We are the Champions!!!

This is a photograph that would be cherished by all victory starved Indian cricket fans around the world!! After all being an Indian Cricket fan is never easy. You need to get used to the agony, the tension, the pain after the defeat time and again against both good and lowly opponents.

But this time it was a complete different story altogether, Every Indian who watched the heart stopping final of the World Twenty 20 would have something to tell about to their grand children!!!

Agony of Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows!!!

Are you wondering that this is another of those numerous reviews for the final book in the potter series. Well NO, I cant review it, because I haven't read it yet. The reason - I have been cheated by the website Indiaplaza.in...read on for another tragic tale in my life :(((

I had placed an order to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book on Indiaplaza.in website on 20th of July. The website had been advertizing quite a bit about delivering the book on time (21st July 2007 itself) if I the customer was a resident of a metropolitan city (Chennai of course being one of them).
I promptly got a mail from then confirming my order number (order # 200720070361) and the consignment number (U20218488) for the delivery being delivered by DTDC and also promising me that the book would be delivered to me by 3:00 PM on 21st of July 2007. Never once did I realize then, that what was to start now was complete agony probably more than the agony of the deaths to be read about in the final book of Harry Potter. I waited till 5 PM for the book and when it didn't come, I tried calling both DTDC and Indiaplaza.in Customer Care (which was perennially busy!!!!). I sent across numerous mails to both of them without any response. My initial mail from Indiaplaza confirming my order contained a contact person from DTDC whom I need to contact incase there was a delay. I tried reaching him (Chandrasekhar - email id: chandrasekhar@dtdc.com and Ph : 9381200918), but did not get response from him either.
At around 7 PM on 21st July I found that Indiaplaza.in was advertising that it has successfully delivered 15000 books across the country on time and it kept me wondering how that was possible when numerous other customers like me had complained on the internet on websites such as www.mouthshut.com and www.complaintsboard.com about their books not being delivered. I mailed again to both DTDC and Indiaplaza but all my mails and calls seem to be falling to deaf ears!! I got another jolt when I found that DTDC had disabled the mail id of chandrasekhar, now I was completely helpless, I called up my local DTDC (Velachery) office and the representative there said that he couldn't locate my consignment number.
On 24th July I finally managed to contact a customer care representative of Indiaplaza and gave him a piece of my mind and he promised to deliver the book the same day, if not by 25th July itself. When they didn't deliver on 25th I called them again and sent across numerous mails insisting that I would go to consumer court in case they do not keep their promise. I promptly got a reply telling me that my concern will be resolved in 2 working days. Its the 1st of August 2007 today and I am still sending them mails and calling them up (None of the customer service guys pick my call) I still haven't got a response to any of the mails I have sent after that. I am totally helpless and angered at the same time. I would want to take severe action against a fraud company such as Indiaplaza.in which makes numerous promises but hasn't till-date kept even one of them!!!!!
I hope that they would manage to deliver my book before J.K Rowling decides to write and release the 8th part of Harry Potter!!! :(

>>Favourite Authors <<

Reading has been my favourite pastime since time immemorial, having been introduced to the books by Enid Blyton by my dad during Class IV holidays. I have read a number of books by various authors and here are few of my favourite authors and characters.

Enid Blyton - Like many others, I have grown up reading her books. Secret Seven, Famous Five, Five-Find Outer's I have read them all. Her books have a certain charm that hasnt been matched by any other infant/young adult author until recently. Having spent nearly 8 years of my childhood at KV MEG staff quarters, I was able to correlate and get involved in many of her stories. KV MEG back then was a jungle with a lot of abandoned buildings then and was very similar to the abandoned buildings and etc described in her books. Only after visiting Beaconsfield, UK (Enid Blyton's residence) did I really feel the real effect of her books. Beaconsfield is exactly how she describes it in her books (although she doesnt call it Beaconsfield) and its a must visit place for all her fans. My favourite character among her books has been "Fattie" from the Five Find Outer's series. Enid Blyton books are a must read for all teenagers!!

Robert Arthur - After reading Enid Blyton I was introduced to the Three Investigators series by a friend of mine and I really loved it. Unlike Enid Blyton's novels, the three investigators series had more fundoo stuff involved. "Jupe" was my favourite character and it was really wonderful read about their adventures, their gadgets, their tunnel etc.. "The Three Investigators" is a must read again for all teenagers interested in mystery fiction. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are another set of mystery novels available for teenagers, but its the casefiles series among these books that are good, the mystery stories are at times a bit lethargic!!

