowler in this series till date, and had he received some support from the others, the series would really had gone on till Melbourne, possibly Sydney.

A special mention about Ian Bell and Micheal Clarke, the "pups" of their respective sides. Both went unnerved in the process of establishing themselves as men, as they shed their youthful exuberance for a more effect oriented approach. Commendable effort by the young guns, though their places have been filled by their better counterparts in the lineup.

And for the flops, the biggest bore of this tour has been Harmison (even for a 4 for), and this guy needs to take his family around in case he plays another of those away tours. And Giles would better be confined to a wheelchair, he would do more justice to the English crown in the paralympics contests.

All in all, apart from some moments, this Ashes too turned out as the script was written ... An Aussie sweep was inevitable, all we can hope is for the Barmy Army to pump up the English team and put up a fight in the rest of the series, for their pride.

Now over to India - South Africa ... seeya later mates !!!

A Technical Article !!!!

Donno what has inspired me in writing this piece @!###@# .. but nevertheless I find it worth a mention here ..

MS ACCESS – TIPS TO USE IT

In technical jargon, I stand a “release” old now, however I faced quite a lot of flak for my inane and excessive query usages during my last project. As I referred to biblical google, I got a better idea on which databases to use, and most importantly, how to handle them.

One such study was forced on, perhaps the patch of our release made me to google around. This study is dedicated to enlighten the mishaps which we faced with MS Access, and correspondingly its misuse inspite of the presence of MS SQL server.

MS Access is a desktop application, it behaves more or less like an excel workbook. It is a cheap and easy to use database application (few argue that it is not even a database, it is a frontend for an external database server, they say).

So much for the advantages. The disadvantages with an Access database are as:

1). It cant be loaded!!! I mean, its capacity would not go more than a gb as far as I see, it slows down relatively after that.

2). Don’t shoot too many queries. This must be the case with any database per se, but then with Access, it takes ages to retrieve any information in such cases, which again is from a personal experience. To put it in an example, one of my projects had to fetch data from two different tables with a join to relate. However, I failed to understand the nature of joins, and ended up writing 3 different queries to fetch the data. All this is just an 8mb .mdb file. It took a tremendous 90 seconds for us to open our web page, and the query had to be changed immediately to a single one. This does pinpoint at some of the inefficiency in the coding practice, nevertheless taught an important lesson of not to hit an ACCESS database was too often.

3). It needs to be dumped on a server to make it accessible to various people, which in itself is a security threat.

4). No concurrent connections please!!! It could crash if there are too many concurrent connections, thus disabling you from the option of using it for heavy traffic websites. Experts quote a maximum of 3 concurrent connections, thus making it worthwhile for a use as a personal database.

5). Locking up and crashing problems: One cannot open an access database file during the run of the application, as it results in access database locking the information that it possesses. Thus we run into a high risk of rendering corrupted records.

6). Most importantly, no more stored procedures!!! Hows that for a bumpy ride?

In short, be sure before using an access database, its relatively easy for household applications (or that’s the way it could be termed as), but not for serious requirements.

I was wondering whether this would be the right way to get back to blogging ... but then this has been churned out of an immense experience over the years, in assessing Hollywood flicks to the core.

My observations:

Out of every ten americans in a school.

First one is who liberally uses the four-lettered expletives at will(words which would be filtered from my office mail), and would identify any bearded person with ......... (no religious/racial/sectorial abuse meant).

Second one boozes, smokes, dopes and lives happily with his fellow-mates

The third is well built, so too well built that he feels he deserves a place in Vietnam, and goes ahead ga-ga over Mr.President, and joins the army (his father ends up with a confused look, "Jimmy Who???"

4th-5th are Chinese

6th-7th are Indians

8th - Is a nerd who ends up participating in spelling bee competitions, stales at fancy colleges and eventually ends in NASA

9th - a black muscular angel from Harlem, who realises after grade school that he was destined to become a basketball pro, and then the "Mighty Ducks", his team pumps him up before he takes a slam dunk .002 seconds before finish in the univ tournaments .... those moments ... aaaarrrrgggghhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!

10th - Goes on war with Iraq(Iran ??? who cares, they all seem the same ... ) and ponders on joining the democrats (republics ??? who cares, they all seem the same !!!!)

By the way, the 7 out of the top ten are obese ....

The 6th Indian would have been posted for a while from a well-to-do-MNC.

The 7th Indian is finishing his studies !!!!

So much for my observations ...

And please throw in a !@#!@# title for these stupid observations !!!

Are we the best ???

Antaraatma !!!!

"Proud to be an IITian" --- this was the first ever one liner on an IITG T-shirt that I had worn. Truly, every person who gets through the rigours of preparation for an entrance to this institution is entitled to think in his own way, which I thoroughly respect. And hence do I request that viewer discretion would be advised, and that the material I produce is just my perception, if it does coincide with anyone's accounts, then kindly forgive me. A further request, I would not blog to boast, some of these are my true feelings which I would want to present, coz its high time I did that, and if anyone does know me, he would understand my intention right away ...

This essay starts where it ends. I met a high profile person, Mr.Himanshu Tewari, HR Head, India Operations, Transocean Ltd. just a few weeks back (For readers outside, I happen to be one fortunate person who gets to meet these kinds of people all the time). So was he special, truly yes, for he himself was a proud alumni of the system which I hail from, IIT. He wanted me to answer some of his questions, which he informed me were meant to be easy going. As I geared myself, the first question was "Have you justified your being an IITian?". That left me bewildered, and has thus forced me to sound out these feelings for once.

