Posted in Uncategorized on May 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Any die-hard Rajni fan cannot miss this movie. The trailer promises a lot. And after lot of postponement looks like the movie is going to be released finally on June 15th 2007 worldwide.
Click on the link to watch the trailer.
No other actor is idolised as much as thalaivar Rajni.
Tags: Sivaji, Rajnikanth, Kollywood, Chennai
Posted in Uncategorized on May 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
On Thursday I went to Saigon restaurant, thanks to the invite from Anita Bora. This restaurant is located in Church Street just next to Amoeba, the bowling center. It was abotu 6 months since I visited MG Road and these nearby areas.
I met few other interesting people at the dinner table. The food was just amazing. Its definitely a place to visit and worth the money. There was chef from who had come all the way down to prepare special thai food. Early June she would be moving over to Civet. So, you can catch up with the chef for her exotic dishes here before June or in Civet early June.
For the dishes we had and their names and other people at the dinner table, head to Anita’s blog.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
15 minutes of heavy rainfall at around 6:10pm today evening and you know what would have happened.
From Wipro Office till Maharaja Restaurant the water has been flowing down with good force and also reached the height of pavement. Why is the water flowing on the road while storm water drains were cleaned up some time back. Thats because of the construction material blocking them, material belonging to the constructions currently happening on the stretch on which had happened few months back. The end result??
Its not only that, what surprises further is companies and shops which can direct the water into the drains are actually not doing so. The entire flow of water from these buildings are onto the road.
This flow makes it difficult to find where in the pavement is an opening and where is it closed. Better is to walk on the middle of the road but you know speeding call center cabs can run over you.
Theres more. The water from the storm water drain outside Raheja Apartments at the junction flows out onto the road to add to the existing volume of water.
Thanks to all you guys, you make walking on the road during rains a nightmare.
Tags: Wipro, Koramangala, Bangalore, India
Posted in Uncategorized on May 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday night I got a phone call from Citibank regarding payment of Ready Credit Amount which I had apparently not used. They had called up my home in Chennai and got my number. Below follows the conversation.
Citibank: Am I speaking to Sathish Babu.
Me: No, am Sathish K
C: Yeah, Sathish. You have to pay your Ready Credit Amount of 3,987.
M: I have not used any amount in recent time. My online account showed 0.00 as balance.
C: But Sir, you have to pay.
M: Why should I pay when I have not used it?
C: We charge a percentage fee of 5%.
(Am astonished)
M: Why should you charge when I have not used it?
C: Are you Sathish from Wipro?
M: No, I have no relation to Wipro (except that I used their soap product some time back)
C: Aren’t you Sathish Babu.
M: No, thats what I have told you first time, my full name is Sathish K.
C: Your credit limit is 85,000.
M: Sorry, my credit limit is more than that, please check your records.
C: Oh sorry Sir. But why did you call us in the evening.
M: You called me and there was a missed call in my mobile I called up.
In the whole conversation I was wondering how they mapped my home number in Chennai to some other guy. I didn’t want to talk further yesterday since it was late in night. Since it was night my mind was also not working so I forgot to get her name.
UPDATE: After 1/2 a day of calling up three customer care representatitives I managed to talk to their Manager. He would get abck by evening why this whole thing went wrong. Hopefully I get a positive response.
Update 2: There is no call yet from citibank regarding this matter till now. Time now is 8:30pm.
Update 3: The manager called back some time back today (26th May) and apologised for the entire episode. Similar problems would not happen in future and if so I can talk directly to him.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 23, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Yes, finally we got a sponsor for the travel during second week of June. The sponsor is OkTataByeBye
They are sponsoring the budget of Rs.1000/- per member and two t-shirts per member.
In return we blog about them and provide travelogue & photos & video’s to their site.
It could not have got any better!!!
Posted in Uncategorized on May 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
While one part of Bangalore is suffering from water crisis. Most people going to work without having proper bath, other part of Bangalore like Koramangala I see lot of people wasting water. How do they waste water, put a pipe to the tap open it up and spray the water on car’s for washing. Other way is with the same pipe they spray water all over the gate, ground in the name of cleaning. Does one need to waste so much of water?? Why can’t people be considerate??
With increasing water shortage problems I think its time the Goverment starts off with rain water harvesting project. Every house, apartment should have this implemented. This also makes sense with such huge raise apartments coming all over and also so many office buildings.