J K Rowling - Who wouldn't have heard of this author?? She is the first person to become US-dollar billionaire by writing books alone!!! I guess everyone in this world would have heard of Harry potter and more than 2/3rd of the population would be a read/watched a Harry Potter book/movie!!! At first I didnt know what was the big deal about this book. I was told that it was a fantasy story and I didnt like fantasy stories much so was very reluctant to pick this book up initially and then one day I came across an online version of one of its books and I read it, I became too engrossed in it and started to like it very much after reading nearly the entire book I realised that it was a fake Harry Potter book written by a fan!! So in this way, it was a fanfiction that lead me to the real author and kindled my interest in the Harry Potter Series. The very next day I went in search of the real book and bought all the four books at the same time and read them all together on the trot!! Man I couldn't describe the feeling, its was something beyond great!! JK Rowling has revived the habit of reading among children and adult alike (she did get some help from Dan Brown with the adults) at a time when the whole world had moved completely towards the idiot box!!! My favourite character in the Harry Potter Series has to be Albus Dumbledore.

Frederick Forsyth - Words wont do justice in describing this author. He is level (probably even two) above the rest of the authors in his genre. You've got to read one of his books to actually understand what I am saying.

Onsite Blues...

It all started when I in the midst of an interesting arguement with my wife regarding how a piece of code should be coded in one of the extract programs, I completely involved in the argument that I didnt realize for sometime that my phone was ringing and its was my manager calling up. I rushed and picked up the phone and guess what I heard..."Hi Partha, you and priya are travelling to UK in few weeks, Get in touch with the travel desk and get your visa stamped!! [click]". Ramesh (My manager) has always been direct in all conversations and I kinda liked it, but even I could not believe that he would be so direct and upto the point in such a thing. It took a moment(probably more) for me to digest and realize what I just heard.....Oh My God..We are travelling to UK!! I am travelling to the UK!!! My first onsite assignment and whats more great, I have been official chosen to travel onsite along with my wife!!!! Not everyone gets such a chance...but never did I realize that the next few weeks were going to be one of the most amusing and tiring weeks of my life!!!!!

Onsite is supposed to be every Indian Software whizkid's dream!!!! Believe me anybody who says that he/she is not interested in a software assignment is a bloody liar!!! I have been in this industry for 5 years now and before that I was aspiring to get into this field for 3 years and all these years, I would have thought about an onsite oppurtuinity atleast once a day!!! I have been laughed at, teased, mocked by a lot of people citing this reason (I have never been to onsite eventhough I have 4+ experience). My wait was long, people of my batch kept travelling but I never lost hope, I have known people who have waited longer than me...I knew that I would get my chance someday for sure........
But not even once did I imagine that my oppurtuinity would jump in at this moment when I least expected it!! Now you might be wondering WTF?? This guy says he has thought about an onsite oppurtuinity atleast once a day, but now he says he got one when he least expected it... Hmm yes its true let me explain, After I joined my current company around Feb this month, it was informed that everyone of our team members would be travelling to UK in the coming months for an onsite assignment, but since we were new and werent yet confirmed, our chance would come eventually but not immediately. A colleague of ours was supposed to travel acouple of months back and all arrangements were complete, but the plan was changed exactly the day before she started!!!! This resulted in the shift of my paradigm :))...

What I describe now are the incidents that took place after I received the call from my manager!!

First both of called up our parents and brother/sister to inform the news(It isnt good still - coz we are not sure if it would happen!!) all of them were ofcourse happy but were very cautious and asked us to be cautious too.

Secondly we spoke to the travel desk regarding the visa processing stuff and initiated that process.

Then came the important part, planning the travel and this what made us crazy. We realised that we had lots and lots of things to do...citing a few, Shift our house, buy winter clothing(its winter in the UK and its nasty cold!!!), buy travel bags and few dresses....etc etc the list was endless....

After planning we were down to implementing few of them,w e bough winter clothing and shifted our house too, but suddenly we started to hear rumours that ours too would be another cancelled onsite assignment and to make matters worse my manager wasnt willing to give me the exact date of travel!!!! Imagine what would have happened then... :))

Having invested quite a few amount in shifting the house and winter clothing we were left in doubt whether we had taken the correct decision of buying/planning things for the travel before the confirmation of the date. This period of stalemate continued for few more days and then finally we received the date of travel and finished all the necessary processes. We got a visas on the expected date without any hassles and finally we received our tickets too!! So we were all set for travelling, but if u think that was the end of all tensions and we had a very smooth flight, then you are more than wrong!!!!! Whatever happened next would take an entire separate blog, so I would describe those events separately tomorrow........until then c ya all guys!!! :)

