Ramanan - The Weather Man

The earliest memories of me seeing Mr. Ramanan - The Weather Man of Tamil Nadu - dates back to my high-school days. A simple-man, with a small mustache, in white shirt(most of his shirts looked white in our Black & White TV), sitting behind a table. A few computers - two to three in number - that belonged to our grand-fathers generations would be there, facing the camera, in front of him. Unlike these days, there were not many cameras in front of him, but only the DD's. No mikes too. Once the camera rolls, he will bend forward and look into those computer monitors, which makes one to wonder if that is the first time he is seeing those monitors for the day. He will pause for a few moments, when one is supposed to assume that he is thinking and analyzing the data, mostly black & white images of clouds floating over the map of India. Then he will look into the camera and tell his prediction, which most of the time will be exactly opposite to what is going to happen. For example, when he says if its going to rain heavily for the next two days, people got used to interpret that as that the sky is going to be clear and no rain will be there. On the other hand, if he says that the weather will be good and there wont be any rain for the next days, one can safely assume that its going to rain heavily for the next two days. But in those days the government and the authorities didn't go to the extreme of declaring leave for schools and collages, since they too appeared to follow the well-established interpretation of Mr. Ramanan's weather forecasts.

At times the prediction given by my grand-father, just by seeing the sky used to be somewhat accurate than the prediction of Mr. Ramanan and his metrological department.

All of a sudden, after I grew up into adulthood, I saw a colorful Ramanan in Sun TV (By this time we had switched to a Colour TV). In the mean time, Mr. Ramanan has completed a doctoral research and has become Dr. Ramanan (so, lets also change from Mr. Ramanan to Dr. Ramanan). His cute little mustache was also gone. So many mikes in front of him, based on which one can also assume that there should also be many cameras in front of him. The computers in front of him were missing.  But at times, we could see him standing in front of a big TV that displays clouds over the a world map and Dr. Ramanan explaining how the wind is formed and how it is expected to travel. Having seen his predictions from my childhood, I never worried about them and sometimes have planned and executed beautiful outings in pleasant climates, when he said that we can expect a heavy downpour for the next two days. But now there is a big change - the government and the authorities seemed to believe whatever he said, and are going to the extreme of declaring holidays whenever he said that there is going to be a heavy downpour. May be, with improved technology, his predictions are somewhat close to that of my grand-father's.

Move forward a couple of years... I receive memes about Dr. Ramanan!!! Looks like he has become the favorite darling of school and college students, since he is pivotal in prompting the regulators to declare holidays, sometimes up to 2 weeks at a stretch!!!

Some of the memes below...

And here is the ultimate one :-)  (which made me to laugh continueously for 5 minutes while having tea in our office cafeteria, which made others around me to assume that I have gone mad...)

The Ultimate Champion

Yesterday it was sports day in Deepu's school. He was in Monkey-banana race. When the race started, some bananas, made out of chart-papers were made to hang half-way on the racing track, on a rope with the help of clips, similar to how we dry clothes with clips.

The race started and Deepak reached the bananas first, and removed the clip, took the banana, but he went on to place the clip in the same place -  as before - in the meantime, others ran and won. He moved only after placing the clip back in its place and happily continued with the race to completion. He lost the race.

But we understood that he emerged as the overall champion for the day when his Principal told in her thank you speech that "... its not only about winning... I don't know how many of you noticed... in the Monkey-banana race, there was one little boy, who tried to place the clip back in its place... was nice to see that... and it is also this responsibility and the overall personality that I wish to in-culminate in the children... ". As a proud father I listened to her words with utmost happiness...

- SPGR.

Hurdles of Writing

When I read the early days of writers, I can understand that they all have done some common things. They wrote a lot in the early days, not minding the content or quality or the intrusions or obstructions or objections. According to one famous writer, he wrote on anything that he fancied, not minding about others opinion on them. Another writer says that he is very adamant that he wont allow others to dictate what he should or what he should not write. He just writes.

While reading the contents or stories of some of the yesteryear's writers, we feel that they are so advanced and liberal in their thoughts and that their family members are so privileged and lucky to have them in their family. Seldom it gets revealed that in reality it is not so. I remember a recent interview by writer Sujatha's wife about how atrocious he used to be in home and how he used to influence and control her in all the possible ways.

For many a years I was writing without any intrusions or objections. But its not so anymore. Mainly because other than me no one read my articles or posts for so many years. But no so anymore. I am still not sure if many are reading my posts, but from the hit-counter I can safely assume that many are browsing(at-least) though my posts.

