What is cooking today?

So I waited as the cooker was letting out steam slowly. Very slowly. It has just started cooking. Atleast I think it is cooking. I verified the stove and it was on. Five minutes and I am still waiting. I heard someone saying that it might take a while, so let me say whats cooking. With Chini away in India enjoying mom made breakfast, lunch and dinner and fresh juices in between, I decided to take the bold step to cook; something I rarely do from the time Big bang happened. You know when the everything came out of nothing! Nothing related though.

Anyway, after making few attempts like chutneys and Chicken curries (see in Facebook ;) ), I decided on the ultimate dish of Mushroom biryani. As always, I thought it is going to an easy day.

The morning had started long before I woke up and I met it only around 11 AM. Chini has already called twice and it was time to begin the weekend now. So without much ado, i started to make preparations for biryani. Chini dictated the recipe in exact metric units. Similar to Parthiban questioning Vadivelu the value of “a punch”, I am always ridiculed by the measurement terms like “a pinch” or “little”. How much really is a pinch? is it 2 grams or 5 grams? Or does it depend upon the density of what we are measuring? And there is always a difference in the value of pinch based on who is taking it right. And what is the size of little? There is ‘little’ Stuart in the size of a mouse and he says he eats large Gold fish biscuit which if you ask me is “little”. Chini already annoyed with my questioning decided to make it simple. All measurements will always be in cups or teaspoons. (she confirmed i need to measure to the top flat level)

After getting the recipe from Chini, it is time to get all ingredients. She already informed me that Biryani masala powder is there in home and i just need to get Onions, tomato and mushrooms. I could use Sona Masoori rice instead of Basmati. But suddenly my stomach started to say something. I am Hungry and it is 12 PM already. So I decided to have lunch outside and then get the ingredients on the way. After much searching for a quick bite, I found the only food I have appetite for is Biryani. But that is not going to be ready for another 2 hours (if I start in the next 5 minutes). So I went to Rice ‘n’ Roti and got non vegetarian meals with Chicken biryani and “Mushroom” curry. Filled with heavy lunch, I then decided to take a rest.

Relaxed on the couch after watching Jim playing pranks on Dwight, I finally decided to get back to “Mushroom” biryani at around 3 PM. Cooker on the stove and ghee hot in it. I chopped the onions and started frying in the cooker. As soon as it turned Golden brown, I added the half tomato mixing it continuously to avoid sticking to the bottom. That is when I realized I need to search for masala powder. Going through the kitchen shelf, refrigerator and the oven, I found that I cannot find the powder which means that it isn’t there in home. You know what that means? It means it is NOT going to be an easy day.

Now is a hard choice to make. I either run to the grocery store and get the masala before the onion burns or I could throw away the onions and buy mushroom biryani from the restaurant near by. I could not take the second choice as I do not like that restaurant much. So switching off the stove, I drove fast to the grocery store and found biryani masala for 2 dollars. The problem now is the Indian grocery stores do not accept credit card for below 5 dollars purchase and unfortunately I did not have any cash. So I hunted for 3 dollars worth food and I found only the raw materials for making food. Another trouble. After searching all the aisles, I found Parampara, something much closer to finished food. Returning back to home, I continued the operation. After adding 4 teaspoons of Biryani masala powder and constant stirring, it started smelling good. It really is going to be good. Next ingredient on the line was 3 cups of water. My fear that if you think everything is going good, it means there is something wrong altogether just got real. I had used the small cooker of 3 liter size which will become full if I add 3 cups of water. Now I have to transfer all the contents from the small cooker to the larger cooker. Tired of making stupid mistakes, I did what I had to do.

Everything transferred, I then started washing rice. And that is when I realized that I could have bought basmati rice when I went to the grocery store. Biryani would be very tasty with basmati rice. And that is also when I realized I could have bought basmati rice for 3 dollars instead of Parampara mix. Thinking all that I could have done, I washed the available Sona Masoori rice and just when I was about it mix it, I found mushroom lying on the side - uncut, unwashed, uncooked and obviously un-mixed. Damn. And so the large cooker was put on low heat, and I started frying the mushrooms in the small cooker. After 15 minutes and 1 hour since I started cooking, I realized I am finally closer to finishing it. After multiple checks on the recipe and thinking many times on what more mistakes could be made in making of mushroom biryani, i finally added the rest of the ingredients including washed rice, fried mushrooms and 1 teaspoon of salt for taste. Everything added, I closed the lid and put on the whistle and I waited.

