Me, my Education and my Parents #4

Of course, for any person, parents will be the people behind their educational journey. My parents have supported me a  lot. Though I am a mediocre student, my parents always chose the best path for me. Morever, I had a very inconsistent academic performance. In 10^th , I scored 462/500. Since, we shifted our home from Foreshore Estate to Madippakkam, my school also got shifted. That affected me mentally. I like my old school (St.Antony’s Girls Higher Secondary School ) very much. It had a very friendly atmosphere, more extra-curricular activities, and best teachers. Though it was a government aided school, we had the best teachers. I will surely write about my school teachers one day in my blog.  The school I joined in 11^th was more like a prison.  It is apt to call it as a tuition centre rather than a school. My parents admitted me there as it is the best school in Madippakam. While my both younger brothers could manage the change perfectly, I was not matured enough to handle the change, I was struggling a lot. My mom took so many efforts to make me perform better. She was a Tamil Professor in Nandanam Arts and Science College then. Her colleagues took coaching classes for my school students.  Though I had  special attention, I was not able to cope up. I did not like the school ambience itself. That got registered in my mind very well.

My parents were very worried about my performance in 12^th board exams. My parents are very actually strict. They tried scolding me, gave advices, even my brothers started getting worried.. Though my mom’s colleagues took coaching for Engineering/Medical entrance examination at my school itself,  my mom chose me to put in ICE coaching center  for my entrance exams, as they understood that I did not like the school. My dad used to accompany me for coaching classes  daily from Madippakam to T Nagar.  Somehow, in 12^th I managed to score 1000/ 1200. Nobody will believe that I scored exactly 1000 but it is true . In entrance, I think  I got 68.5/100. I don’t remember exactly. I had a very low cut-off.  My parents and my brothers were so worried and bit angry. I actually wanted to pursue my career in Engineering. My parents very well knew this and they gave me another chance. I still remember my dad said, “Engineering collegela sethurren aana olunga padikanum”.  After analysing so much they decided to admit in SRM Easwari  Engineering College in Electronics and Instrumentation stream.

From day one, I focussed on my studies in my BE. Yeah, I liked the college, the stream and the people there too. I passed out with First class with distinction. But then I struggled a lot to get a job. I attended so many campus interviews but cud not get through. I had actually planned to pursue MS in US and went for GRE coaching. My parents did not say no to that. Though they knew that financially it is difficult to support me,they said, “ u go ahead, we will manage”. Again I got a low GRE score . I think I scored 390/800 in Verbal ;690/800 in  aptitude and 4/6 in Essay. Friends and many said it is possible to get an admit with this score, as I had a good academic score. I applied for 5 US universities and 1 Singapore university. My parents spent around 50k for this application process and all went in vain. It is a huge amount for my parents. Still I feel guilty whenever I think about that.  I did not get an admit in any Univ.

While I was busy applying for US universities, I totally forgot to apply for PG in Tamilnadu but my mom had bought an application for doing ME and MBA in TN .  I only singed in that  and she filled it and had applied. I was confident about MS but was totally diffident about ME/MBA. Things totally changed.  I scored well in ME/ MBA exams.  I forgot the scores but got a good ranking. I got a call from Anna University for MBA. Meanwhile, I got an admit in SSN Eng College and my dad chose Computer Science Engg Stream. I did my BE in Electronics and Instrumentation.  I was so scared but my dad thought I can manage as many said Comsci is easy. I was so doubtful and I got fever  that evening. I still remember my second younger pasumpon did not even have his lunch till I reached home from counselling after coming to know that I chose Comsci. He knows that I don’t like it.  I actually wanted to do MBA but my parents wanted me to do ME.  After having messing up in MS plans, I thought it is fine to pursue ME abiding my parents.

In ME, again I liked college, people but not the subject. I was totally diffident about getting through in semester exams. As guessed, I flunked in 3 papers out of 5 papers in my first semester. My parents again got worried. With the help of my friends there, I managed to clear my 3 arrears and 6 papers in second sem  in one shot. I am thankful to my friends, they made me like ComSci by teaching  it.  I think I have written about my BE and ME friends in my blog. They are amazing people. Then finally I passed out with first class, searched again for jobs but managed to get only a teaching job in Saveetha Engineering college. That’s when I came to know, teaching is my career and not software engineer. I really loved the job and actually could very well do it. Every time I take class, I feel satisfied and I think I have written about this also in my blog.

Then, I got Junior Research Fellow (JRF) job in Tamil computing Lab, CEG, Anna university. I decided to join here, as I wanted to do PhD to make teaching career, a permanent one. My parents supported my decision to pursue PhD. At last, I am done with my PhD. Sooner or later, will take up teaching  as my career after checking if my kid  Nila is comfortable or not.

It is a fact that all parents would like to educate their daughters. But at the end of a basic degree most parents take a decision of getting their daughters married if they are not so good at their academics. My parents did think differently.  With all the inconsistencies throughout my academics they could have come to a decision of getting me married after giving me a basic education, as done by most of their friends.  They always wanted me to prepare myself to stand on my own legs before marriage. One more fact was that, both my younger brothers were so consistently good in academics. First one got EEE in GCE, Coimbatore and the second one got Mech in CEG, Anna Univ. My parents were  least worried about their academics and they spent much more less for their education compared to me.

I am not a pampered child at home, my parents are so strict but every time I failed, they gave me a second chance; they supported my decisions when required. Not only in academics, they also supported my decisions in my personal life. Every time they supported my choice, they clearly told the limitations of my choice and they always advised me to be strong with my choice.   After marriage, they understood that it is the turn of Selva to take care of me. Selva is a kind of possessive natured person but my parents have always advised me to abide by  Selva’s decisions. I think parents only wish their kids to be happy, at any point in their lives. I can only make my parents feel proud by being strong in my decisions and achieve a good position in my career. That way, I could make the efforts taken by them meaningful.

Thanks for reading.

My PhD and Selva #3

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 Family, of course , the main back bone behind my PhD. The main three persons here to be mentioned are, Selva, my Parents and  my kid, Nila.  Selva was the main person behind. Without his support, surely it would never ever been possible. I think not all girls pursue their education after their marriage.  I am blessed that way.  When we got married in 2009, I had only completed one semester i.e six months of PhD. I had written exams soon after I got married.  As he promised, he supported me from day one and yes he kept his promise till the end.  I was mentally so weak in my initial years of marriage. It is actually tough to handle my polambals.

Selva is the main person behind making me mentally strong. The technique he follows is so strange. He will listen to my worries only once. He will advise and give solution. If I still continue to be worried, he will only scold and will not even hear one word of mine.  It actually worked. I used to fret and fume that he is not even consoling me, when I am so depressed.  Consoling too much makes a person actually weak.  Today, I have reached a level where I can face a problem with least stress. Let us see, if I am improving on that even better.  Also, selva will have his limits in supporting me. He wont give too much support, as he knows that will only make me lazy. He will wake me up at 5 AM every day so that I can spend time on my research, he will take care of Nila, whenever,  I need to go to Univ and get her ready to Pre-School, he adjusted his office timings for me, he took care of all formatting related work for all the papers, I have published and that’s it. I know as a husband this is actually too much. At the same time, he will never ever allow me to compromise on taking care of family. I mean in terms of house hold works. I can’t skip cooking or leave the sink uncleansed just because I have to leave to Univ.  He is a very strict officer.  I was so irresponsible and playful towards these household works when I got married. Selva struggled a lot changing me and of course, me too struggled a lot in undergoing that transformation. Today I think I have changed and at least I satisfy 70% of his expectation.