I may succumb to it in future, but at the moment, nothing can stop me from the hobby that I have voluntarily chosen. I will go on in-spite of the intrusions or objections, though I may try to accommodate them as far as I can. Also another thing that became clear now is that my writing as a hobby has moved on to the next stage :-).

- SPGR.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (4)

A few pictures I took in Auckland, New Zealand.

Hotel Room - TV in Room.

Place to relax in a corner of the room.

King Size Bed.

View of Sky Tower from Hotel Room.

Metro Train - Interior.

Bus Station in "Britomart Transport Center".

A Ferry going to a nearby Island - Due to budget constraints couldn't travel in the Ferry.

A Vintage Light - In the fence near the Ferry Station.

Z-Energy - A gas station in Auckland.

A beautiful building in Auckland.

- SPGR.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (3)

Auckland City

I got into the habit of walking down the streets of Auckland in the evenings. I will back from office around 6 and spent most of my evenings walking along the roads. The city is perfectly planned for walking, many walk and use bus or train for their commutation. Very few use personal vehicles like car or a scooter. On the second day, my colleagues in office took me for a short walk to a Mall in the Remuera area.

From the third day onward, I sort of got into a routine, and it started boring a bit. I could see many beggars on the roads, but unlike our beggars they are posh and hi-fi. Another thing I noticed is that there are no babies. In my whole stay I saw only 3 babies in Auckland City. Got to know that people here do not marry, they just live together and do not have kids, and they keep changing their partners. So the population is thin. The Govt is taking many steps to increase the population. Also got to know that Education and healthcare is free.


Facebook

During the On journey and Return journey observed that the whole world was on facebook. Airport terminals, coffee shops, everywhere people were on the facebook. In my earlier trips, I have seen people using they mobile phones all the time, but on different things like calling or messaging or browsing, but this time all were invariably on facebook. Also I could notice a difference in the way people talk on their phones. They hold the phone in front of them and talk on speaker. After observing for sometime found that they were all video calls, and that they were seeing the other person on the screen and talking to them. I could realize soon in India too, we will be holding the phone in front of us and talking on speaker.


Food

A Mutton dish in New Zealand

Breakfast served in Malaysian Airlines.

For most part, I cooked my own food as there was a kitchen attached to the hotel. In the Project Go Live success party given by the client, tasted the mutton there. It looked entirely different. But when I tasted it, it was soft and had a divine taste.

The food served in Malaysian Airlines was also good.

- SPGR.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (2)

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (1)

Morning woke up at 7:20 AM, quickly got ready, cooked and had breakfast and started to office. Asked the person at the hotel reception about how I can reach the office, showing the address that I had already written on a paper. He gave me a small map of Auckland, and showed how I can reach there. Actually he had shown the path to the nearest railway station. But I thought that the office itself is there. I thought I had to go to office by bus and asked if I had to take a taxi. He said its walk-able and it will take around 10 minutes. I was so happy that the office is at a walk-able distance. I happily came out of the hotel, took left on the Victoria street, and after 50 feet, took a left turn onto the Queen's street and continued to walk. I reached the Custom's road, and started searching for the building where office is located. But it was not there. I could only find a posh railway station "Britomart Transport Center". I walked up and down for sometime and then decided to call a college on mobile phone. I told him the station where I was, but he said that he doesn't know all those, and asked me check in the google maps. But, unfortunately, for some reason, net was not working on my mobile phone.

Lighting in Britomart Railway Station - The actual light is at the bottom, from which the rays are reflected by the steel ball to the dome from where it is reflected downwards, uniformly.

A train in "Britomart Transport Center".

Train Ticket.

"Britomart Transport Center" -  Common place where we get bus, train or ferries(boats).

A ferry in Britomart, that goes to a nearby island.

Another view of the Britomart Ferry Station.

[pic: Britomart Transport Center]

I went to one old gentleman who was waiting for the bus, who upon seeing the address "Remuera Road" said that its is not here and I have to take train to the next station, and from there it is at a walk-able distance. I entered the railway station, identified the ticket counter, took ticket to the next station "Newmarket" and went inside. The ticket checkers there helped me to get into the train that goes to Newmarket The trains were more or less like the new metro trains of Chennai. Time was close to 8:30 AM, and I was getting scared, I thought that I was lost and also I would be reporting very late on the very first day. I got down at Newmarkt, went out of the station, and saw the Remuera road, walked towards the left, and located the board of the client's office. Went into the office, took the lift to level 1(first floor). The receptionist looked like an Indian. Later got to know that she is form South Africa. Got introduced to the clients and started the day's work - making preliminary preparations for launching the new software in production.