With so much of de-forestation happening its high time the Forest Ministry steps in with proper laws. There should be a law which should enforce all builders who are bringing down 50 trees should plant atleast 10 – 15 trees. There is no point in beautifying their buildings with small bushes and artificial plants. Are these going to help. The effect of de-forestation is known to all. But its time to get in some law.
How to stop so many vehicles from moving on the roads. Goverment should again step in here to bring in effect a norm that all companies which provide transport to emplyees, they should not be using private vehicles for travel to & from office. There should also be a check on the number of vehicles a family is buying. Just because money is there doesnt mean you end up buying more vehicles. This would also bring in easy traffic movement through the day.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 20, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Finally it did happen, the first ever mid-night Marathon. Since I cant run I had volunteered with the Runner’s For Life group and so I stood at water station for 5hrs since the start. I was accompanied by other members in the group.
The turn-out was not all that great. For Full Marathon there would have been around 60 – 70 runners which is very less in number. The half-marathon saw lot of runners.
Kannada actress Ramya was the guest of honour. The full-marathon was flagged off at 12:15am.
(What a space for fashion??!!)
Crossover did create history but…
…what matters is
For more photos, click here.
The Crossover group guys manning the water point near SAP Labs office ran away after 3hrs of start of the race. Luckily we were there to provide the runners with water from our additional supply.
I dont think the mid-night Marathons should be conducted since, there are no shops open at that time. Secondly, as such there is not much crowd support in Bangalore and being in mid-night there was no crowd at all except runners and their families and countable number of guys like me. Amateur runners definitely had a tough time during the run.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized on May 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Travelling by Kingfisher airlines after a long time I could see that lot of things have changed. Now they have “Live TV” which is provided by Dish TV guys.
On Wednesday night when the flight was scheduled to depart at 8:45pm to Delhi from Bangalore there was no announcement till 8:30pm while the normal boarding time is 8:15pm. What was surprising was that the monitors were displaying status as “Boarding” when there was no information on which gate to go to. They need to keep the customers, sorry guests updated.
The food served was overall good but the quality of roti in he vegetarian plate needs improvement.
In the return flight from Delhi to Bangalore immediately after I got in I was watching the screen in front of me. The flight was stationary and waiting for other passengers to board but the display in the monitor is “Ground Speed 3km/hr”. How in the world will there be a speed without movement??
Another comedy of error’s was before landing in Bangalore, “Distance to destination 0 km” but “Time to destination 00:01:07″!! Keeps you guessing, aint it.
In the return flight, it was not a Live TV but a repitition of programme played yesterday. Makes me wonder if the sticker stuck on all seats is just a gimmick??
What I can’t understand is:
1. Why do people keep the tray in front open before take-off & landing?? Don’t they know it should closed?? Are they first time travellers?? Why does it require the air-hostess to come and tell them??
2. Are people so busy that they need to connected all the time?? If they say keep your mobiles switched off while take-off and landing do so. Don’t try to be smart. The air-hostess should simply take away their phones.
3. Why do you remove the seat belt as soon as the plan touches the land?? What if the flight goes off the runway??
Why does the captain have to say “there are other flights available”?? Is he telling that if we are not impressed with the service just shut the f*** up and get onto other flights??
But one thing is their service is very good. They got very friendly staff who look after all your needs.
Tags: Kingfisher Airlines, Bangalore, Delhi
Posted in Uncategorized on May 17, 2007 | 2 Comments »
One of the shortest trip I have made ever travelling long distance!! I went yesterday night and was caught in the heavy hailstrom/thunderstrom that my flight was delayed by 45mins and landed in Delhi at 12:30 mid-night. And now back I am in Bangalore!!!
If yesterday was the rains today after being cloudy in the first half of the day, the heat and humidity almost was unbearable in the afternoon!! Delhi is back to normal!!
(looks like Delhi would be having mroe greenery than Bangalore in near future)
I had lunch at United Coffee House where a lady after getting drunk started arguing with the hotel guys and kept screaming at the loudest possible tone over the bill she was given.
If you don’t have money to pay don’t scream, lady. If the same had happened somewhere in South India like Chennai all the customers would have surrounded her and asked her to leave in very bad terms. But it was Delhi so, no one goes out to shut her mouth. This also resulted in me losing the appetite!!
I had an interesting conversation with the auto driver who took me the airport. He was quite knowlegable Bihari. We talked on varying subjects like Dr.Abdul Kalam staying as President for next term to Laloo Prasad Yadav how he has done lot for Indian Railways to Nitish Kumar being an effective Chief Minister in Bihar to of course cricket and India losing the World Cup very dissapointingly.