I do things in a damal dumeel way but Selva like things to be done slow and so perfectly and he also  teach me to do so.  I will give you one example of his teachings. While drying the clothes, the tip of the clip should hold the cloth and the rope as well and the clip needs to be straight.  The clothes should be stretched to the max . This way, the clothes get dried soon and it will never get carried by winds. Sapaa!!! ivlo detailsa sollikuduthaa oru payana valakkurathu? Thank god! I got a girl baby , else after two decades, some other poor girl would be cursing me on this.  But I often accept that Selva is right and mostly I will abide by his teachings. That too after Nila is born, I started sticking to his teachings rapidly. I observed that Nila imitates me what I do.  She will hold the Mop, the same way I hold and mop the floor. I thought it is better to be perfect or try to be perfect in doing things.. May be, I would have never decided to change, if had got a boy baby! Being a mom of a girl baby loads additional responsibilities on u. So, poruupaa irukalamnu mudivu panniten.ellam vithi!! Still I have got a big list of things that need to be done perfectly.

On the cooking front,  I chose the safer side.  I was almost new to edible cooking, in my early days of my marriage. I had two choices. I can either learn my mom’s way of cooking or my Mom-in- Law’s way. I thought it is better to choose Mom-in-law’s way of cooking.  The cooking I do even now is almost a carbon copy of her cooking.  No No .. Naan avlo nallava illa. Selva cookingla athu yen apdi irukku ithu yen  ipdi irukkunu question ketta gabalnu unga ammavum ipdithaan seivaanganu solli samaalickalaamla?. Eppudi ! naangalaam sema saarppu! I only realise how I have transformed whenever my relatives or friends come home. Once,  tacola friends visited our new home at Tambaram. Balaji was so surprised to see my cooking and he said, “kudumba isthriyaave marriteenga suba”. I have tested my worst culinary experiments on Tacola friends  and they have given true comments before marriage and I think, even after marriage.  So, I felt happy to get a positive comment from a tacola friend. Etho nalathu nadanthaa sari.

Back to Selva, I cant say thanks to him or even to my parents. I can only truly love them and be responsible towards them. I think being responsible is the best way to show your love especially, to your family members. That’s what I learnt after becoming a mom. Yeah, I have to mention about my kid here who adjusted a lot since her birth.  I had to leave her with Selva, when she was 11 months. Though, It was only for few hours but I know how babies will miss their moms especially, in that age.  May be, Selva made that easy for her.  I am blessed to have both in my life.

Thanks for reading

Of Tacola friends #2

Guru vanakkam is over. Now about my TaCoLa friends. Incredible friends for lifetime. We Tacola team is more like a family than friends. They can’t be missed in important functions in our family.  . Technical or Non technical  stuff. We give space for everything and discuss with ease with each other.   Just now it striked me , the reason why we all could behave as family members is that may be each one of us had siblings, I mean each guy had a female sibling and vice versa. One more common thing is that, we all had good rapport with our siblings.  I think Vinodh sir is an exception as he is a single child and Pon Prakash had only a brother. May be you don’t need a sibling to respect a woman who works with you.  Here, I should appreciate the male lab members because of whom we all felt so comfortable and they made Tacola a better place. They are all so disciplined and nobody talked rubbish even in the name of a joke. That’s why even people like Uma mam who was a very reserved person earlier was able to gel easily with all the lab members and became outspoken later. I doubt the interview process. Something is happening there.  May be they have special scaling factors specially for guys!!!.

We have not called anybody as akka , thambi or anna . It is tacit and Tacola had invisible discipline and rules which we all followed.   I remember balaji was calling me suba akka  when he joined the lab . I told him that , “akka nra mariyatha manasula irukkattum. Suba ne koopdu”.  I am sure he did have the respect and still having it. But this chezhian irritating me still by calling me akka.  He is only six months younger to me. But for the sake of showing himself as a youth, he used to call me akka.  And this akka term has one more story also. Rama priya who joined after me used to call me suba akka . But later only I realised that she is one and half years elder to me. Ada kadavule!. 

The lab has a seven years of history for me and I have met so many people there. Learnt good out of good people and too good out of certain strange people. I don’t want to tag them as bad people. I would say, cheating is not a crime but getting cheated is. I just don’t want to mention the person name. She is just an eye opener in my life. I simply used to believe blindly in people. I don’t analyse them in depth.  I am not able to believe that people can cheat others by spinning huge lies just for the sake of money. Lab friends know whom I am talking about.  After that incident, I have learnt a lesson in life that we are not supposed to blindly believe in people anymore. But it has a disadvantage too. U tend to doubt right persons too. It has shifted my basic character slightly. I think my lab friends will read this with only a big smile on their face as they always make fun of me for having been cheated like that. I deserve that for being so dumb! Its ok as it gave us a reason to laugh whenever we got bored.

Our lab friends can make any tough situations lighter. That has made the complete journey joyful. We had so many tough situs throughout but we crack some jokes and make the situ lighter. Humour sense was one of the common characteristic we all had.  Though I am talking of humour it makes me feel a bit emotional while writing this line as I doubt if I will get such teammates in the rest of my life. Turning to humor, if we talk for twenty minutes we will be laughing for fifteen minutes for sure. I am just missing those days.

  We use to go out for shopping. I was not married then. I think Balaji , Rama priya and raji will have the T nagar shopping memories. Rama and balaji will definitely not forget the shopping experience we had at Pothys. We went there to buy dress for rama as she got an offer letter in DRDO Bangalore. I think I also bought some dresses. At that time a 400 Rupees  price tagged salwar used to look so costly for me . Still I am a stingy person. That’s y before marriage my mom does not take me along with her while buying dresses for me and Selva after marriage.   I make them get tensed by arguing more about the price tag than the quality. Coming to shopping exp with lab mates, they still use to make fun of me of how me and rama chose dresses. Within ten minutes, I chose 3 dresses. One in 200 rs range, one in 300 rs range and the other in 400 rs.  When I showed the dresses to my mom , I remember she saying, “ipdi uripidi illama moonu dress vangarathukku 700 rs ku urupidia oru dress vangi irukalamla?”.  After that I have one simple rule, “ I will wear dresses whatever amma and selva buy for me with ”. I believe in their tastes too.  Coming back to the pothys incident, I don’t want to reveal the way rama chose her dresses. Rama ithukku neenga enakku gift kudukanum. Unga maanatha kaapathiten.

