The most easiest way i pass time is by watching movies and loads of movies. Am a movie buff and language is no barrier(i prefer movies with english subtitles though). Being alone, not really alone i have a roomie who is almost occupied with his net browsing activities, and with access to a pretty fast wireless internet connection, i get access to loads and loads of free movies.

I must apologize or not sure if i need to, for i watch movies on the internet and not in theatres. But of course expecting to watch an English movie in prague is as tough as getting vegetarian food in czech as well, it is near to impossible. If i just stretch that comparison a bit more, what you get is a localised version of vegetarian food, and hence a dubbed version of english movies.( i hate them unless they are dubbed to Tamil, the dialogues make them funny).

Ethics apart, this is one trip where i have watched more movies in a week than i have ever done in my entire life. My movie library is fully loaded, a pretty fast laptop with my headphones on and the explorer/ firefox browser on, i have a virtual shopping mall filled with movies. I do not wish to disclose the names of the sites on which i watch movies(being truly loyal to my service provider :) ), but it is just amazing how these sites manage to have the latest movies on the very same day or the next day, loaded in their sites. It was also amazing and extremely pleasing, as a user, to know that these sites even provide us guidance on the quality of the print ( classification such as low quality, DV camcoder quality, DVD quality, HD ready and what not), a brief synopsis of the movie, the genre to which it belongs to, the cast, the director, the year and so on. Loads of efforts go into maintaining such sites. It is funny and silly to find disclaimer in one corner or bottom of these sites which state that " This site is perfectly legal. We discourage users from uploading illegal content. We are in no way responsible for any content that users may upload" and so on. Lets get real, a site which provides free access to movies giving such a disclaimer only goes to show how honest they are :)

Back to the movie maniac that iam slowly becoming. I got the opportunity to catchup with couple of excellent movies by Akira Kurosawa (hidden fortress and yojimbo), couple of excellent ones by guy ritchie( revolver and rock n rolla), the ever green carry on series of movies, latest english flicks and latest tamil and hindi flicks too.

No wonder, i hardly find time to write reviews of the movies that i watch, the primary and possibly the only reason being that all the time that i get, apart from work, i spend in watching movies(of course time spent on catchup with family back home is excluded, something we call as sunk in relevant costing terms, accountants may appreciate it).

It was quite a feeling to be watching these movies, sitting alone, staring at my laptop screen, no one to disturbing you, and of course the inability to share your thoughts on the movie is there, but by then the next movie starts :)

Just wanted to scribble something in MS as soon as this amazing feeling struck my mind.

Carry on watching should i say!!!

Its been close to a month and 5 days since i came to Prague in Czech republic. After having spent so much time i have started missing my vibrant, colorful and happening country and city(singara chennai).

I step out of my apartment and all i see is fog and mist and something which keeps the air cloudy. It is true that winter brings in such weather conditions here, but i sometimes wonder if these clouds are formed by the millions of cigarettes smoked by the the folks here. Heard of chain smokers, but never heard of "united we stand in chain smoking" policy. People dutifully take time off to have a smoke, few of them do it every half an hour. people are the mobile advertisement for cigarettes. You may not get food items as easily as you get a pack of cigarette or a bottle of alchohol. I guess smoking and drinking are part of the school curriculum !!

Smoke apart i found loads and loads of meat being consumed everywhere. Me being a vegetarian face the shocks and cluelessness of the folks in the restaurants when i spell the word "Vegetarian".(langauage has something to do with it, not many people speak or understand english here, so much for prague being a tourist destination). Thankfully, there are pizzerias where i get a garden pizza(one of the two vegetarian pizzas available, the other being a margarita). Ive read somewhere that chicken or beef flavoring is used in such pizzas. Beggers cant be choosers and so cant i in Czech. Thankfully, i cook my own food most of the days. Had a funny incident when my colleagues were gorging on some butter that they had got from a store and were having blocks of those with bread. Me being the auditor, looked at the cover and used our own google translator to understand that it was PORK FAT !!!!!. When i mentioned this, my colleagues were shocked(yeah they do consume non-veg but only chicken, pork and Beef disgust them too, i had company you see).