PS: By the time I finished writing this, the cooker has already made 5 whistles asking me to take it off the hot stove. Mushroom biryani is finally ready and is waiting for any volunteers to taste it.

PPS: After much contemplation and some encouragement from Chini, I took the task myself and tasted it.

PPPS: I did it. Mushroom biryani smells, feels and tastes like Mushroom biryani. seriously guys, It is real good and I am going to keep it all for myself.

Action Army - An Action movie

I have been thinking about this movie for the past 20 years. And that was when I started watching our Tamil heroes super action movies. It was when I was introduced to super power megablasting stars like Sathyaraj, Vijaykanth and many others. And it was not just the 80s that were awesome, Indian James Bond JaiSankar also made me rethink about the song and sentiments dominated tamil film industry. Finally this story is going to bring all these heroes together for us now.

The movie starts with our hero one and only Vijaykanth who is living in PattiveeranPatti talking on phone with Airtel customer care representative. He says “Hello”. The lightning strikes in the background. And we enter for the title song. Lot of girls are dancing with cellphone in their hand pointing it like a gun. The lyrics goes like “He is the new iPhone 4. Powered by open Android. He is a Robo. He says Hello” and our Hero keeps on saying hello with different phones while wearing bluetooth headset on the other ear.

The movie continues. “yema ponnu, ithu ennoda 400avathu call.” speaks Vijaykanth.
“No sir. Our records show this is only your 3rd call to us.”comes back the reply. The sweet voice belongs to the college going part time working school dress wearing Nayantara.

“Ennaku athu theriyatha. Naan sonnathu intha mobila naan pannikirukira motha calls. But unga billula 410 calls bill pannirukeenga. Yennu theringukalama?”

“Of course sir. But why are you worried about 10 calls and wasting 20 minutes of everyone’s time. For wasting all these time, you could have commented to 100 persons in Facebook. Oh sorry! I think you village man would not know what facebook is” Nayantara replies back bored to getting stuck with an old voice.

Vijaykanth simply smiles and starts talking.
“Facebook was invented by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004.
Now it has a total of 500 million active users.
In 20 minutes, following happens in Facebook.
Tagged photos: 1.3 million
Event invites sent out: 1.5 million
Wall Posts: 1.6 million
Status updates: 1.8 million
Friend requests accepted: 1.97 million
Photos uploaded: 2.7 million
Messages: 4.6 million 
Comments: 10.2 million
Nayantara is now mesmerized and falls in love with Vijaykanth. But before she could speak anything the call disconnects. Our hero just sensed bad guys in his house. He goes to the kitchen and finds that all knifes and utensils are gone. He has nothing but a Coke bottle to fight with. He smiles and takes it out to the hall. Out of nowhere, 100 gangsters surround him with AK 47. Vijaykanth shakes the coke bottle vigorously. Everyone starts laughing. Then all of a sudden, he releases the cap and the compressed fizz comes out of the bottle and starts attacking everyone like a fire engine water hose. All villains are caught in surprise and they die to the powerful Coke. After the fizz gets over, the remaining guys start shooting. Vijayakanth deflects the bullets with the empty bottle and kills the final bad guy by throwing the bottle at his mouth.
Realizing that the Secret Indian Crime Kommittee wants him dead and must have been planning for a long time, he drives to Chennai to save Nayantara who he is in Love with. Why else would he wanted to call Airtel Customer care and talk about 10 calls for 20 minutes.
Nayantara is still in office trying to work, but starts dreaming. The first duet song starts. “Hello caller. I Love you Kalvar. Oh Dark knight. It is a dark night.” Vijaykanth is seen walking around Nayantara who keeps on changing dresses every second.” When she wakes up, her shift is over and she leaves the office. While walking back home through dark alley, 10 guys start chasing her and start shooting with AK47. It is the SICK guys alright. If you did not notice, SICK stands for Secret Indian Crime Kommittee. Nayantara runs off with high heels and short skirt and falls into the arms of one and only Vijaykanth. This time, with no coke around, he fights with Aquafina water bottle taken from Nayantara’s bag and kills all 10 of them with the final one choked by covering the water bottle over his head.
Vijaykanth tells that he was the person who called her in the morning. Surprisingly, she starts loving him more and more. They both then travel to see his senior secret CID agent JaiSankar. JaiSankar and Vijaykanth had worked together for SICK and are retired now. JaiSankar lives as a school teacher preaching Ahimsa for 2 second standard students. Seeing each other after long years, they talk about their past and tears drop from JaiSankar’s eyes. They soon realize the killings relate to a very old mission in SriLanka. Nayantara points out a newspaper that mentions that a female journalist was killed in an accident recently and another column about young man who was wearing a kurta and jeans pant was also shot dead. Vijaykanth and Nayantara goes to visit the female journalist’s parents. They know the young man was shot dead for his bad dress taste.