An office in the Remuera Road, Auckland

Sign boards on Remuera Road, Auckland.

The Software:

In the client's company there was a room called the operations room, where many computers with lot of big monitors were connected to the production servers and the logs and the transactions were continuously monitored by people from a team called the operations team, round the clock, working on shifts. Every minute detail is noted down, and during shift change the person leaving the shift have to hand over the status and updates and many meticulous details to the next person taking up the shift. It was just a small web-services application to me, but was surprised to see how the software is closely monitored. In this particular software that is going for production, for the purpose of simplicity in developing the software, I have included some manual process in the design. Found that in actual production, this part of running the software required manual intervention for the operations team. I was a bit sad to see this, as with some more effort I could have easily avoided that manual process, it would have saved human time and effort, as this manual process has to be done everyday at 11:30 in the mid-night, during which the server has to be briefly stopped. A simple decision by me, to keep my work simple, had a huge impact in the way in which the software is run in production. That was a big learning for me, and for sure will have its impact in my software designs in future.

On the first day, while taking ticket for the return journey, I forgot the station name to which I have to go. All that I remembered was "Brito-something", tried to recall and was trying different combinations like "Brit-town", "Brit-man". So, while asking for ticket, I said "Brito-" and mumbled something for the second half. The person at the counter gave ticket for "Britomart".


The receptionist in the hotel, an Indian Guy, kept asking me various questions about the software, as he was surprised that how I can afford to stay in a posh three star hotel in the prime area of New Zealand. He asked what (computer) language he has to study to get into such jobs. I told "Java, Java is ruling the world, The mobile you have with Android is completely run by Java... the TV, the lift, the microwave oven, 70% of large enterprise production servers, all are run by Java... Java is here to stay at-least for the next 20 years."


- SPGR.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (1)

[pic: Chennai Airport]

The much awaited official visit to New Zealand finally materialized on July 25th, when I boarded into the Malaysia Airlines flight in Chennai. Its a trip to New Zealand with a 3 hours transit break in Malaysia. The security check in the airport was not so severe as it was in my earlier trips in . This time they didn't ask to remove the shoes. Earlier we have to remove the shoes, shocks and wear them again, a pain. For the first time, I saw pretty women in the cabin crew (air-hostess). In my earlier trips, it was not so, most of them were aged women.  It took about 4 hours to reach Malaysia. The Malaysia airport was beautiful with lot of duty free shops. Especially I liked one bay with lot of shops selling exquisite fancy and cosmetic items. Thought what would have happened if my friend had been with me, may be she would have spent the whole of those 4 hours in browsing through the items in those shops.

[pic: Malaysia Airport]


I noticed that some high school children were in the terminal, who probably had come for some school related visits. They all traveled in the same flight, and next to me seated were two girls from that group, who kept on chatting all through the journey. The journey of eleven hours was a bit boring. But I should mention about the tasty food that was served. I was seated almost near the tail, and was always served at the last. Once, by the time food came to me, I asked for chicken and my neighbor - an old gentleman from Scotland - on the right side too asked for chicken. There was only one chicken meal left, which the gentleman offered to me, though I offered it back to me, he refused and asked me to take it. He took fish. I was a bit scared to take fish outside, due to the possibility of allergies it may cause.

[pic: Statue in Auckland Airport]

Exit From Auckland Airport - New Zealand

Pretty Auckland, New Zealand

A Traffic Signal, Auckland, New Zealand

Beautiful Houses, Auckland, New Zealand

Reached Auckland airport around 11:45 AM on July 26. Exchanged a few US Dollars into New Zealand Dollars in the Airport. The New Zealand Dollars were colorful and appeared that they were made of plastic. Also got a local prepaid SIM and called home. Then I went to to withdraw some more local currency, as I was not sure if the amount I got will be sufficient to pay for the taxi. I first put my travel card into an ATM, the display came in some Chinese characters, so I cancelled it and again tried in the next ATM. This machine gave new New Zealand dollars. I came out of the Airport and found a few taxis waiting outside. I went near and one guy, dressed in white and white, with a cap, came nearby, and asked "Where do you want to go Sir?", I replied "Do you give bill?", since I have to get it reimbursed. He said "Yes Sir" and then I said that I have to go to the Best Western President Hotel in Auckland.