Early memories
I was born on the 1st of June 25 summers back. My dad was then TGT (Science) in Kendriya Vidyalaya C.L.R.I and my mom was a house maker. We lived in a joint family along with my grand parents, my dad's younger brother and my mom's younger brother. We stayed at Saidapet Subramanian swamy street. The house was too smal, I still cant imagine how did 7 of us stayed in a house which had a small hall a bedroom and a kitchen. I was the second son to my parents, my elder brother had died when he was just 50 days old and because of this I was treasured by the entire family. There was hardly a day when I wasnt alone. No one ever thought of letting me down and everyoen kept me constantly busy by chatting with me. My mom says thats the reason why I learnt to speak much earlier than I learnt to walk.
I remember just flashes of incidents that happend during my first 3 years, few of those are my grandpa telling me stories of Mahabharata, Ramayana and other stories from Jataka tales or Amar Chitra Katha. I also remember a dream that I had probably when I was 3 years old, I dreamt of standing on a wall and trying to reach-out to someone on the other side of the wall, the wall seemed to have an additional security of iron bars. I wasnt able to reach out, but then I find a hole in my palm and this hole seems to be growing bigger every second after I while I find my hand to be hollow, I grow terrified and suddenly wake up crying. Till this date I havent understood the meaning of that dream (If you read Sigmund Freud, you will know that dreams do have some meaning), however that dream has still remained in my mind ever since and I havent been able to forget it.
My younger brother was born nearly 2 years after me, I was happy to have him as company. My dad at this time decided to pursue his PG degree and was also doing some course in journalism so he often returned home late. I used to spend more tiem with my mom, my grand parents and with my younger brother. My younger bro' (about whom you can know here) had a passion of ahem...extra-ordinary stuff right from his childhood. Once he chased me all around the house in order to experiment the strength of his jaws. Although he used get spanked a lot of times by my family members for his work he never seemed to lose his concentration or enthusiasm to try out new things with his teeth or fists. Another of big passion of his was to experiment "running away" from people who took care of him. He got claustrophobic too often and ran away from our house either to the nearby temple or to the main road. Every now and then it became a routine for chithappa or mama to go in search of him. I had a knack of locating him though. I am not sure whether this was because I too had similar inclinations and thoughts as his (the only difference was I never executed them). I remember the day when my cousin Raja, decided to take care of brother because he was troubling everyone at home with his mischief. My cousin took him near the gate and was chatting with him and it so happend that he had to adjust his dhoti and so he let my brother down and adjusted his dhoti and when he turned back my brother had vanished!!! All this happend in matter of 3-5 seconds...there was a gr8 confusion at home afetr this happend, all of us ran outside in search of him running helter skelter...I too moved out in search of him along with my chithappa and after a while I noticed someone my bro' standing inside the temple that was opposite to our house and watching our house gate and enjoying the commotion out here...I motioned my chithappa and then he went after him and brought him back...after this incident, my cousin became very cautious whenever my bro' was around. One of our favourite past times was breaking up all the new toys our parents got us. My brother was an expert at this. If you get him a car, he would play with it for a few days and then break it open and start experimenting with its bearings and other stuff. My grandpa said this was due to the engineering craze in him....the rest never paid much attention as long as he doesnt ask for a new toy..anyways we neded breaking most of the toys and inventing new toys from the broken ones. We were also crazy about gas balloons, we kept pestering our grandpa every now and then to get us gas balloons. One incident that I remember is when our grandpa brought us 2 gas balloons and had asked us to play with them on the terrace without letting them fly..but my brother couldnt resist the urge and decided to let it fly..and both of watched watch the balloon break away from earth and fly high..we kept staring at it until we could no longer see the balloon. Right from that day both of us have been crazy about flying objects. Whenever there were guests at home, few of us slept on the terrace and this was great time since we kept talking for a long time into the night..I kept staring at the stars and night sky...Watching the night sky is a wonderful experience, although I dont get a chance to that often now, it is something that eery child must do. It gives immense pleasure in seeing the stars at night. These are the incidents that occurred before I was sent to school. What follows next would be the incidents that I recollect during my tenure at Cambridge Convent and K.V C.L.R.I during the years 1985 to 1986.

Reason to Blog

Everyone has a unique reason to blog. Blogging has now become a part of every netizens life nowadays. Infact a lot of software guys start of their day blogging and quite a few spend the entire time in office blogging!!! :)
So why did I decide to blog?? and what am I gonna blog??
I thought about this for quite a long and then decided to recollect all of my experiences, memoirs of my life till-date. The reason being that I have had one of the best childhood memories that any child can dream of. This would be something that children of today can read in leisure and come to know how it was to grow in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It would be a good read for me too in future when I wanna walk down the memory lane.