Yeah we use to buy gifts for our lab friends by collecting money. Though we earned less we aim getting a costly gift. Once they gifted me 2000 Rs watch. Balaji will remember the jinguchan jinguchan colour shirt we  bought for him for his b day. That was actually chosen by raji,  I remember he just wore on his b day for the sake of raji. Balaji unmaya sollu antha shirta ena panna?  Un wife Shwethata mattum kaatatha. Namma lab maanam poyidum. Thappi thavari shwetha paathutaanganna kooda  unmaya sollaatha. Adichu kooda kepanga, appa kooda solliraatha …

Helping tendency is just another common thread. We use to help without any condition. U remember my unconditional policy? Not only me, we all had that policy.  During fund issues we use to help each other. I remember Rama priya used to bring lunch from her hostel for balaji so that he need not spend for lunch. I feel money has  least significance to make u smile. With just twenty rupees we use to be so happy in the canteen buying something within the limits. On the technical front too , we use to help each other by explaining concepts, helping to fix the bug in the code . I have heard that usually PhD scholars do not reveal about their research to each other. At Tacola, things are totally different. We set our research goals and we have never hesitated to discuss about the issues in our research with each other. Being not too selfish actually helps to live a better life. That’s what we have learnt.  I had break in my studies twice. The kind of support my friends gave me is incredible. That too during my maternity break, I was writing a journal paper; Selva use to give the print out to Radha Krishnan and he will give to mam; Mam will correct it and send the corrected paper to Radha Krishnan and he will give to Selva. This process was going on for the entire break period for about one year. I should thank Radha Krishnan for the kind of support he gave me during that time and RP Mam for her efforts. Mam used to present my papers in the international conferences as she is also one of the authors. I am sure not all supervisors can do this for their students . She went twice for me once  to IIT Bombay and  then to University of Hyderabad.  Balaji has also presented one of my papers in Bangalore when my baby was two months old.   The PhD Degree I own today is not only because of my efforts but involves the efforts of many people. Thanks so much guys!

Regarding the Chaos and fights, yes we have had. I use to lose my temper very badly only to those whom I know that they will understand me.  I mean to say I get angry to those whom I surely know that they won’t leave me and will bounce back after a short period. I think I have done that only with Chezhian and Balaji.  I would like to list the lab members not in any particular order.  Uma mam, balaji, Chezhian, Rama priya, vinodh sir, karthikeyan, bharath, radha Krishnan and  Karthika. Few members were around for short period like kavitha,  sujin, pon Prakash, janci, senthil sir, shunmuga priya ,  Thilaga, vatsala priya and guna mam and prabhu sir. Recent additions are Premalatha, Ganesh and thenmalar mam. 

Whenever I think of discussing about any issue or seeking any help, a Tacola friend will definitely be in the list. Recently, I was so confused about my post- PhD plans.  One of the persons who came to my mind was vinodh sir and as I predicted he threw some lights over the issue. We have not talked frequently after he quitted lab but I knew he will help if I contact. Ayyayo I forgot Sairamesh, he is not part of Tacola but he is a faculty but he is also part of our friends group.  Actually  I have known Sai Ramesh  since 2004. He was my junior at SSN college. He is also an incredible person. He has also helped me so many times during my break period.

Each Tacola friend is unique and I have learnt so many things from each one of them. I like Uma mam for her guts. She joined back the job when her baby was three months old. She use to go during lunch , feed the baby and return. I only think of her whenever I feel so down while managing nila and my studies. Uma mam is my well-wisher. We both have a very good bond.  She is the first person with whom I always shared any happy news from my side.  One can understand the bond between them and their friend by the way they talk to your kid.  I have observed that from uma mam. She used to feel happy whenever she sees Nila and  compare my gestures with my kid. She was the first person to visit Nila  at our home from Tacola lab with her husband.  For that matter, all Tacola friends have pampered Nila and she also feels so comfortable being with them and likes going outing with them.  It feels so good to hear, when my kid calls my tacola friends as athai and mama.

Ramapriya is so talented. Having come from a normal family in tirunelveli, the success she has reached today is really to be saluted. She is a scientist at DRDO, Bangalore. I really adore u rama.  She does job so quickly.  Whatever she is today is all because of her hard work.  She left the lab in 2008 itself. I am happy that we are still in contact.  Me, Rama and Balaji formed a good combo.  I think Raji also used to join us.  Me and balaji missed her a lot when she left the lab. Balaji must have missed her a lot as Rama used to take care of the stupid balaji as her own brother. She brings lunch for him daily from her hostel.  She taught balaji about java coding. Sometimes he will say, “akka neengale coding adichu kuduthudungaka”. You wont believe rama will do that too for him.  Rama did not find it tough as she is so  agile in finishing her work  so cud  help  balaji with ease. Balaji was Rama’s classmate in their ME.   I only told rama to teach him how to code but not to do it for him, as it will only prevent him from learning. Later, balaji sir became one of the best coders in the Lab and he is now a PhD degree holder and works in a good company in B lore. Balaji, innaiku nee periya aala ayirukkanaa athukku naanum oru karanamaa irunthirukennratha maranthudaatha.

Balaji is a good friend of mine in the lab.  A brother’s view point to any situation of his sister is totally different. I think all the sisters who have brothers will agree on this. Brothers will give  a very neutral and unbiased solution to any problem  to their sisters.  May be the solution may not be favourable to you but u will definitely find justice in it. My second younger brother  pasumpon is good at that.  I have got similar solutions from balaji too sometimes.  Balaji is not an easy person to get along. He is so choosy in finding friends and mostly his views and mine are opposite. Despite that we were friends. He is the one who mostly pulled my leg in the lab. It is so difficult to differentiate if he is telling a lie or truth. He is good at speaking lies. Usually he will play a prank on me and he would have challenged the lab mates that he will make me believe and he always won. I struggled a lot due to this as 80 % of the time he will not be serious, of course when he is not working on his desk.  Now it is totally the head ache of his wife, shwetha to handle his pranks and lies. Yammadi romba kashtam. She will definitely get confused daily due to this. That’s y I told Shwetha on their wedding reception, “Enga Balaji ya kalyanam panni neenga periya thyaagi aayiteenga”.  She and her parents were laughing. I think by now she must have understood that what I said was not a joke rather it is a fact. But he is a very responsible person as far as his family is concerned. Still I remember the way he was searching to buy a  saree for his sister from his first salary. She had asked some specific design. If I am right,  “white saree with pink stones”. He took so many efforts to buy that. I am sure he will take good care of shwetha . Other than his stupid pranks,  Shwetha will surely have a fun -filled life with him. Good luck balaji! . I felt so happy for you both on your wedding day.  

