Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics by Tippu Sultan


I was Googleing about actress Genelia D’Souza and came to know that she belongs to Mangalorean Catholic and it kindled me to know more about the community. On looking about the community I came to know that Tippu Sultan took siege of Mangalore Fort and took 60000 Mangalorean Catholics as refugees and most of them were forced to convert to Islam or Killed for helping British in Second Anglo-Mysore War. When British defeated and killed Tippu Sultan only less than 9000 survived out of 60000. Where in 21000 women and 9000 men converted to Islam and remaining Killed.

After getting released from captivity the community became very much united and has become so wealthy. Lot of bad things has been removed from history it is good to see from a point. But it is interesting to look into our history. Visit “Captivity of MC’s by Tippu” to know more.

Event on startup challenges


Event focusing on operational challenges for running a startup. The upcoming event (August 22, 2009) deals with hiring challenges in startups.

Here are the details

Hiring in a startup is a challenge – right from finding the right match, figuring out salary structure to keeping the employees motivated (especially in tight situation). While there aren’t any ‘right ways’ to do so, the best way out is to share experiences.

pluGGd.in is conducting a ‘Hiring strategy for startups’ event (half-day) where we are inviting entrepreneurs to share their experiences; and a HR consulting firm to show the ‘other’ side of the world.

Topic: How to combat Hiring Blues in Startups

Date: August 22nd, 2009, Saturday [10AM – 1 PM]

Agenda

  • How do I structure employee salary? ESOP vs. Salary Distribution?
  • Employee Agreement – what are the points one need
  • I am not a funded startup and don’t have a lot of money to give away. How do I recruit smart people?
  • How do I judge the commitment of candidates when they are applying? [Share/learn from experiences…]

And related topics on hiring @ startups visit http://www.pluggd.in/unpluggd/august.html…

Vicky’s Birthday Celebration


It was overall a fun night… We decided to give a surprise visit to Vicky’s house and wish him Happy Birthday at 12 o clock. It all happened after a telecom with Kuruvi and we decided that we are going to make this… So, Kuruvi informed Vicky’s Mother and Sister-in-law and also got consent from his mom for a harsh Birthday Bum…

Telecom between me and Vicky happened when I was in Mayajaal and Balaji said returning to Downtown Chennai and buying cake would waste time and energy and we decided to order it in Taj Fisherman’s Cove and went to movie and collected the cake after the movie was over.

Lakshmi's Gift
Lakshmi's Gift
Entering Vicky's house
Entering Vicky's house

Then we rushed back home to pick the gift I got for Vicky and my camera. Then we picked Kuruvi from home and Sudhir reached Vicky’s house too… To our surprise folks sent by Lakshmi (Vicky’s fiancée) reached his house ahead of us with Rose and were waiting the clock to tick 12.

But we rushed inside the house before those folks wished Vicky and only then we allowed then to hand over Lakshmi’s gift. After all we know this is the last birthday we can disturb him at this time as we will be denied entry next year :d. 

DSC01435DSC01470This is the cake which we got it for Vicky. Also there were cakes sent by Lakshmi along with the Rose & his sister-in-law has already got one. So it was 3 cakes and after cake cutting it was time to decorate Vicky’s face with cake cream. Vicky wearing the birthday gift.

After this we had to leave his house quickly as his fiancée was waiting to talk to him and we knew we have to make a decent way out and we shook hands and signed off…

DSC01464Special Thanks: I’ve to thank Balaji for taking the mantle of cameraman and for driving me to buy cake and pick gift from my house. Regarding the camera work he is not seen in any of the snaps and his work is appreciated. Also I love this particular picture from Mr.Sudhir where the cake flies when Vicky tried to grab a cake from me :d.

Happy Independance Day


imagesIt is our 62nd Independence Day and I’m proud to be a citizen of this great country. Which country in the world has 31 States, 1618 Languages, 6400 Casts, 6 Religion and 29 Major Festivals but united as one country INDIA.

Literacy Rate during Independence was 12.2% and now it is 70% and this accomplishment has made the world to turn back and look at India.

I take this opportunity to salute all the Freedom Fighters, Freedom Martyrs, Martyrs of Wars, and Martyrs of Terrorism who struggled without any personal desire and has given us such a peaceful place to live.