The mother of the journalist is Manoramo aachi and she speaks about her life and Amma and finally says that her daughter’s laptop, computer and iphone were taken away by AK47 yielding policemen the night her daughter was killed. Lucky for our hero, they left iPad because they couldn’t decide whether to classify it as a gigantic phone or laptop. While they were wondering where to find clues about the killings, Nayantara realizes that there is an App for that. So with few taps and swipes she retrieved a list of people’s names. Vijaykanth was impressed and he loves her more.
Unable to figure out what the list means, Vijaykanth decides he has to meet the action King. Once considering himself as the reincarnation of Bruce Lee, this action King became a discipline of Superhero Vijaykanth very soon and carried out several missions for the nation mostly by jumping and punching the villains for he is short. Action King Arjun also happens to be the most knowledgeable person of all SICK activities. Though old now, he believes himself to be still an young soldier and tries hard jumping higher and higher. Arjun figures out that the persons in the list belong to the team that carried out a secret mission in Srilanka 25 years ago.
In the mean time, CBI officer Jayam Ravi is given the order by his boss Nagma to kill Vijaykanth immediately. Jayam Ravi as a loyal officer agrees to shoot our hero and salutes her. He sets up a trap in a night club where Vijaykanth, Arjun and Nayantara are having dinner. Arjun always vigilant figures out the trap and dances on the stage to distract the CBI officers. Shreya who happens to be dancer for the hotel also dances with him with clothes as minimum as possible. Threatened by the screen time, Nayantara pulls Vijaykanth to the stage and all four dance to an item song. “I am hungry. I eat Jangery. Aadi pada vaa nee”. At the end of the song, Arjun cuts off the lights and Shreya helps them run through the dark while the officers search for the torch light. Remember Vijaykanth need not carry torch light. He has night vision eyes by birth. But when Jayam Ravi using iPhone app for torch light fires a bazooka at them, Vijaykanth gets in the middle and saves Nayantara even though he gets hurt on the arm while deflecting it.
Hurt and running from the CBI, army and SICK people, our heroes reach the Lady Superstar Vijayasanthi’s house who was a police officer once and had beaten up rowdies and corrupt politicians for long time. She treats Vijaykanth’s wounds which got transferred from right arm where he was hurt originally to left arm. Nayantara feeling sad about the wound cry holding his right arm while the wound is transferred again to left arm. They sing for the next song in Alaska. Nayantara shows she is a strong person by showing well in the snow. Vijaykanth just smiles and walks in Pink colored coat.
With JaiSankar returning to the group and the action team grown stronger to five including Vijaykanth, Nayantara, Arjun and Vijayashanthi, they decide that they have to go to CBI office to find more information. And the only person who knows how to get inside is the ex-ISI agent Mansor Ali Khan who was also lover of Vijayashanthi. But she had to shoot him to show her loyalty to Indian Police. Hurt both in body and heart Mansor has become bit mentally ill and is always seen with uncombed hair and speaking drunk. Also an enemy to Vijaykanth and Arjun and was hunted for many crimes including smuggling, terrorism and for being simply crazy, they knew it is a difficult but the only choice they have. Unwilling to help first, Mansor finally agrees so that he can see his lost love at last.
