I Shook Hands with Sachin

14th July, the day on which one of my perennial dreams got accomplished. It happened on a bright sunny evening outside the Chelmsford cricket ground, After scoring a majestic 171 runs and having batted the whole day to bail India out of trouble after a much known top order collapse, the man, the phoenix, “Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar” had the patience to oblige us and sign autographs and shake hands with me, yet another hand and yet an other fan for him, but for me it ended a 15 year wait.
Unfortunately though I could not get his autograph ,but for time being this would do his smiling thank you for all the best I said(though there were tens of other people behind and sides of me I would consider that he said it to me exclusively J) .
I and my friend Mahesh share one common thread about sachin, when ever we are desperate to see a match and expect the boss to do good he fails (by our expectations).I had previously gone to a match in Cochin where he scored 4 and Mahesh had gone to Hyderabad where he Sachin departed before Mahesh entered the ground, but here I win over him, I saw the little master bat for about 5 hrs and what more I got to shake hands with him.

The morning was a lazy as any Saturday morning; we had a late Friday night after I had come back from my certification exam. We reached the ground at 12:50 when the players were going to lunch. The scoreboard read 62/3 and like always I asked is Sachin still there and this time it was a yes. The lunch was not good at the ground, but what followed was a feast, the straight drives the cover drives the square drives, names the shot he played them all. The six he hit of the off-spinner landed just inches from where I stood, the little punch in air after that century showed how much he wanted that one.
What else can I ask for now that I have seen the master himself live, I will probably now watch a one day match of his some time in Manchester or oval. I will have to admit one thing here; there has not been a single occasion in these 15 years where my heart beats twice its normal rate, whenever sachem is at the crease facing some XYZ not that he will fail but what if it was this ball he is going to get out.

Century of centuries beckoning you little master push along, we are with you.

The temples of Southern India -Churche of western Europe

I was born in a small village in tamilnadu in india,the city of temples ,the land of cholas and pallavas.Almost in every village,town and city you find a soaring structure well walled with rock structures ,Gopurams as we call them in tamil,Each temple will carry a distinctive history to itself ,The Temple of Tanjore the lone granite stone temple with the biggest linga rupam as you can get,the vast temple of meenakshi madurai ,to the 1000 pillars temple in chidambaram to the water of nine wells in Rameshwaram they are all architectural marvels,just mind blowing structures built in ages where a chisel and hammer was all what was at man's disposal.
Many of those sights are now deemed as archealogical tresures and major tourist destinations and provide with such income the govt as well but slolwy fading away is the majesty of such creations and their history,What grandfather knew about the temples and their history is not even half known to me,then with this hectic life and western domination i am afraid the next generation will be completely oblivion to the history of these temples and their importance.

There are thousands of channels in India showing us all unnecessary prime time programs like Kyon ki Saas... Selvi.... Pelli chesukundam soaps which are not helping or aiding any cause ,if a channel like national gegraphic which does not in anyway related to indianess are keen on these tetmple histories why not we .......Slowly but surerly Indian culture / hinduism is losing its charm with lazy interpretations ,i do not remember an major renovations happening any where

On the other hand,with coffer full of money and an eye on the heritage the christian community,should i say eurpean community has a strong feature going on where they protect these old chruches of theirs as a heritage ,can say national heritage,what all i see back home is a policeman / gaurd holding a stick and sacring the living hell out of the people who come as close squareleg umpire to a batsman to the statues,here there are no such scenes,but still people are much more knowledgeable,they do not unnecessarily damage / cause any irritation to the public behind,the major reason behind this behaviour as i see it is not the basic naure of the people,i firmly believe that people are the same every where it is they way they grow up determines their behaviour,it is the senitization evoked by governments ,religious organizations ,studies that has led to this behaviour,also to an extent the richeness and lack of population.

With a better organized plan Indian / Tamilnadu can make its temples a steady source of income and pool of knowledge from which the future generation can drink heritage and culture of the ancient times.Also people can be sensitized with better educating them about the imporatance of these structures,hoping that these things in place would help the secodn generation from now to have a look at these gothic archtectural marvels standing for real instead of the photos by their predecessors

What am I

What am I ? is the question I ask my self every morning , another person on this damned planet who wants to sit there and do what he is asked to do always wondering why in the world it is happening to him alone.Whose life am I making better, by sitting around in the office cramming my head to that lifeless intelligent machine I am still trying to comprehend. It makes me dizzy when I just see the requirements; the first requirement violates the basic existence of the second and it chains from there until it screws your life .You know it ,yet you and your boss sit out in a room and brainstorm.Now –a-days I have stopped speaking English, all I have in my vocabulary is MOM, ASAP, EOM, CDM…. How great it could have been, if agile (or is it ajile...) methodology can be applied to our life as easily as the client does it to the project.I could have went around as i liked.
Saddam could not have hated Bush more than I hate my client and every client call is a perfect example, it defies Newton’s logic. Whenever my boss says “in agile- rework is not a problem”. It almost makes me cry; what am I doing, trying to make something so that I can do the same work again and again just wondering when this cycle will end.The biggest joke of corporate life for me is the concept of “Work-life-balance “Which probably means managing life between work ! I always go mad after every such session my boss sends me to. The usual conversation(according to him..) that follows is “I now think you have learnt something from the session .I do not want you to work that late hours .Ok now have a look at this document and make the design by COB(You never know when is it for the day) it is very urgent”.
Then there is something that makes me shiver, the profiles of my breed of people almost 75% of them are bald, 50% of them have a tummy that makes them look like if they were the very reason for famines in Somalia. Week –ends is an different thing altogether (when you have one) .Get up from bed when it is already night for rest of the world , eat and then sleep as if you have turned the world topsy-turvy during the week.What am I? , is the question I can probably never answer when an old college friend of mine meets me.(hoping that he is not saying this to himself)Singing offWhat am I,? I am a Software Engineer., and With role change (it never shows on sal-slip)comes Great Responsibility I can never marry jane.........Now responsibilities just triggers another thought .Got to get back to work, with "role code" change (I do not understand…..should I say responsibility change) I have many more Nights of fruitless toil on my hand…………

So what is it that i want , this is a eternal question for which i have never found an answer.Getting in to a job i thought i have got in a high speed lane where i never have to as much brake my car ,just ripping through the life would take me to the destination,but the lane turned out to be a mud road,too many stops and too many turns.
Intial thought during college days was money,now that i have go my own pockets full and probably yes a little of my coffers as well and potentially looking set in a way where it is going to bring me more,the question is what next? The drive that was there initially is not there anymore,now i want some other thing what is it?
Ok the other thought was that i needed to go around to look new places,yeah now i am going places,but then the places are just too many ,the desire is becoming leaner and meaner by the day.Foreign country was a dream and now going back home is a great desire.Wanted to buy a thing which i can lay my hands upon now i can buy (atleast in my own capability maturity model),but i hardly lay hands upon any thing.
Thought that this is because i am not doing anything gr8 so sat about to write a piece of code as if the exercise is going to change the entire nations course in an angle from where we at present cannot even view with our heads down the pants,though half way when i realized that yeah indeed the whole exercise is going to cost me a time of 20 movies ,i thought that is the one probably.
Half way through the movie,I found that is was the hero had a cute chik who was not even in my near viscinity,so from that day ...........

Beware girls now i know what i want ...