Wish you all a happy Independence Day… Jai Hind… Vande Matharam…

Kaminey Review & Plot


My-character-in-KamineyWent to Kaminey yesterday night and the movie was really good… First half runs very fast and the momentum lacks in the second half… Shahid Kapoor has matured as an actor and he has done justice to the dual role… Since the movie is a Hero centric movie Priyanka Chopra doesn’t have much to do but she has utilized the given opportunity… Also the climax is stretched and confuses viewers… Expectation from Vishal is much high and we expect directors of his caliber to be perfect… I think censors have done injustice by awarding A certificate to the movie as I dont think it has much violance… Over all we can give 4 out of 5…

This is the movie’s plot…

It is a story about two brothers, Charlie & Guddu who happen to be twins. Charlie lisps while Guddu has a stutter problem. They are as different as chalk and cheese. And they can’t stand the sight of each other. Till one fateful rainy night, when their lives cross. Charlie gets mixed up in a deathly get rich quick scheme, while Guddu realizes that the love of his life, Sweety, has unwittingly put a price on his head. It’s a dark comic ride there on as the brothers are sucked into a world of drugs, guns and money. Their lives collide head on with the lives of gangsters, rebel soldiers, rogue politicians and crooked cops. In the middle of this crazy adventure, the brothers have to run to protect themselves, their dreams, their love…. And most importantly, realize that all they have is each other.

The Madras Day from Aug 16 – Aug 23


I’m proud to be a Chennaite as I’m born and brought up in this lovely city. I’ve travelled places in my life but I’ve never admired a place other than Chennai. As a proud Chennaite I’m planning to engage myself to celebrate Chennai week on my own. Bout for people who don’t know about the history of Chennai here is a small synopsis…

The founding day of Madras is considered to be August 22, 1639. It was on that day, in that year, that a sliver of land, where Fort. St. George stands today, was transacted by the East India Company.
 
The deal was struck by Francis Day, his ‘dubash’ Beri Thimmappa, and their superior, Andrew Cogan, with the local Nayak rulers. It is believed that this deal was made on August 22, 1639.

Out of the fort, grew settlements. Then the villages around it were brought together. And then, the old and new towns linked up. And then we had the city.

Today, Chennai stands tall for a variety of reasons like Education, healthcare, IT, history, tourism, auto industries, movies etc.

Madras Day celebrates the city.

Madras Day was an idea that three people put together – the city’s famed historian, S. Muthiah, journalist Sashi Nair and publisher Vincent D’ Souza. Today, they have been joined by three others – senior journalist and editor Sushila Ravindranath, entrepreneur and writer-historian V. Sriram and journalist and web site entrepreneur, Revathi R.

Courtesy: TheMadrasDay.In

I’m planning to buy this t-shirt today…

tee2008

Also I’m design and print my own concepts about Chennai… Can you throw your thoughts or share me couple of punch lines about Chennai?

Recession announcement GAPS


Found this interesting finding from a Gartner Report.

Us Recession Recession Ended Date of Announcement That the Recession Had Ended

1980

Jul-80

 July 1981 (12 Months Later)

1981 – 1982

Nov-82

 July 1983 (8 Months Later)

1990 – 1991

Mar-91

 December 1992 (21 Months Later)

2001

Nov-01

 July 2003 (20 Months Later)

Source: U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research

The Don – Dream Unfulfilled


Right from my childhood I was inspired by watching lot of Don based movies and when I reached my teens my dream was to become a DON. But parent’s compulsions had changed my focus and still I feel for that…

My first desire to become a don started when I watched the movie Nayagan starring Kamal Hassan. Then subsequently watching Basha starring Rajini Kanth cemented the desire… Then came Ram Gopal Verma’s Satya, After watching Shar Rukh starrer Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa I got tempted seeing how a don could change marks and that aggravated my desire to be one…

In my teens I tried my hands on some rowdyism within my school and within my county. Most of the time I convinced nerds and kids that I was a Don in the making. But real Goons or Rowdy’s have always over shadowed me and I immediately strike an alliance with them by getting them gifts and I call myself as Small Don.

DSC00889DSC00890Then as time passes my priorities changed and I passed over those dreams. Now I envy looking back those days. After the release of the movie Billa & DON kindly my past and I wanted to take a snap with my friends Rottweiler unfortunately that was very ferocious and I settled with these two snaps… Please let me know if I’ve the looks of a DON…

Amateur photography experience


Offlate Balaji is getting tired and we are slowly loosing interest in our night out. I thing we have over done and we need a break till we strive to experience the fun in travelling. So today being we (I & Balaji) slept long and I didn’t want to disturb him and fixed some business meetings. Then at the end of meeting I got a call from Balaji asking for the plan and it was already 7:30 PM. I reached home by 8 o clock and I reached Balaji’s house and much to the Irk of his parents we ventured out.