Together as a team, they infiltrate CBI building and gets the secret documents from Documents Keeper Charu Hassan who patiently tell them that he is counting on them for bringing out the truth to the world. After fierce fighting and blowing up the whole building, the action team leaves unharmed. Jayam Ravi was hurt in the battle but starts to think that Vijaykanth might be a good guy and questions Nagma. Nagma wearing high make up and low cut blouse warns him not to question her and just follow the orders. He dreams about his past with Nagma when they were lovers until she gets promoted and dumps him. He remembers the good old days dancing for a song in Africa.
With the new information, they find that only one person other than Vijaykanth is still alive. That is Sathyaraj now a Mayor and about to become the next chief minister. The secret mission in Srilanka was to extract Sathyaraj who was on peace mission was caught misbehaving with local people there and was eventually held as prisoner. Fearing that the news might affect his political future, he is killing all the persons involved. The team confront Sathyaraj in a forest bungalow in Ooty and ask him to surrender. But lying that he is innocent, he escapes from the heroes. Vijayashanthi and Nayantara who are watching from outside the bungalow realize it is a trap and they are surrounded by CBI officers. Jayam Ravi calls Vijaykanth and asks him to surrender so that nobody will be killed. “Surrender. That is the only word I never like in any language” replies back our hero and they start fighting. Hundreds of CBI and army men fight against our three heroes who fight with pistols, swords and throwing back the grenades. There are even replays for the best catches and throws by our heroes and the verdict is always OUT. After enraging gun battle, heroes finally escape only to leave JaiSankar shot dead in the end and Nayantara gets captured by Jayam Ravi.
Wounded and worried about the loss of their dear senior friend, Arjun and Vijaykanth sing a patriotic inspiring song along with Vijayashanthi and they decide that they will fight to death to bring out the truth. Nayantara in the mean time was tortured by Nagma. Nagma threatens to kill Vijaykanth if she does not tell her where Vijaykanth is. Nayantara gets confused whether she should consider Nagma as a real CBI officer or not. When Nagma was trying to torture her more, she gets a call from Vijaykanth. He challenges her that he is going to kidnap Sathyaraj in a ceremony that night.
The CBI protected ceremony opens with Anuska dance on the stage and Jayam Ravi keeps on talking on his walkie talkie asking everyone to be alert. Sathyaraj mesmerized by Anuska walks to the stage to congratulate her performance. With a surprising twist, Anuska removes her face mask revealing it was Vijaykanth dancing all along. The fight starts again and Vijaykanth escapes with Sathyaraj by breaking the wall with his fist and making his own way to the escape van driven by Arjun. Vijayashanthi gets hurt in the middle of the fight and when she is about to be killed by 3 CBI officers, Mansor AliKhan saves her and carries her away safe.
For the final showdown, Vijaykanth arranges an exchange of Sathyaraj for Nayantara in an abandoned warehouse. Jayam Ravi’s doubt that he might not be on the good side gets cleared when he reads the documents left by Vijaykanth for him. He switches side in the last minute and the fight reaches the climax with Arjun and Jayam Ravi fighting the bad guys; Nayantara fighting Nagma and Vijaykanth kicking Sathyaraj’s ass. Sathyaraj captures Nayantara and threatens Vijaykanth and says “Yenn Character-iye Purinjika Matengiriye”. Vijaykanth gets very angry and starts speaking for 15 minutes continuously. Sathyaraj becomes deaf and surrenders and Nagma turns good and falls on Jayam Ravi’s legs. The film ends with Vijaykanth & Nayantara, Vijayashanthi & Mansor, Jayam Ravi & Nagma walking away followed by Arjun and Shreya who just happens to be a dancer in a bar near by.