Chezhian…. I know him since my child hood. We are family friends. My dad and his dad worked together for two years in sankaran koil.  My dad actually worked in Secretariat, Chennai but had a change of duty as, revenue inspector there for two years. Me, my two younger brothers and mom used to go there for summer holidays. Me, my bros, chezhian and his sis mathi  will play together at that time. Chezhian and his sis  used to go to karathe classes. I used to think, “cha how talented these two are!”.  Chezhian if u r reading  this, kindly tell me the number of belts u have got. Sorry, I forgot. Unakku Takewondo kooda theriyumla? Kindly message your qualities, I will update this post.  Etho ennala mudinjathu J .After my dad joined back his duty in Chennai at  secretariat, we kids lost contacts but our dads were in touch. After he joined in Tacola, the child hood friendship got renewed. Chezhian is yet another person whom I don’t hesitate to call for any help at any time.  Throughout my pregnancy, selva  used to drop me in the univ in the morning and pick me up in the evenings. Selva was so strict about this rule and I had to wait all alone sometimes as he can come only by 8 PM . Lab gets over by 6PM. Chezhian gave me company most of the time. I missed to attend his wedding event. I felt really bad. It is still hard to believe that me and Chezhian are grown up. I am married and having a kid; He is married. Time flies too fast.

Radhakrishnan is known as thambi in the lab. He is an MS research student in our lab. I don’t know why I see him as a kid always.  May be, because of his external appearance it makes me think like that.  I like him as a person. If you ask me who is your favourite  in the lab, my answer is definitely, Radhakrishnan not because he has helped me so much in my PhD degree but for his attitude towards life.  We both have a very good bond. I am only worried about his laziness. He is such a lazy goose. Hope he overcomes that and reach many more heights in his life. He deserves that. I always tell him that one day you will surely reach heights. You know something? What I say becomes true. I am just joking. But coincidentally this has happened with few persons. I have noticed this especially when I tell someone that they will reach heights. I know it is not because of my words but it is all because they deserve for their hard work. Yes I am just waiting to hear such news from Radhakrishnan  in near future.

Karthi is an enthusiastic guy. He likes exploring things and the kind of height he reached in his career in a short period says it all.  As a person also I like him and he is such a responsible person as he took the onus of getting his two sisters married on him. Vinodh sir is totally a different person. He is so sincere. If u go and discuss of any issue to him, he will patiently listen and give some solution with much authenticity. His receptiveness is the one quality I admire so much. Yet another sincere sigamanis of tacola are kandasamy sir and vijay vani. Bharath and sujin are yet another sincere chaps. 

Karthika is just a bold girl. She was sitting next to me in lab. She is very talented.  She speaks frankly what she thinks. I just admire this quality. Not all can do this. Thenmalar mam is yet another PhD student who is so calm and sincere. She is also one of the persons whom I don’t hesitate to ask any help. Padhma who is also an another Phd student of RP mam who have helped me a lot in my VIVA. Ganesh is my junior doing MS research under RP mam.  He is the valarum kavinjar of our lab. Good luck for your writings ganesh. Premalatha  is a PhD student here and a  good friend of mine.  Nila likes her and her husband too. Tacola people are blessed that way. All wives and husbands of Tacola member also gel easily with our gang. That’s really magical.  Uma mam’s husband, Sai Ramesh’s wife, Karthika’s husband , Prema’s husband and Of course, Selva who is my husband. Selva, is a very calm person but have  always felt comfortable with Tacola friends. Now Shwetha, who is Balaji’s wife joins  the club.  Intha Chezhiyan thaan avan wifea kannulaye kata maatenraan. I have been calling that stupid to home from day one of his marriage i.e from June 30, 2014. Still he is yet to come. Chezhian, if you are reading this just make sure how angry I am on you !

 Apart from lab members few BE,  ME and MCA  students were associated with our lab as they do their academic projects in  Natural Language Processing research arena. Hari, hara sudhan, Manjith, Bala Mithra, mariammal did their ME and did project in our lab. Hari came to my wedding at vellore. Bala and Mariammal are very good friend of mine. Bala is just another person who pops up in my mind whenever I need some advice or help even now.

 Once our lab members and few  students went for chemmozhi manadu which happened at Coimbotore about which I have already written in my blog.  Revathi, Shanthi, Kirupa, sabitha and tamilarasan had a good bonding with our lab mates. Sorry if I have missed any students name or any Tacola member.

I am not able to find a way to end this post.  Tacola has inculcated so much memories in me and this single post is just not enough. Everything in life has an ending;  PhD is over and so is Tacola. I am sure, we tacolians have come out / will come out with flying colours and I wish my fellow mates a very happy and successful life a head. Thanks for reading.

Tamil Computing Lab Experiences - #1

This post is about my Tamil Computing Lab (TaCoLa) experiences. I actually left TaCoLa lab on 5^th October 2011 but decided to write about tacola only after my final PhD Viva thereby making it totally unconditional.  I strongly believe in the unconditional policy mainly when it comes to relationship at it makes things simple.  I also believe that this particular policy has given me lot of good people in my life.  One such place where I happened to get such people is  TaCoLa. TaCoLa- a true alma mater, a gurukulam where most of us learnt how to think right in terms of Natural Language Processing  (NLP) research arena. Of course, I am yet to learn more but taCoLa gave me the beginning.  I would like to thank the Co-ordinators of TaCoLa,  Prof. Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathi mam, Prof. Dr.T.V.Geetha mam and Dr. Madhan Karky sir at this juncture. They have moulded me like anything and they are my role models.

 Most of the TaCoLa researchers are mediocre students. I think, most of them will agree on this fact. Despite this fact, we all have emerged out with flying colours. I would say it is possible because of the kind of the approach we followed at TaCoLa. The brain storming sessions helped us to think. The kind of freedom we had to ask questions; no matter how spec or unimportant the question may be, we have asked it  and our Co-ordinators /gurus have answered. We have never ever got the reply as “U don’t know this also?” . I think this is the secret of success of our gurus and their students. I still remember one incident. RP mam was very angry with me. She was so angry as I dint keep the reports for weekly  meeting perfectly. I actually got nice blasting in that meeting but in the middle of the  meeting I had a doubt and  I decided to ask her and yes! mam cleared my doubt. Of course with the same angry face on her. That’s about them. I also remember that after the meeting mam called me to her room and offered me a tea and told not to be like this anymore. This particular quality I like in them and I am going to follow  them blindly in my teaching career.  

As I said we all were mediocre students, our gurus had plenty of difficulties with us. Many even quitted in between. Since it was a government funded project, due to funding issues many will leave the job. Even I decided to quit my degree as I was so diffident about balancing my career and family soon after my marriage. But I am thankful to RP mam who gave the idea of taking a break instead of quitting degree.  Not only about technical stuffs, our gurus taught us various other skills too. For example, they always expected   multi- tasking ability from us. We will be assigned tasks every week.  Apart from that, we will be allocated some paper writing works for conferences. Still I remember Geetha mam saying, “parallela work pannunga pasangala”.  We all use to fret and fume initially(Sorry gurus for frankly telling this L). But today, I realise that parallel processing is a quintessential stuff in life. Especially for woman, it is. I realised that only after my kid is born. Not even a single day I could transfer my responsibilities as a mom to someone else and at the same time I had to continue my PhD.  Ofcourse,  Selva use to take care of her and drop her at play school as I had to leave to univ in the morning  but after she returns from school,  I had to manage my degree and her. But I could somehow manage; I started compartmentalising. I would concentrate on my kid, Nila when she is awake and concentrate on my studies when she goes to sleep. Thanks gurus for making us as responsible individuals too.   One more quality I should mention; not only teaching, accepting the ideas what we say is one of the most positive qualities of our gurus. They will also not hesitate to learn about a new concept from us. Perfect gurus right??

