Sathya's Views..

India completed its 58th year yeaterday, an age when most of us would enter the peaceful period called retirement. But of course, India is far far from entering that stage. In fact, she has not yet started her magic yet. Yes - Indian magic is just starting to happen. We are on the threshold of a period where the magic is going to spread that much faster. There is a curious tinge to the Independence day every year. We take stock of the previous years, sigh over what was wasted, what could have been achieved and look forward with optimism to what could be achieved in the future. As is the fashion these days, the Indian heroes of the years preceding independence were treated in extreme fashions - songs on them, their speeches resounding away joined with sharp critiques on how they failed their country, how every problem of this country may be laid at their doors. As an urban resident, it is obvious to me that while there are problems with the politicians, the policiies etc, the core faul...

The Harry Potter wave swept across the world again as the sixth installment of the seven-book series was released with much fanfare and hype on the 16th. I travelled from Bangalore to Chennai 15th night and as I was travelling by bus from the Koyambedu bus stand in Chennai to my house, I saw a long queue outside Landmark. I deposited my luggage at home and rushed back to collect my copy of the book which I had pre-ordered. It was my intention to read the book right through that day but my little nephew kept me occupied a lot of time. So I could finish the book only late evening yesterday. My judgement on the book follows ! ** BEWARE OF SPOILERS ** The story starts with a rather unexpected twist and proceeds to take a few turns there on. Harry spends most of his holidays at the Burrows while Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters start spreading havoc and destruction all around. The scene later shifts to Hogwarts where things get a little different. A new teacher arrives - for Potions. Sna...

A couple of weeks back, I became a proud Mama (maternal uncle) of a baby boy. There were a few anxious moments as my Sis had to be operated for the delivery but smiles abound at the end. But our smiles were rather short-lived. When all looked good, my Sis ran into some post-delivery problems which had us all on edge. Mom broke down and even Dad was very tense. Thankfully, the clouds have passed away and she is perfectly fine now. She is still in hospital and hoping to be released tomorrow. Otherwise life goes on much as usual. There is little excitement in life these days. I wonder what is needed to change this. Is it a change in job or a change in me ? I am still undecided... I am in the middle of a movie-watching streak. I have watched a whole lot of films with my pals in recent times - I dont think I have watched as many films in theatre all these years in Bangalore combined. "Paheli" was easily the worst film I have seen in a long time. "Parineeta" was comparati...

Another weekend in Chennai ! I am now feeling a little tired of the frequent travels to that city. I have made trips there for the past three weekends in succession. This weekend would be a full-rest period in Bangalore while the next weekend which is longer thanks to a holiday on Friday the 22nd, would be spent in Pune and Mumbai. Shakthi's vallakaapu function went off very well. As ever, it was a well-attended affair with good food and laughs galore. Its good to be part of a family as ours. Even small occasions turn into big, happy family get-togethers. There were absences yes, but many more presences. Rajesh also looked very chirpy and took great delight in pulling my leg over my "bad" photograph of Kodaikanal. Vignesh also joined in with his well-timed comments which had us in guffaws most of the time. We built up a fair collection of photos and movie and I expect to spend the rest of the week editing our footage and making a nice home movie out of it. Back to iMovie ...

The Mac Mini was launched in a typically subdued way in India with a competitive price tag of Rs 25,000 or thereabouts. Having worked on Macs and only Macs for the past four years and more, and having had experience with Windows before that, I can confidently assert that Mac OS X is the best OS I have ever worked on and Apple definitely makes the best computer hardware there is. Just compare the iMac with any PC around and you can see the difference. Apple has never had a major presence in India which is almost completely Windows oriented (though Linux has been making impressive inroads in the past few years). I attribute this to two important reasons : - the cost of the Mac which is roughly equivalent to the cost of 4 PCs - the complete absence of any kind of marketing Hopefully, the Mac Mini would address the first of these issues. Lets see - 25k for the Mini, Rs 5000 for a decent monitor and add in another 2000 for a keyboard-mouse. So for less than Rs 35000, you are working on the...

Ok - lets accept the fact that I am not going to be one of those frequent bloggers much as I wish I was. I cant think of any reason why I cant be so, except that most insurpassible of troubles - laziness. I thought it was time I blogged my tribute to Gemini Ganesan, one of the very popular Tamil film actors, who passed away last week. Gemini definitely had a charm all his own. He had a niche for himself even during the times when MGR and Sivaji Ganesan held sway over the Tamil film world. He was not a people puller like MGR or an actor of the calibre of Sivaji. Yet he carved out his own definite slot - the gentle, middle-class and educated lover who serenaded hs heroines in the old way of poems and songs. I have never been even remotely attracted to MGR and his films. So lets stick to the two actors whom I enjoyed more than anyone else in Tamil cinema - Sivaji and Gemini. Sivaji arrived after a firm innings in theatre which meant that he had the ability to emote better and was much mor...

Life has grown too static these days - too predictable. Thats good in a way but who am I kidding ? It gets me down ! Most of the time at office is spent in devising ways to spend time usefully, create my own challenges.. ah bah ! I think I have a pretty good hang of Hibernate now - and I am bowled over by how well the OO concepts have been mapped to a data model. I wonder whether I have become too much of an OO guy. I am beginning to abhor seeing raw SQL queries in the code. Stored procedures and joins are stuffs which should be discouraged. But then comes the DBA who scoffs at my views and brings out a chart indicating how performance improves with these database components. How do we balance between say performance and the flexibility of a pure OO model ? Its C.Ramchandra's death anniversary tomorrow - I had hoped to create some sort of a tribute page today with songs. But the gym has me tired again and I think I am going to go to bed early. today Maybe tomorrow. But anyway...

Returning home from office is no longer an event I look forward with any great anticipation these days. Mom and Dad managed to locate a gym close to hom, turned a deaf ear to all my pleads, entreaties and cries of mercy and made me join the gym. "You will see a difference in three months" they said. Now the evenings are filled with painful walks on the treadmill, lots of jumping around and what not. I dont know whats the point in reducing weight. Ok - so I am overweight. By a few 30kgs. Ok ! Who was that great soul who said "If God had intended us to touch our toes, he would have placed them higher on our body" ! How true. God decreed me to be fat. Now I spend my evenings opposing His decree. I was well and truly into Rafael Sabatini's "The Romantic Prince" yesterday and couldnt wait to ge back to it. I decided to forego some sleep and read the book through. I rather congragulate myself on having managed to do so. It was a marvellous book - a li...

The second day of the new year has almost passed on. The Sunday passed as did any Sunday in 2004. Years change, people dont. I dont. Just shows that time is relentlessly dynamic while we, in comparison, are terribly static. Had a comparatively early rise at close to 9, as Appa and Amma went out to some temple. I spent the morning watching "Parivaar" - a charming simple 1956 family tale directed by Asit Sen. Why cant they make movies like this any more ? There is such a sense of harmony and pleasure in the film. Then, went with Nandhu Chittapa and Chitti to buy a geyser for the second bathroom. Dad's reservations over buying another geyser had Mom piqued a little - and of course, vice versa. Anyway, as ever, Mom prevailed. The evening passed in a flash - and here I am getting ready for bed. Tomorrow would be my first day at the office in the new year - and I dont expect Infy to be too dynamic !!