An of course we have the public display of affection in busses, trams, metros and stops(all of them). From what i guess as school going children, to office going sweethearts to folks in 40s, an affectionate(and often passionate) kiss is common to see. Am definitely not complaining here. I love chennai the way it is.

I have started missing the Dosai and plate meals, i definitely miss the sultry weather that chennai has, and above all i miss my dear family. What others may view as an opportunity to see the world and make some money, is proving to be a boring affair for me. Few more months to go, i just want to control myself from becoming like one the Czechs. I need a Check in Czech!!!!

India is an independent and democratic country!!!!!!!

The biggest lie i would say.

First of all we supposedly won our INDEPENDENCE from the Brits(Goras for ease of use, man i like to use that term) but looking back, we actually never won any independence. Instead of taking direct orders from them we are taking indirect orders. India used to be dependent on agriculture, i say used to be may be in terms of contribution to GDP it still is, but where does all the big buck come from?
IT industry!!!! not to blame the industry as such since it has given job opportunity for most of us on MS(i guess) and has supported the growth of other service sectors in the country, indirectly increasing the consumption, leading to import of more and more goods from other countries.

Look at the trend now, it is shocking to see that India is again excessively dependent on the same Goras for employment, food, commodities, defense systems, specialized education(in research)Power technology, and what not, doesnt this raise the question "Are we really independent?" Is it because of our internal government policy? is it because we are not self sufficient? is it because of the so called globalization? Very oftern we see that the goras are threatening the country with consequences if we do not follow their order, they may sound polite, they may coin it to appear as a "Friendly Request", but in reality it is an order!!! It hurt me a great deal when india surrendered its freedom to test nuclear weapons in exchange of power technology, when all the sceintists from the BABA atomic station were crying for the government's attention to a technology superior to one that was being provided by the goras, worst thing is the clause to periodically inspect our facilities. India alone is required to be an open book, that to by the goras who have the maximum number of nuclear weapons(and weapons of all sorts). Didnt the government feel that it was losing its independence/freedom?

Being in the IT industry myself, i suffer all sorts of humiliation in workplace, being ridiculed by goras who are not even as intelligent as your hair is, not lending a ear to better ways of doing things, promoting people on illogical basis, and giving a strange reason for not promoting you. Instance, "i will recruit a manager, who will ensure that you become a manger within few months" ever seen such a statement from a top guy within the same function?

Yes, that is the instance which made me feel that i had lost my independence/ freedom. After all that i heard and after all that i had to go through in the Gora hell, i could do nothing, i needed money, i had commitments, i had already fallen into the trap and had to keep quiet, made me feel that i was a Slave in the pre-independence India, who was paid a pittance to do an elephants job!!!

Am sure you guys have gone through similar situations!!! Did the question of "Are we really independent?" ever strike you?

Cheers!!!

What is good or what is bad?

Good is defined as a favorable character and bad is defined as Morally objectionable(had to look into meriam webster for this )

But favorable to whom? objectionable to whom? Who gets to decide which trait in individuals is favorable or what is objectionable. Is it the society that decides this, it seems to be the society that decides good or bad.

What is considered good by me may be considered bad by someone else, Osama's principles are considered great by him and his followers but the rest of the world seems to be against him? Obama's policies are considered great by a lot and Objectionable to a bigger lot of individuals, so what is good OBAMA or OSAMA.

Ultimately what is good or what is bad depends purely on one's own selfish desires and one's own beliefs and faith!!! It is my own(our own) selfish desires and motives that push us to decide what is good and what is bad.

Outsourcing of work to india is very very good, for india, but millions in the US will loose jobs because of that, so as far as americans are concerned it is bad. Good or bad is in reality a matter of perception!!!

i dunno what made me write this, i write it here coz i would have written this were this my actual diary!!

I dont want to get any more philosophical!!!!

cheers!!!

The term Parama Vetti means a person who is extremely idle. Many think that the work of such an individual is very easy and relaxed, but let me tell you that each and every parama vetti person passes through hell each and every day!!!