Queen's Street, Auckland, New Zealand

Queen's Street, Auckland, New Zealand

Queen's Street, Auckland, New Zealand

View From Hotel-Victoria Street, Auckland, New Zealand

[pic: Auckland Streets]

New Zealand Currency

Items in the Kitchenette

Wardrobe - Arranged

The moment the taxi went out of the Airport I realized that New Zealand is a pretty city. I checked-in in the hotel, occupied room no 45 and took rest for sometime. Then set up the laptop, arranged dress in the wardrobe, kept all the cooking items in the kitchenette (a small kitchen with microwave oven and fridge). After sometime thought of going around the city and went for a walk on the roads around the hotel. The hotel was on Victoria road, it is adjacent Queen's road - is the main road of the city - went for a walk almost till the end of that road. Clicked a few selfies and pictures all along. Went back to the hotel, attended a few work related tasks, cooked dinner and slept. I was informed that I had to report for work at 7 AM in the morning, but I decided to report at 8 AM, as I got to know that even clients will be coming to office around 7:30 AM.

New Zealand Trip - Travel Diary (2)


-SPGR.

You are "Hot"

"You are Hot".

I was shocked when my manager told these words after shaking my hands, wishing for my birthday.
I would have been a little bit happy if some lady had told the same. But that was not the case now, and I got confused.

I asked him again "Hmmm..." and mumbled.

He repeated again "You are are a bit Hot..."

After a small pause, I understood that he is actually referring to the elevated temperature he felt in my hand, during the hand-shake...

I blushed and replied "Yes... May be, since just now I am coming from outside..."

- Pavala.

Surprise Birthday Card from my little friends...

Morning I got this surprise Birthday Card from my Sweet Little Friends...
Thank you my Dears... :-) :-) :-)....

Oru Vadakkan Selfie

Three weeks back when we visited sky-walk for booking tickets for a movie, we didnt find any good one. We ended up booking for "Valiyavan". At that time, I saw a malayalam movie listed in the PVR theatre - "Oru Vadakkan Selfie". It had the new crew - Nivin & Vineeth Srinivasan. Valiyavan was not upto our expectation.

Work pressure in office kept on increasing and I wanted to have a break - decided to see a movie. The first one that came to my mind was "Oru Vadakkan Selfie". Though I dont know Malayalam, thought that I will be able to understand as the movie flows and also due to its phonetical similarity of Malayalam with Tamil.

[pic:Oru Vadakkan Selfie]


When I told this to my friend, she asked about the hero and heroine. I told about Nivin, she didn't know who it was, then I told her that, he is the hero in "Neram" movie.

[pic: Nivin]



But I forgot the name of the heroine, though I read her name in the internet, but I remembered part of it and told her "Muniamma". She got surprised upon hearing that name. But later it turned out that the heroine was "Manjima" (Should be the Malaylam equivalent of "Muniamma", I guess).

[pic:Manjima]

We reached the Ega theatre around 6:30 PM and bought tickets and started waiting outside. I started taking a Selfie and some photos of my little friends. I also observed that many were taking selfies. These days, whatever we do, there is a need to capture it in a photo and share it with others through Facebook or WhatsApp. I observed most of the girls are following a particular posture for taking the Selfie. They raise the hand with the mobile phone above the face level to an angle of about 40 degrees, bend the upper portion of the body slightly backwards, slightly join the lips as if they are about to kiss someone, and then click the Selfie. If more than one girl is involved, their cheeks will be stuck together.

When the movie started, we were surprised to find that the movie had "sub-titles", thanks to the Qube digital projection, though we miss the "grrr" sound of the old projectors. Now we can understand the movie better. But the problem with sub-titles is that we will be missing the scenes, as we focus more on reading the text, than watching the picture.

The initial scenes showed the beauty of Kerala, its greenness and scenarios. I liked the scenes where  the Guys were taking bath in a river (or a water-stream), as I always long to take bath in a river or in a water-stream. Nivin looks like a Tamil Guy, and Manjima too looks like a normal girl, a girl without that special "mallu-prettyness".

[pic:bath is water stream]


The movie has a simple story where Nivin happens to go to Chennai, and in the train, he accidently  finds Manjima and secretly takes a Selfie with her and shares it to his friend. Actually the girl elopes from her home, and when his friend shares the photo to public, they think that the girl eloped with Nivin. This puts Nivin and his friend into big troubles and why the girl elopes, and how Nivin and his friend solve this mystry with the help of a private detective "Vineeth Srinivasan" forms the rest of the movie.

[pic: Vineeth Srinivasan]


Also observed that my little friends were trying to make out how the movie gets projected from the projector to the screen. To Deepu, its a big TV, the moment we entered, he kept asking when they switch on the big TV.

- spgr.