Of course, its easy to play the blame game, IIT never provided me what I wanted, what I had expected, what I always wished for. And thus does it make no sense in obliging it with something. But then, what have we done?

At the fag end of my UG career, I have forced myself once or twice to think about the aftermaths of my life at IITG. Quote:
What some consider the same ol' crap:

I went through the annals of history on wikipedia.org (how I love my homepage), and this is what I found, "IIT's" were an executive plan to work on the lines of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Initially recommended as Higher Institute of Technologies, they were later renamed as IIT's, and on the birth of the first one in Kharagpur, Our Honble PM Jawaharlal Nehru quoted,

"Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India."

Changes, yes he was right. It did change the sphere of education to a great extent, and the brand IIT soon was referred to the phrase "They sell like hot cakes". Days came along, the early batches did provide comfort to a certain extent, a majority of them as I do see, returning back to the IITian culture to teach us. They tried to resurrect the image forlorn by many others. Slowly, but surely things started looking good.

And now, all we do is boast of the impetus they provided to the "so-called" brand value. Guys, first yearites, consider themselves honchos, now that they are within the safe walls of an IIT. So what ?? I mean, well, the people outside too flourish. My friends still find me strange when I say that IITians are not the best, for I feel they are too deep rooted not to accept our defeat.
The defeat being, we too are "sheep" (read: Blog on Animals, Pink Floyd which would be coming soon), sheep in the herd.

People out here look at the following possibilities. A majority of them plan to do their Masters in US, stating reasons that India doesn't provide good education. True, but then if not them, then who would do that for the generations to come. Mr.Himanshu spoke it all right. "We guys think we are the best, we run to those univs. outside, but tell me, has anyone, literally anyone
managed to become a Nobel Laureate?". True, so true, has an IITian, the so called demi-god managed that till date ??

And some more, sheep like me, move to work in MNC's, which pay huge bucks, and little do we realise that this was not what was intended of us. We take pride in saying that atleast, we are ending up paying taxes to the Indian Government. Partly, thats the only satisfaction left out with us.

And the rest, they venture out for their MBA's, thus planning to become bigshots at early stages. No offences, its very much one's life, and spend it the way he likes.

But then, conscience, who answers that ?? I shamelessly accept that fact that I too have been sold out. But deep there, I need to answer all those questions I did state above. Yes, IITians mebbe intellectually great, but TRULY ARE NOT THE BEST !!!! Agree it or not, you wanna comment go ahead, but thats the way it is !!!

I dont expect everyone to end up doing their IAS, dont stand with the "work for the government" kinda philosophy. But then, some way that we give it back to the society, so as to make it a better place for all .. we need to think about that. I presume that at this point, I do need to stress upon organisations which are working for the upliftment of the society, and where
surprisingly, a majority of the members are just college passouts, who too want to shine and achieve dizzy heights in their life. They still possess the minimum etiquettes of serving the society, and so do we all need to.

I need to plan now, plan my future usefully, and devote a certain part of it for the aforementioned, thats my duty. And my duty starts with a mention about Pankhudi, for more information, please see

http://www.pankhudi-india.org/bangalore/

And now I go back, to my worktable, let Prasanna soothe my soul. And I shall blog, blog more, for my reasons and thoughts are quite still unfinished business.

P.S.: Dilbert was true about Ashok, nevertheless he missed some subtle points.

Adios,
Ghurram.

Romance is in the air !!!!

For the readers outside IITG, its my pleasure to inform that we had a "cult eve" the other night in our campus, with guys rockin and head bangin' for all that was played by the college band, added by some sterling performances by few debutantes. The playlist was awesome, and the overall show quite decent. But what struck me profoundly was what one of the band members did, by dedicating a song to his soulmate, which being "One Last Breathe" by "Creed" struck a note with quite a few out there.

That incident made me compile what I think are some of the best romantic odes ever. The list could be endless, but I would put these now (for my memory card doesn't support too much).

Glen Mederios "Nothin's gonna change my love for you"

Eagles "Best of my love","Pretty Maids" (Some may even wonder whether this could classify in this list)

Bryan Adams "I'm ready" (a good inclusion)

Bryan Adams yet again "Let's make a night to remember"

U2 "Grace" ???

U2 "With or without you"

Coldplay "Warning Sign"

Maroon 5 "She will be loved" ---- Strange inclusion, one could presume.

Creed "One last breath","My Sacrifice","With arms wide open"

Hoobastank "The reason"

Bee Gees "Words" ............................................

But then, what if words fail ??? (Paradox hits again, coz' I'd be using words to describe this situation") Well, we can fall back on some instrumental sessions, maybe you prefer Kenny G or Yanni for that.

Kenny G

"Even if my heart would break" is a classic in that genre. "Forever in love", "I will always love you" .... two other classics for the same master.

Yanni

Pick up any instrumental, preferably Nostalgia, play them at a low volume in a deserted restaurant where you would go to.

And if none of the above work, well you have a safe bet to always rely upon, "My Heart Will Go On" --- Titanic.

I welcome the purists to comment on the above selection , for that would only help me improve my knowledge regards music. And I regret for having left out some, mainly belonging to Hindi and Telugu, but thats because you have a "Try-to-feel-like- romantic" song in any movie that you pick up, they are just too many to be rated.

And for all you friends at IITG, I dedicate "So Long My Friend" ------ Yanni, you really make me feel proud.