1. Waking up every day morning, with the hope of being occupied in office for the entire day- only to find out that it is just another day of doing nothing
2. Enter office, switch the system on- Chek e-mails and your favorite web-sites, go through all the gossip columns and see which actor is being unfaithful, who broke-up, how many people died due to various accidents/rapes etc, who won which tournament, and of course all the celebrity related stuff.- One hour passes thus
2. Next milestone for the day- TEA TIME- spend quality time sipping the most horrible brown dyed water(which they call tea) that comes out of a vending machine which sounds more like a vaccum cleaner filled with dust- half an hour passes thus
3. The next target is to reach -LUNCH TIME- between tea and lunch time we have lots of domestic stuff to catchup with other Parama vetti Purush and Strees of the workplace. The conversation typically consists of few statements of obvious things, ranting, complaining how the org is under-utilizing resources and so on- One hour passes thus
4. The lunch time, each day, is the most enjoyable- Enter the food court filled with other Parama Vettis,(of course relatively lesser or more vettis too). At least you get to see lots of colors, guys get to see other gals(the regular ones you see) and gals get to see what other gals are wearing for the day. Discussion about who bought which dress/ornament/bangle from which place, the price, the occasion etc start and in between few spoons of food manages to reach the tummy.-One hour passes thus- have seen people eating food for close to an hour and a half( the food is so well chewed it is digested by the time they leave the food court)
5. Next target is, of course, evening tea again- Time is taken to prepare the brown water, have a seat and summarize all that we did during day(it is not easy to summarize them though) and sip the brown water, the conversation is actually to divert your mind away from feeling the taste(!!!!!) and seeing the brown water. Half hour passes thus.
6. Next(optional target) is to go and play Table tennis, carom, pool or whatever sport is available and pass quality one hour keeping yourself fit.
7. Next comes the time for browsing through all the official e-mails that have landed in the mail box. They range from an internal referral e-mail(give me work first), to blood requirement e-mail, to motivational mail from a top guy, to leave approval mail, to forwards from friends to all sorts of mails that help in spending an hour
8. Next is the time for browsing again- five and hour hours since we browsed the net, the world would have definitely tilted with so many more actors cheating, breaking up, many more deaths and mishaps happening, ministers abusing each other, market swinging up and down, and of course loads of personal e-mail( in the junk folder) that needs to be read- Funny- the mails that we normally delete in bulk- help us in biting quality time- One more hour gone
9. Next One hour is spent without knowing how it was spent- mostly staring at the monitor- opening some file or the other, opening an old e-mail forward and looking at it again-indescribable agony
10. It is time to leave and do the most productive work for the day- Have dinner and sleep

How can anyone say that people who dont have work are lucky, try going through the above routine for just a week and you will regret having been born in a country where everyone else seems to have work and you feely guilty for not working.

The parama vettis dont need your sympathy, they need your understanding :)

Okay

now that i have your attention(hopefully)

please read my DP on Tax evasion!!!!!!!! titled "Are you Awake" please give your comments since i have raised a socially relevant issue!!!

Nasty way to gather attention,

give a smile and read my DP NOW!!!!!!!!!!! :')

How many of you pay taxes? given me an honest answer. How many of you deliberately evade taxes? I have worked for at least three different organizations and have noticed the following

1. Fake Rent receipts produced to claim HRA. Few cases father issues receipt to son and brother to sister or vice-versa
2. Fake Medical Bills for mediclaim
3. Both Husband and wife claiming LTA with same travel bills
4. Showing rent receipt at a reduced number in case the property is let out
5. Buying products without Bill to avoid sales tax

and so on. These were common sight in almost all the organizations i have worked for. There was a person who even had a template of a Doctors receipt book and he would happily go about issuing fake receipts for individuals. Medical shops ask a commission of 100 Rs. for every 1500 Rs. worth fake bills they provide.

Now, How many of us complain about poor infrastructure? how many of us talk about our country being impoverished and poor? Our blood boils when a foreigner shows our country in bad light(real light i would say) in slumdog millionaire. Have you ever thought what could be the root cause?

"If i pay taxes, anyway the politicians and babus will eat away all the money and look at the types of roads they put, i dont want to waste my hard earned money to be wasted in these ways" is an answer that i have heard umpteen number of times. My blood boils each time i hear this.
We write exams, competitive exams, but are we 100% sure we will get through, we do it with hope of passing, at least have the satisfaction of having done your part
Why cant we extend this thought to paying taxes, why not pay taxes and hope the government to act, eventually it has to. at least you can live with a clear conscience.