Each guru is unique in their own way.  Personally, they  three have inspired me a lot. I like the way Geetha mam takes class.  The way she understands the way we think is incredible.  Still I remember, she will be walking in the corridor for some other reason. When she happens to see us, out of the blue she will say, “kanna antha indexingku etho gold standard iruku atha konjam paaren” . Soon after uttering this she will quickly switch over to her other tasks . I have wondered how she is able to manage multiple responsibilities at the same time. I don’t know if your reading this or not mam but thanks a lot for all the knowledge you have cultivated on us mam.

RP mam’s kind of teaching method is totally different.  She is my PhD supervisor. She will just tell a single word. I remember she telling me, “can we do something on discourse analysis for PhD”? She wont say the ultimate goal. Though she knew it, she will expect me to search  and reach for the goal. She will show the path and say if it is right or not but building the path is totally our work. She gave me lot of freedom in terms of thinking in my research and gave me flexibilities so that I could balance my studies and my kid. Still I remember how mam corrected my journal paper at the IIT Madras campus from 4PM to 8 PM . I had to take Kavin Nila with me along with my parents on that day as selva was not available. Towards the end of thesis completion, a situation came where I had to submit before June  30 2014, else I will have to pay the semester fees. RP mam was on vocation then. She was kind enough to  correct my thesis at her home and because of that I could submit the thesis on time. Thanks mam for the entire support and I should thank Mam’s mom also at this time for her kind nature. Thank you mam !

Madhan Karky sir is such a down to earth person. Though having come from a celebrity family (He himself is a celebrity now. I am talking about his initial years in TaCoLa), he used to be so simple and approachable. His methodology is also totally different. He will assign a work and ask the deadline to be fixed by us. He gives lot of importance to the end result and he always wants us to check and compare our tool with the current day technology.   He always tried to have a good rapport with the lab mates by taking us out for team lunch. Thanks so much for all ur guidance. I am not sure if you are reading this or not but I would like to say that I am thankful to you for attending my marriage with ur wife Nandhini. Still I am not able to believe that!  Good luck in all your efforts sir !

Thanks for reading.

Women Rock!!!

Blogging after a long time… Thought I will only write after my thesis submission but somehow made some time to write this.    Writing this post based on my recent experiences that I had in our new apartment at Marutham Gateway, West Tambarm. Yes, at last I made some friends here and me and my kid are having good time in the evenings like we did in our previous home at Velachery. Life in an apartment is always good.  You will feel secured first, you will get to know people and the best part is tht ur kid will have friends. Myself and nila will go down to the kids play area in our apartment in the evenings and most of the kids and their moms will join us. Suddenly many of them suggested a beautician who is also one of the residents of our apartment and she must be of my age group. After  having bought an own flat I am not into spending too much for beauty salon related tasks and since  it’s my decision to force Selva to buy an own flat so soon when we were not actually economically ready , I created my own constraints. Despite this I told my fellow residents that I will try once with the beautician they prescribed. One day I decided to have eye brow threading as it costs only thirty bucks. Yes,  she did very well and the best part is she does the job coming to our home. Beautician at our door steps! Nice idea. Later, I came to know more of her. She has so much of personal problems, she was not even given a penny by her husband, chucked out of home for one full night, she does not have kids and she was not working too. Can’t think of a woman who suffers at this young age and can’t imagine how a male that too in this generation treats a woman like this. I was shocked to know that he is a Project manager in a reputed software company. More than that I am speechless to hear that she is not willing to leave him even in this situation and having hopes that he will change and be affectionate to her as he did for the past six years. I thought this could happen only in television serials.  

One fine day she discussed her problems with the residents of our apartment and they all gave so many ideas. She realised that she had learnt informally about all the beauty salon related tasks from her mom since childhood and now she is into this business and doing well. Also, she takes Hindi tuitions in the evening. Hats off to my friends here who supported her during her tough days and gave this idea to her. She is feeling good now. I know women can empathise women better and  its a myth to say that women can’t think broad. I am so proud of my friends here in my apartment. I am not here to compare the quality of empathy that men and women have. That’s really out of the scope of this post. I have similar experience during my BE college days. That was a girls college (I know it so strange to hear that an engineering college is a women college but now it has turned into Co-ed). I remember we all classmates decided to pay fees of 12k for one of our classmate whose father got a stroke suddenly and he was the only bread winner then. I also remember that our classmate took tuitions in the evening to continue her studies. I like that spirit in her. Feel like writing more but I think this is getting long.  Now I feel a bit relieved after writing this post. That’s the prob with me. I always wanted to share such experiences the moment I come to know either orally or by writing so that I keep my head empty while going to bed. Finding time to write these days is getting tough as I have started writing my thesis and I badly wanted to get it done ASAP. Sharing orally has not been a problem at all with me as I have a pathetic  person at home who always keeps himself busy hearing something that I say. He normally speaks less but I feel he never has time to speak out even his single  thought these days as one more version of me in terms of talkative quality is also keeping him busy hearing always.  Women rock always!!! Thanks so much for reading.

Happy New Year !

Wishing all my blogger  friends and their family a very blissful, peaceful, successful and a wonderful new year. May all ur longings get fulfilled and targets get achieved in the upcoming brand new year 2014:) .
- Subalalitha

Bye Bye Velachery

Actually amidst lot of assignments I am writing this post. But u see we can’t let go off nostalgia that easily sometimes.  Nostalgia according to me relates to places and sometimes to people belonging to that place. No no this post is not about nostalgia. OK coming straight to the point without creating anymore confusions. We shifted to our  new home at West Tambaram. Previosuly we resided at Velachery. I know its bit too much to feel nostalgic when I have not even gone out of the city but u see a change of place esp home no matter what the distance is will definitely leave its own  memories. So here’s what I feel about our ex-Home.

So many good things happened here. One of the happiest moments is that our kid was born here that too after 2.5 years of long wait.  Since the hospital happened to be immediately next to our apartment I completely felt  comfortable throughout my pregnancy.  Whichever of part of the globe I may go I can’t forget that hospital forever. No no I don’t mean to advertise but it is really a patient friendly hospital and I am thankful to Dr. Balakumari throughout my life for having helped me from day one till my delivery. I have to mention the hospital’s name here. It is K.S Hospital and it is mainly gynaecology related. Though it is a very small one but one can get a good service here.

We almost spent three full years at Velachery-home. It took almost six months to have a conversation with my neighbor whose house is just opposite to mine.  She was also working and I was also working and both of us dint have kids initially. U see, kids do the magic of bridging the gap between anything and everything.  In that apartment there are three blocks and each block has four houses so totally twelve .Sorry one of the block has five houses so thirteen houses. It took one year to know the people who reside in my block and another one year to know all the residents.   Before our daughter was born,  me and selva will come home at around 7 PM and on weekends we will we reach sathyam cinemas even before the gate watchman reaches there. After movie we will go to some mall and do heavy window shopping and sometimes real shopping and then return home at 10 PM. This kind of life pattern din do any good to my research as well as to building a rapport with the apartment residents.