Then Balaji wanted to have his dinner and we had it in a small hotel in little mount and we didn’t have any clue what to do next and as usual we proceed to Satyam Cinemas. But half way I lost interest in movie and asked Balaji to goto some beach. Then we drove to Besant Nagar Beach. The beach was too crowded and there was hardly any space for parking and I didn’t want to step down in that crowd. It was sad to see how I hate a beach which was my favorite once upon a time.

Then we drove to Kottivakkam beach and again I complained to Balaji how that beached changed too but compared to Besant Nagar this beach is much better to relax. Then we walked long for a ice-cream looking crossing 2 beautiful girls twice and for the third time we tried to do the same and I don’t know if those girls understood we were walking to & foe just to cross them. They turned back half way third time and we returned to car and that is I saw our shadows from a car’s head light when the car crossed us.

Moon light reflection on waters...
Moon light reflection on waters...
Moon light & Shadow on waters...
Moon light & Shadow on waters...

Then my little creative brain thought it would be nice if we can shoot our shadow which falls on the sea waters. And we tried our luck and that is where there was some nice co-creation happened. I shot our shadows but Balaji thought it would be nice to shoot shadows along with the moon. Then we wanted to take moon and moon light reflection on the waters and both the snaps came well.

Then we proceed back for a drive and thought of taking snaps at Perungalathur – Maduravoya bypass where we unsucessfully spent some some time trying different ideas but they were all a failure and then we gave up after many tries and headed back home.

DSC01329-1Also I wanted to share these two pic which stands as motivation and we exclusively went for a drive at mid night to take photograph a week back. We took a snap of this Amman goddess which was made of Lights erected on a street parallel to my house.

DSC01332-2Then we had to over come questioning from cops while we were taking snaps of war memorial near Nandambakkam. So this is what happened.

Cop: What are you guys from?
Me: We are from Porur sir…
Cop: What are you guys doing?
Me: We are taking photos of memorial.
Cop: Why do you want to do that?
Me: We are collection pictures of places in Chennai at night.
Cop: What do you guys do?
Me: We are freelance photographers.
Cop: Grrrrr!! He scratched his head and moved from the place thinking we were journalist.

While this conversation was happening Balaji continues taking snaps. The cop was confused and he didn’t want to take a chance at us. But once he went he also distracted our concentration and we thought we can shoot it sometime later and we left the place with couple of snaps but this was the only snap that came well.

Some Sardar Jokes!!!


Sardar: My mobile bill how much?
Call centre girl: sir, just dial 123to know current bill status
Sardar: Stupid, not CURRENT BILL my MOBILE BILL.

Q: How do you make a sardarji laugh on Saturday?
A: Tell him a joke on Wednesday.

Sardar: I think that girl is deaf..
Friend: How do u know?
Sardar: I told I Love her, but she said her chapels are new.

Friend: I got a brand new Ford IKON for my wife!
Sardar: Wow!!! That’s an unbelievable exchange offer!!!

Teacher: Which is the oldest animal in world?
Sardar: ZEBRA
Teacher: How?
Sardar: Bcoz it is Black & White

Judge: Don’t U have shame? It is d 3rd time U R coming to court..
Sardar to judge: U R coming daily, don’t U have shame?

Question: “Should Women have Children after 35?”
Smart Sardar Replied: “No! 35 Children R More than Enough!!”

Sardar attending an interview in Software Company.

Manager: Do U know MS Office?
Sardar: If U give me the address I will go there sir.

Sardar got a sms from his girl friend: “I MISS YOU”
Sardarji replied: “I Mr YOU” !!.

Sardar in airplane going 2 Bombay .. While its landing he shouted: “Bombay… Bombay”
Air hostess said: “B silent.”
Sardar: “Ok.. Ombay. Ombay”

Teacher: “What is common between JESUS, KRISHNA, RAM, GANDHI and BUDHA?”
Sardar: “All are born on government holidays…!!!

Sardar: Miss, Do u called 2 my mobile?
Teacher: Me? No, why?
Sardar: Yesterday I saw in my mobile- 1 Miss Call”.

 (Had never thought of it)

Sir: What is difference between Orange and Apple?
Sardar: Color of Orange is orange, but color of Apple is not APPLE