Postnotes:

• This is not a original story. I would never think like this. It is just a remake of the english movie RED.
• There was a tough competition on who to cast for Jayam Ravi’s character. But for remakes, who else will be suitable better.
• I would have considered Rajnikanth and Kamal, but the movie is about retired people and we know they never retire.
• RED was actually a good film to watch. While the director rightly termed it as Action comedy, our Kollywood would simply release it as action movie which would be comedy for the viewers.
• If you have read the story and still reading, you are the biggest jobless person in the world. As for me, what to do? I am bored and alone as Chini is enjoying her vacation in India.

Resident Evil: Afterlife - Breathing in the third dimension

Raise your right hand and repeat after me. "Resident Evil is a movie made from a game. I know this is not a movie like Matrix. I will expect neither story nor logic for the next 97 minutes. I will purely enjoy the action and special effects which ever is thrown at me. ALICE."

Good. Now you are all set to enjoy the fourth installment of Resident Evil film which is based on Resident Evil games series. As I have not played the game series, I will not comment on how much it lives up to the game fans. Instead, as a viewer of all the previous movies and a fan of Part 1, I can assure you that Afterlife is really awesome. If the second and third parts had lowered your interest in Resident Evil, think again. They have done it right this time. The main reason I can say that is because of the 3D. As published in the trailers, they have used James Cameron's Fusion Camera System which he used in Avatar and the results are awesome. Though you might feel that they have overdone it to show everything in 3D, I actually liked it. Especially the rain which is shown so many times in the movie.
Coming to the story, it keeps you guessing all the time. Don't take it as suspense. It is the director's indecision on how to take his characters ahead.
While the ending of the previous film (Extinction) promised a war with army of cloned ALICEs, you are given little treatment of it. Instead, few other characters emerge and few new monsters show up to bite you. And whatever characters included in the movie both recurring and new have nothing more to do than shoot, kill and die. Ali Carter as Claire is good to watch fighting the Executioner. But I knew I cannot expect more as ALICE as the protagonist have to face the camera and say "I am gonna kill you" every 5 minutes. Sometimes, it even reminded me of Viay.
After a series of gun fights and monster kills in "Left 4 Dead" style and even a dog crossed with Alien, you feel very much satisfied with this movie. Only regret is that they could have made more Executioners. Loved the gigantic axe yielding monster very much. May be we will find more in the sequel (of course, it is a never ending franchise) as Afterlife ends with Jill leading an assault fleet in control of the Evil Umbrella Corporation.

Overall, a movie other than Avatar to have lived up (sometimes better) to the 3D experience.

Lets put a smile on that face

It surprises me to think that less than a millimeter thickness is all that is different between sharp and the blunt edge of a knife. In general, knife or a dagger is a beautiful invention of human kind. It acts as the creator as well as the destroyer depending upon who yields it. Even as a kid, I always like to play with knifes. A swift cut on the carrot slicing it neatly into two is a favorite pass time of mine. That is why I was a good kid always ready to help my mom in the kitchen with cutting and dicing the vegetables. And that is why my skills in cooking ends with cutting the vegetables. I am glad my mom restricted my chores to cutting only vegetables and fruits, for if I was given the honor to cutting the meat pieces as a kid, a slasher movie named “INJEY hostel” would be made will be a small exaggeration only.
A lover of Kill Bill, but calm at heart I channeled my cutting skills to aesthetic purposes like vegetable and fruit carving. I started creating wedged tomatoes and guavas, onion rings and served watermelon as balls instead of slices. The art of road side cucumber sellers in making flower style cuts on a single cucumber dividing them into two and each looking as if it is a whole cucumber astonished me greatly. Even if you call it as just cheating, I call it artfully cheating. And for the petty money they make, I do not complain them.
While my largest passion and career choice (computers) called for cut, copy and paste, I did not enjoy it as much as cutting vegetables (NOTE: I meant cut,copy and paste only). After landing in US, my eyes dropped on cutting only one object and every October I felt very close to reaching it. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was not shared by others around me and I had to wait 3 years before getting the chance finally. And so this year, I finally bought my first pumpkin to carve. It was not without many hurdles and “NO” that I had to fight hard to get the small sized pumpkin. Chini’s argument was that it is a Christian festival. I went “huh?”. After heavy persuasive discussions and threatening that I will not eat pumpkin forever and finally after getting the support of Tommy boy’s girl (who was equally opposed by Tommy boy), I got the one that I was longing for a long time.
The day of carving did not come early though as the auspicious date and time to cut a pumpkin was not found in the calendar and we had to wait a week since getting the pumpkin. So it stood smiling for a week with sharp teeth and Rajini’s hair that I had drawn on it. And one good sunday, the time did come and with little help from youtube, we started to give new face for our orange friend. And it definitely was a wonderful experience right from cutting the scalp and scooping out of the juicy and sticky pulp inside. [Warning: Please do not imagine human head for a pumpkin. The things we are going to do will make you throw up.] When we could not clean the inside with the ice cream scoop which finally was broken by over-enthusiastic Tommy boy, we had to use the hands. This is where Chini did a wonderful job and cleaned all the long thin fibers sticking out of the inner wall. And Tom had cleaned it very much that it was as smooth as the inside of a skull.
With the pulp out, now it is time for serious carving. We did not have to sketch the eyes for our pumpkin as we had drawn it earlier. I pressed the knife edge over the left eye and pushed it slowly to keep the hole small. After three simple cuts, a triangular piece feel off from the face what was an eye before. More care was taken when removing the right eye as we did not want the pumpkin to end with squint eyes. This was more tough for tom, as they are carving the eyes for the first time. Coming down to the mouth which really is the toughest part of all as any mistake in that will make the pumpkin toothless. With multiple styles replaced we went for the regular 3 teeth on top and bottom and Chini took on the task as she considers teeth to be precious. Believe me when I say it for I try hard every day to find a way to escape from multi-time brushing of teeth daily. After long careful cuts and small adjustments on the left and right making the mouth wide more open than planned, the pumpkin was finally done.
We did wash it with water and polished its face with Crisco Vegetable oil. Imagining it now, it is like wiping the face with your own blood. I am feeling guilty for being so cruel. And finally to complete celebration, we lit up a candle inside and saw the bright light out of the open eyes and mouth and also the small nose we pierced in the end. And there it was. Our Pumpkin shining for the Halloween celebration boo-ing away the ghosts and burning more than we wanted as the candle fire ignited the oil lining on the inside of the pumpkin.