It was exactly after five months of my kid’s birth I started knowing people around me. I used to give her breakfast, lunch and dinner in the car parking area. My kid is such a finicky character and she wont  eat her food inside home. I would say one of the most challenging task in the world is to feed one’s own child. That too my kid wants at least a dog /cat/cow/crow/pigeon and 2 humans around her while eating.  Also, in parallel, I have to spin small  small boring  mokka stories.  All these conditions need to get satisfied to get that bowl empty. If I empty her food bowl, then  my day is done. So people started interacting with my kid as well as with me during our food time.  Many kids of our apartment started even helping me to get my kid to eat. So cute of them. I started realising how dumb it is to not even knowing  the neighbors. The worst part is that they all have noticed me already . Really  embarrassing. So at last as usual I ended up getting good people. We invited all of them to our daughter’s first b day. My kid is 1.10 yrs now and she got so much of friends there .Felt really heavy to leave that place. It is almost a week since we left that home. Still my daughter is reciting her friend’s name. Me and my kid will always remember vaishnavi, lakshita, tanisha, arya, sohan, sowmya, ajay, alein, adelin and nadhu and these kid's moms as well.

I learnt some good things from here. I learnt to do the house hold works on my own as most of my neighbours do it on their own. I was once frustrated when my servant maid left the job and I was searching for a new maid but I ended up realizing that  depending on somebody  esp for house hold work is always a stress.  I developed guts to manage it on my own and many of my US-UK friends manage their home with kids on their own. So even I learnt this and I am managing things on my own with enormous mental relief now. I have planned  to do all the house hold works on my own even after I start my teaching career. If I really practice this then this gyanothayam definitely blossomed at Velachery.

Other than these we will miss our nearby kayenthi bavan, vadai shop, Hotel sangeetha(Selva’s favourite) , thalapakatti.  Importantly phoenix mall was very near our home but now we need nearly a 40 mins drive from Tambaram (I know this s a bit mokkai feeling).

Hope we get to meet good people as usual here at Tamabram too. Let us see how it goes. Thanks for reading.

This is the link to our daughter's first b day album which was celebrated at our Velachery home https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108987716244841277901/albums/5807292032255528641?authkey=COy3g-ijk6jwpwE

Paradigm Shifts

Wow.. long time no bloggingt..but happy that I have not shed  writing yet ... 

And yeah will have to tell that, this is my first post as a mom.... Really hard to believe sometimes that, I have grown up and taking care of a baby.  Untill I entered  marriage life, I remember me as a person who was least bothered of responsibilities. Going to school and then to  college  and later running to anna univ up and down from home were the only useful deeds I could think of when I look back . Even cooking a dinner after returning home will seem as a rock weight responsibility. Actually I was worse than what I have described here. Then, came the marriage life.  Actually came to know what is  real cooking only after marriage. Thanks to the victim Mr. Selva, My real life thyaagi. Below are some of the cooking mess ups I did during our early days of marriage

* Cooked sambar without dhal.

* Made upma as bayangara Upppuuuumaaaaa

* Added some ten spoons of sugar to make 1 kg kesari

With these poor cooking talent, I some how managed my PhD morning classes and work. Thanks to  Hotel AdyarSangeetha and Hot Chips for helping me during my exams :)But today after 3 years of marriage life, I have reached the comfort zone in cooking to an extent. Dont know if Selva has reached the same comfort zone in eating what i cook... Not only cooking, I think,a girl needs to change completely after marriage and  so I did. Life before marriage was so care free. U can get up late during holidays , No  to washing clothes/vessels, arranging things in every room daily, cleaning toilets ,buying vegies, grocery and the list goes on . .All these responsibilities get hold of the girl on that one single day. Living in a nuclear family adds up its own disadvantages and if u don have a maid, welcome to the club!!!.It’s really terrific. The toughest job is to put a budget when the month starts to avoid dandanakaa month ends. I dont deny husband does the earning part better but I feel, we girls need to have that extra X  factor to keep the family's growth graph running upwards steadily.

My doll and her doll 

                                         

Ooohoooooo then comes the motherhood. The day of attaining mother hood takes not only the girl but the entire family to really a different world. I never knew that I could survive with just one hour sleep a day. Even on the day just before I entered mother hood, 8 hours of continuous sleep was my minimum requirement to make my day. Today,  it is almost a dream ! Looks like, I am piling up all the dark fantasies. Yeah the bright side does exist and keeps you smile amidst the entire onus on you. The wow feeling of holding my lil angel, see her smiling, crying, yawning and sleeping, is amazing. Top to toe, she has that magic. Watching her stages of growth is yet another boon. Reaching back to square one and growing along with her is bliss and the good old memories that chirp in mind is a bonus.  Waiting for her next stage is thrilling and seeing her try for that without giving up is a lesson for life.

Growing up a baby is mere trial and error I would say. You may get tons of advices right from day one. Sometime I get tired of these advises and get confused  most of the time. I would say, advices have the following characteristics

• Advises contradict each other.
• They do help at times.
• They confuse u to the maximum.
• They will make pediatrician giggle or at times get angry on u.
• They will make u browse at least ten baby related websites hundred times a day.
• Last but not the least, they come for free.

This is my experience. If you have observed /suffered some more characteristics, you are most welcome to add them up here. I hope I am on the right path of raising up my angel.

Feel like writing more but the time space given by my lil madam is quiet short so signing off for now. Guess these paradigm shifts and also my posts on this topic will continue accordingly

Thanks for reading.

Opinion Differs

I was once a frequent visitor to Apollo hospitals,greams road,chennai for I had to accompany my parents to consult haematologist and heart specialist.First I was actually diffident about apollo because of the rumours that were aired around.But truly speaking, their service is excellent and of course u need to put up with the bill u get at last.One day I was at the bill counter to pay for my dad's blood test.I was so surprised to see most people paying 4k-6k Rs for tests.But at last, I had to pay 12k Rs!!!!But now a days almost all hospitals charge heavily no matter how big or small they are. This week when me and selva had gone to visit an ENT speacilist in a small clinic @ velachery ,he charged 250 Rs for just two mins consultation!!!.A heart specialist consultation fee @ Apollo is 400 Rs for about half an hour consultation.Not a big diff u can see right.I cant really forget two doctors for rest of my life @apollo ; Dr.Bharadwaj,Haematologist who correctly identified symptoms and at the right time prevented blood cancer in my dad and Dr.Rajeshwari Nayak who turned out the critical situation into normal one when my mom was admitted there due to mitral valve shrinkage.Now the situ is almost fine.

I had gone there last week for follow up consultation with my parents. All is well but i find one thing that is odd there.U can see a man welcoming u with a smile similar to anjappar hotel style.I don't know if its right or wrong but I had felt it insignificant and sometimes irking, esp when I had entered the hospital with a frustrated mind.Of course yes ,opinion differs.