Indha kaalathula ellam ipdi nenaikardu waste, pozhaika theriyadavn pechu idu( all these dont work in todays time, all utterances of a person who does not want to progress) is a painfull comment that has touched my ears many times.

consider this, of the 100 rs tax you pay, every possibility of close to 50% of money being eaten away, but then the other 50% is being spent on infrastructure and public welfare. But if we as citizens in the name of saving, pay only 20 Rs tax our contribution to nation's growth is only 10%(50% of 20) whereas it could have been 50%. We are deprieving this country of close to 40% tax money, which could have definitely improved living conditions.

Let us stop complaining and first do our duty of paying taxes correctly. Agreed that we have a corrupt system, but does not mean that we do not do our part in building this nation. All the tax money that we save(unaccounted) will only increase the existence of black money and in effect the countrie's fiscal deficit, which in turn prompts the government to print more currency and thereby increase the inflation artifically. Do we need all this? Think and think strong

Pay taxes!!! No arguments!!!

John abraham has told that he will not mediate between bipasha and katrina. When i read this news as the first news item in one of the websites, i was broke. I wondered why john abraham would even imagine of doing such a thing. Here is a lady who is the love of his life and the other is the women with whom the media is linking him. Given the seriousness of the matter, how could john afford to say that he would not mediate between them.

Then a thought stuck me, i should pray to god that all should be well between these three stars, else just think of the catastrophy that would follow. India's GDP would dip, recession will worsen, food grain production will fall, our fiscal deficit will go for a toss and most of the houses will be split with each side supporting one of these ladies. Am sure our leading ladies will be able to cut down on their clothing cost to help the economy(or can they, they hardly wear anything).

Damn our bloody media for giving these as headlines!!!! I know aaj tak and star news operate exclusively to read gossips and not news, our websites are no good either!!!!

My niece has come down from singapore and boy has she grown big(fyi, she is only 20 months old, you can read my earlier DP on her (http://www.mouthshut.com/diar
y/3147/My-beautiful-niece), actually written by my sister on her blog). she is from planet earth and yet speaks a cryptic language, a language only my sister(her mother) can understand and decrypt for us. Thereon, that becomes the language in which we converse with her.

She has close to 12 teeth overall and has the most charming smile that i have seen till date. At present she is treated like a trained pet, doing whatever we ask her to do and repeating all the words that we ask her to repeat.

Example- if we ask her to mayakku(charm) someone, she would slant her head a bit and wink her eyes like a darling or if we ask her to do what her periamma does(my elder sister), she very honestly apes the burp(a special burp) that my sister gives out.

Sometimes i wonder how fast she grasps things, that too for a 20 month old kid. I dont remember my mom mentioning any of us to have this sort of intelligence!!!

as mentioned in my earlier post, she continues to have a relatively easy routine of sleep, loads of play and eat!! only that the time spent on these has changed.

here is my niece's dictionary for your reference

mama- me
thathi na- my sister(stands for rathi ma)
ooooo- wound
aooooo- alu(potato)
ana choos- orange juice
putha bak- put that back
ana- no
ana- i want it(this is where my sis's decryption helps a lot)
aapice- office
chithown- sit down
buk buk- Far*t
gabbu- dirty


and so on!!!! i feel refreshed and relaxed ever since she came home after a year's gap, she has grown up a bit, no doubts but continues to charm us as ever!!!

i quote a thirukural here
"kuzhal inidhu yaazh inidhu enpadham makkal
mazhalai sol keladhavar"

people would say that flute and lute sound very sweet, only those who have not heard the speech of little children

cheers

Since deepa's diary posts are flooded with comments, i write this DP as a continuation to what she mentioned

The famous Tamil Poet Thiruvalluvar has written a series of sayings known as thirukural(good sayings is a raw translation)

one of them goes like this "Theeyinal sutta punn ullarum, aarade navinal sutta vadu"

meaning, "an injury caused by fire can be cured, but an injury caused by harsh words from mouth cant"

cheers!!

Note: harsh words need not be necessarily from your mouth, it can also be in written form, so abstain from using harsh words in Mails and MS.............. :)