My mobile battery was down

“My mobile battery was down”. Was that a lie? No. But was it the answer to the question? May be not. But everyone assumed it. I did not attend the call not because my mobile battery was down, which seems correct. But there is always a land line. The truth is, I did not remember about the call. Coming to think of it, I did not remember because my mobile did not remind me with the alarm. And the reason for that is "My mobile battery was down". Looks like I was not lying at all.
“Are you alright?”, a colleague asked me. I obviously was not listening in the meeting. “I am alright. Just that I did not sleep well yesterday night.” I lied. The meeting went on as usual with few talking and none listening. The meeting appears to be a time for everyone to meet without any agenda. So people even talked about what the agenda should be. I never listened and I am not listening now. My mind was everywhere except the meeting. As my ears picked few buzz words like “deadlines”, “deep dive”, “out of the box”, my fingers were swiping the polished table. It was drawing short horizontal lines removing the thin layer of dust that has settled in. After few swipes, the coarse dust has come off and it was all smooth. My finger tip liked it better now. I kept on rubbing it for a while applying pressure more and more. Slowly the smoothness was gone and the finger tip no longer was going straight. The friction increased and the table could not keep it quiet. It started screaming with screeching noise. The more and more I moved my finger against the table, the more the sound increased. It was as if the table was in pain. Ironic, for it was me who was in pain. Still it kept screaming and the pitch went on higher and higher. And then in a sudden moment, I stopped. The room was in silence. The table stopped screaming. I looked around where everyone was staring at me. Wide blank eyes all focussed at my face wondering what has happened. They would not understand. None of them would. I moved back my chair and ran out of the conference room. I was sweating all over my face. My fingers would not be still. Emptiness was sticking on my hand and I did not like it one bit.
Running fast to the men's room, I was glad that nobody was inside. The mirror showed a very tired face. Tired and longing hard for something to happen. Turning on the tap, I washed my face trying to find some strength. The warm water took away some of the drowsy look on the face. But the heart still felt the unrest in my mind. I looked at the mirror which could have showed a better face if not for the water vapors settling on it hiding away the reflection. I touched the glass wiping the water slowly to get back the view of my face. The more I try to clean the mirror, the more I felt the heart pounding faster. The face was turning pale again even though I couldn't stop swiping on the mirror which was already clean. I keep swiping faster and faster until I heard the sound of someone entering the room. Not willing to get caught, I rushed out of the men's room after successfully evading a crash with a stout gentleman. I walked in panic towards my cubicle holding on the walls once in a while and trying hard not to get others' attraction. Nevertheless there were few who would turn with a suspicious look. An awkward smile was all I could give them and with the dizziness increasing more, I leaned against the wall, dragging myself toward the cubicle. With just few feet to go, I could feel my air ducts close making me suffocate in a wide open air conditioned room. My fingers screeching against the wall only said that the wall is not smooth enough. With few seconds left to pass out, I entered my cubicle and tried to scream for help. But as fate would play, my voice was gone and my little puff searching for air could not alert the chair-glued nerds from the next terminals. With nobody to help, I took my phone of which mobile battery was down from my pocket. With only few ticks away from losing consciousness, I plugged the charger pin to the mobile trying to wake it up. Few seconds and even another passed and I know I do not have another second left. My repeated press on the buttons were not worthy, as I passed out on my desk.
Time either a minute or an year is always a blink of an eye for those who are just waking up from the dark void. It was the familiar chime that woke me up. I was not sure how long I had passed out. Oxygen was rushing to my lungs and my brain could get the energy first to hear followed by a blurred sight of the mobile screen lightened up. With the vibrations of the chime sending more oxygen to the lungs, my brain finally got the scent of my small cubicle feeling it home. The fourth sense was already up as I eagerly reached for the mobile with my hand. I touched the screen that caused a tingling sensation that spread through my body rejunivating the muscles that were almost dead for so long. I followed the instruction "Slide to answer". "Hello" I said. I could talk and my voice was back. "What took you so long to answer the phone?" asked my wife on the line. "I don't know.... my mobile battery was down". I said. It was true. I should have never let the battery of my iphone get drained.