புத்தாண்டுப் பதிவு

இனிய புத்தாண்டு வாழ்த்துக்கள்.
தமிழ்ல பதிவு எழுதனும்னு ரொம்ப நாளா யோசனை .அதோட வெளிப்பாடு தான் இந்த பதிவு.

என்ன எழுதலாம்னு யோசிக்கும்போது எல்லார மாதிரியும் புத்தாண்டு உறுதி மொழி பத்தியே எழுதலாம்னு முடிவு பண்ணிட்டேன்.

பேசிகலி நான் கொஞ்சம் சோம்பேறி.என்னமோ கொஞ்ச நாளா ஒரு பீதி.எங்க இந்த சோம்பேறித்தனம் வளர்ச்சிய பாதிக்குமோன்னு ஒரு டவுட்டு.முதல் வேலையா இந்த படிப்ப முடிக்கணும்,எப்படா இந்த படிப்பு முடியும்னு ஒரே அங்கலாய்ப்பு.என்னோட சக ஆய்வு மாணவி சொல்லுவாங்க,"நாமளும் நடிகர் முரளி மாதிரி எப்பவுமே ஸ்டுடன்ட்டா இருக்கறா மாதிரி இருக்கு". அந்த மாதிரி இல்லாம ஸ்டூடன்ட் வாழ்க்கைக்கு ஒரு முற்றுப் புள்ளி வைக்கணும்.

வெளியில பாக்கறதுக்கு ரொம்ப கூல் பர்சனாலிட்டி மாதிரி நான் தெரிஞ்சாலும் உண்மையில டென்ஷன் பார்டி அதோட ரொம்ப கோவப்படுவேன்.இந்த ரகசியம், செல்வா,அம்மா அப்பா மற்றும் ரொம்ப சில நண்பர்களுக்கே தெரியும்.அந்த அளவுக்கு நாங்க மைண்டைன் பண்ணுவோம்.மைண்டைன் பண்ற தெறம எக்கச்சக்கமா இருந்தாலும் இந்த கோவம் ப்ளஸ் டென்ஷன கொறச்சி/நிறுத்திக்கனும்னு முடிவு பண்ணி இருக்கேன்.

அப்புறம் நெறைய எழுதணும், நெறைய பாட்டு கேக்கணும்/பாடனும் (மத்தவங்க கேக்குற லெவெலுக்கு இல்லைனாலும்,நான் மட்டுமாவது கேக்குற அளவுக்கு ),நெறைய சமையல் வகைகள சாப்புடற மாதிரி செய்யக் கத்துக்கணும்,வேறென்ன ... இருக்குற கொஞ்ச நஞ்ச நல்ல பழக்கம்/கொள்கைகள தொடரனும்.இந்த வருஷத்துக்கு இவ்ளோதான்.

இதுல எத்தன அடுத்த வருஷத்து உறுதி மொழியா பார்வர்ட் ஆகப்போகுதுன்னு தெரியல

.இருந்தாலும் பாப்போம். அடுத்த பதிவில சந்திப்போம்.நன்றி:)

A Wishy-Washy Post

For the third time I am typing a post for my blog .Hoping to publish instead of leaving it half way and forgetting it totally.

Disclaimer for the upcoming para alone:

It’s all my polambals and u could feel it utter non-sense so if u want u can skip it ;no probJ

Not so busy but kind of getting meager time to spend on net. Every day right from 6 AM to 8.30 A.M, time vanishes in cooking and getting ready to work.9.30 A.M-7.30 P.M gets engulfed in work. That’s, where I get the reason to lose all my time, which I should have spent at least one hour for tasks that cheer up my neurons and arteries. Though not a very good writer, I feel so fresh when I flush out something out of my mind or heart through doodling on this laptop.Night veettukku vanthu ezhuthalaamenu neenga kekalaam.athukkum naanga kaaranam vachirukomla.night vanthu samaikanum,saamaan theikkanum,veetta suththam paananum and the day ends and the next day starts as usual. And sleeping less than 7 hours makes me Unproductive for the whole day so usually I don’t prefer burning the midnight oil. Waiting to finish my PhD and shift to my dream job ,Teaching where I could get some time for all my jolly hobbies too. Hope I don’t search for any lame excuses for not spending time usefully. And yeah I have to learn music too then.Paaklaam.

Now coming to the actual stuff, a friend of mine from US called me last Sunday morning.After so many years we could recognize voices. She spoke for about half an hour. We were talking about our BE days. That’s when my thoughts were getting into some non- uniform loop of nostalgia backward and forward about people around me. Touch wood people around me have been so affectionate to me right from family, school, UG, PG and at work too till date. I guess I have written about my family, UG, PG friends in blog.The only gang left out are my dearest DRSLAB anna univ friends. Planning to write it separately when I leave the lab.

Be it family or friends I have learnt so many things 100% good to hold on and carry on life happily. Selva has the major part in moulding me and helping to take things in a composed way .After meeting so many good people I guess, I have the right to say this. May be I may not sound right to u but still … I Guess expectation less, depth less perspective on anything/anybody’s action esp ur dear ones ,forgetting bad things in micro seconds ,at least an appreciable amount of self less attitude towards anybody etc are some of the ingredients which helps in holding your dear ones throughout life.

Thinking of writing about that one ingredient depth less perspective mentioned above which looks so hazy. It merely means not thinking too much. Making neurons to work so hard and putting arteries to sleep is too risky I would say, in terms of ,”love earning business”. Tried hard to control my semi theist-atheist ideas from entering this post. But anyways would like to share the experience, I happened to see this scene before a temple.I saw a man almost 40 years fighting like anything with an auto driver, as the auto driver asked some twenty rupees more than usual.I don’t mean to justify the auto driver’s deed.All I wanna say is, that what is the point in worshipping god;travelling all the way from home to temple with family ; losing mental peace and as well as the fine friday eve, that too the moment u leave the temple.

At the end of" a sort of this wishy- washy post", I just hope that the rest of my life continues with those ingredients learnt from dear ones, achieving dream job, jolly hobbies at fixed heights which is so tiny but quiet enough to lead an elated life whose altitude is as high as a giant wheel.

இதம் தரும் தருணங்கள்...

அதிகாலையில் கேட்கும் பறவைகளின் அகவல்கள்...
நிசப்தமான இரவில் கேட்கும் பாடல்...
கடைசி பரீட்சையின் மாலைப்பொழுது ..
கடுமையான வெயிலிற்கு பிறகு பெய்யும் மழை...
கடுமையான மழைக்கு பிறகு அடிக்கும் வெயில்...
தொலைதூர பயணத்தில் பெற்றோர் கொடுத்தனுப்பிய கட்டுச்சோறு...
பழைய புத்தகத்தின் தேடுதலின் மத்தியில் கண்டறியப்படும் ரூபாய் நோட்டு ..
பல ஆண்டுகளுக்கு பிறகு முச்சந்தியில் அடையாளம் கண்டுகொண்ட பள்ளி தோழி ...
கூட்டமே இல்லாத பேருந்து...
தோல்விக்கு பிறகு கிடைக்கும் வெற்றி...
திடீரென அறிவிக்கப்படும் அரசு விடுமுறை...
எதிர்பாராமல் கிடைக்கும் பரிசு ...
என்றென்றும் பொழியப்பெறும் உன் அன்பு ...
யாவும் இதமே...