Birthday wishes of the year 2010

It has been a week since my birthday. And it was a good one too if we look forward for the years to come and not worry about the years gone by and apparently the number of candles I blew before cutting the cake. Chini had to keep them stand in a large bowl to avoid using fire extinguisher over the cake.
Anyway, the day went good. Few surprises, great food and treatment equal to a free man! Now I am waiting for another year even though I know I will have to blow off a bonfire next time. Coming to the point, the birthdays are always special and something you count on other than the presents are for everyone’s wishes.

Starting from your school days where you could wear casual dress while everyone comes in a uniform and walking to all class rooms and hear everyone sing “Happy Birthday” for you, birthdays are really special to celebrate. As you move up the years, you get more than wishes and include cake on your face and kick on your butt. I wonder why people do that. But everyone got it for their birthday and so you would want one too. Happy day of the year! Back to the birthday wishes now. How different we celebrate our birthday and wherever we are, there is always one thing that makes the day a real birthday. It is the simple two words “happy birthday”. With the world being so big and our dear ones spread apart so far, we are wished by so many means. Apart from the telephone that made them sound closer, e-cards and social networking sites made everyone just few clicks away. So my birthday this year too had lot of wishes sent through various forms.


With nothing better to do, I thought it would be fun (for me) to chart down the numbers and statistics.

There were a total of 70 wishes including all advance and belated wishes. And as if everyone is closer by technology than reality, most of the wishes are through internet with 26 from Facebook itself. This is really a surprise as until last year, Orkut was the most widely used networking site in India. I believe lots of us were bribed to move to Facebook by games like Farmville and Mafia wars. There were a total of 12 wishes through telephone and 8 by electronic email which includes a cute message from my one-year old niece. While these numbers are normal like every other year, the shocking numbers come from SMS messages – Just 2. The guy who was banned by Aircel for sending SMS messages over the limit during college days received just 2 messages for his birthday. Time truly changes as years pass by. This could also be because of being in US away from free messages in India. Other surprising counts are from instant messaging and e-cards with 3 and 1 respectively. There would not have been any e-card if not for my in-laws. Thanks to them. I did get 7 greeting cards made of wood pulp commonly known as paper though 6 of them came from my Chini and the other one surprisingly from the apartment office. Now to rank the various wishes, the first phone call was from my dad, sisters and mom; instant message from Tirupur; Facebook and Orkut from Chini’s friends Karthikeyan and Mathan respectively; email from Kumaran; SMS once again by dad and the person to wish directly and through greeting card and also the first one to wish on the birthday is none other than Chini. Thank you. And whats more! She is the only one who gave me gifts in this year. So you guys not to feel bad, I am still accepting presents. Gift cards and credit through online transfers accepted.

PS: I have to speak about those who forgot to wish me too. Hey loosu, where were you? You used to wish me every year. Perippa, you forgot it. I had to call you for the second year now. Balappa, you almost forgot and anyway you are the last one to wish me. I am glad for that. And for the rest, that is ok. There is always the next year.

iPhone and my wife

There are two topics that have a lot to be talked and battled about, but I rarely discussed about them so far. They are nothing other than my iPhone and my wife mentioned in no specific order. Though the most precious of all, my wife and my iPhone (in the order written) have limited mentions in my blog. Well, there is a reason for that. iPhone as everyone knows is the single device that changed the entire face of the cell phone industry single handedly or rather with a single touch. Similarly, my wife as many might know already is the single person who changed my entire life without any need to touch. A single sight can do it all. The bed spread will be neat, shoes will slip into the rack and shirts will stay in the hanger. And all will happen with a single look. So you see, both of them have a lot in common. They changed my lives. Yet, I had little to say about them in my blog. How cruel am I? But as I mentioned before, I have my reasons. iPhone as the most popular device did not need my bragging and for my wife, let’s just say that I am handicapped in cooking and my food expense budget is very limited. If you are wondering how is it that I became bold enough to write about them now, I like to clarify that I still have not talked about them. At least not about the iPhone and also I proved that I can make onion chutney tonight.