My Tamil Chemozhi Maanaadu experience

Long time no blogging.Thought of writing my Tamil Chemozhi Manaadu @ Coimbatore experience soon after it got over but then situ had it's own control over me preventing from writing .My usual excuse.Actually this post could have been better if i had written soon after chemozhi maanadu..Let me anyway give a try in capturing the complete essence of the sole enjoyment with the two weeks lag memory -fado- mania !!!

Our Tamil Computing Lab ,ComSci Dept ,Anna University,Chennai was supposed to put stalls to display our Tamil products like word games ,online dictionary,concept based search engines etc at Tamil Chemozhi maanadu.The whole journey right from head to tail was sheer enjoyment and enlightenment(???).

Lemme start the story from the head ,I mean our journey from Chennai to Coimbatore on 21.16.2010 at around 11 AM from Univ campus..We were totally nine members that includes, our Tamil Computing Lab staffs and students.Though the journey was bit tiresome as we took a tempo traveller but the enjoyment we had through out, made the journey vivid.Chit chatting ,pulling legs ,cracking jokes ,watching movie,even struggling to find a good restaurant turned out to be a fun.The journey ended at around 2 AM.

The next day 22.06.2010,it was a total opposite experience full of tension.There was so much of chaos and confusions in formalities in entering the Codisia ,the place where the maanadu took place.We had to struggle the whole day just to get a gate pass.U know of the sluggish government procedures.The next day 23.06.2010, was even worse.After having taken so much pains to get the gate pass,we got stuck up in traffic for nearly three hours due to big shots entry to Maanadu Inaugural function.The remaining day passed by putting up posters ,setting up stalls etc.

The next day 24.06.2010 our stalls were open to public.We were allocated three stalls .two for displaying our Tamil word games,Tamil Online Dictionary ,Tamil Text to video projects etc.The third was for our Concept based Tamil search.Celebrities right from CM,state/central government ministers visited our stalls .They were quiet happy with our products esp Tamil Online Dictionary www.agaraadhi.com .Try using it with firefox rather than IE.

I should really talk about the public here.Many children liked our games .But very few understood our concept based Tamil search.One thing that really surprises me is that, how mobile phones reached almost to every niche in the state, when computer is still a mystery to many.Credit goes to mobile phone designers ,I wud say.And really hats off to Cinema guys as they take so much pain to take it to the lay man. Of course business and making money is one side of the coin but still taking efforts in reaching a common man thru anything or any form is a tough challenge.Thats what I deciphered when I tried explaining our Concept Based Tamil Search Engine to many visitors.

Many interesting conversations,questions (relevant as well as irrelevant ) I had from visitors to our stalls.Here's the few .

Actually we had used projectors to display our Concept Based Search .One guy asked me ,"how is the projector working ?".After my answer I was eagerly waiting for him to ask about our Concept based search but he was quiet contented with the knowledge of how the projector was working.I thought that guy was far better when some one came to the stall only to ask,"what is the cost of the projector" .My usual thought in mind popped up,"ippove kanna kattuthe "

Most of the time there was no internet connection despite the fact that,I complained twice a day.This precluded us from showing the Concept Based Search completely.Some one came and asked ,"I want to know about kadaloor".I said right now internet is not working ,so just explained him the concept.After listening for almost ten minutes he said,"appo unga system work aagala .chumma vachurukeenga apdiithaana".I thought," sapaa mudiyala"

A similar kinda person approached me and asked and learnt how our search works .He too after ten minutes told,"appo ithu oru website avlothaana .ok thank u madam".

Actually our other two stalls had enthusiastic visitors .Only our Search system stall had meager visitors per day.

The other day a woman came very fast towards our stall and asked me ,"paapa romba kaal valikkuthu konjam chairla okaanthukkattumaa.I thought ,"athaaana paathen enga search system pathi therinjukka vegamaa vanthaangalonu".This woman was better than the other one who came to the stall just to ask if she can take the Tamil News papers on the table.They supplied Tamil news Papers twice a day to all stalls .So we had some visitors for taking News Papers daily.Two men came .One asked me if he can take the news paper.The other man who accompanied him told him ,"dai athu nethu paper da .freeya ethu kedachaalum edukrathaadaa ?".My mind was getting confused whether to weep or grin.

A police man came to the stall and asked me ,"neenga anna universitiya ?".I said."aama sollunga ".He said," thambi university enga irukku ?"I told to myself,"kadipottathukku mikka nandri ".He left the stall and came back to say ,"sorry sister kochukaatheenga .chumma velayattuku".udane naanu ,"ithu veraya?empa polisu unakku velayaada aale kedaikalayaa?"(manasukkulanga ...neenga vera.naangalaam veetla puli veliyila elinga ")


And yeah many asked me when is the counselling and what are the degree courses offered in Anna University CEG,Chennai.I should have prepared myself to such questions instead of wasting time in picking up and testing good queries to show case our search system to the public.

But I was really surprised to see many enthusiastic police men and women to visit the stall and ask about the search system.The system was tourism domain specific so they all were eager to know about their home town through our search system.A police man visited our stall to know the tamil equivalent word of petrol.I told him ,"I dont know but will let u know later".I just forgot about that totally.I was agaped to see him the same day evening.I told him the answer the next day.It is ,"Kal ennai or Kal nei " it seems.

Last two days ,I was in the Tamil word games stall .I was actually aiming at calling the kids and play the word game.Our BE students had designed a word game called ,"Mirigina Jumbo "which is nothing but a jumbled Tamil word game.Many kids were enjoying that.One kid asked me ,"akka naan gamela win panna intha lap toppa prize sa kudupeengala?".thirupyium manasukkula ,"athu seri chinna pulla mothakondu nammala kalaaykkuthunu nenachukuten".

Our team gave interviews on Makkal TV,Polymer TV and FM Rainbow.

After giving interiview to Polymer TV ,I asked him when this will get broad casted.He said in today night and tomo morning news.I asked him if this TV will get tuned in TATA sky.He said no.I asked if it will get tuned in cable TV.He said there is some prob due to sumangali cable vision.Vivek's comedy mindukku vanthathuthaan micham,"yaarume illaatha kadaila yaarukkuppaa tea aathura?".Despite these facts two reported me that they saw the interview on TV.Romba santhosham.

The other day ,a messing-up-technology was implemented by me.Din get it uh?sothapalsathaan apdi sonen.I actually planned to take a snap of CM when he crossed our stall.When I was about to click ,CM smiled accompanied with the namaskaaram gesture.I dropped clicking and tried namaskaaram.With the Cam in hand, at last ended up messing both clicking and namaskaaram coz CM crossed so fast as he came in a battery car.Suba always rock in messing up things.Anything and Everything I can mess up.Atlast I could only take a snap of the Bomb Detecting Dog that comes before hand to CM visit !!!


Off Stalls ,we had a gala time in the lodge with our team mates .Surprise package was the songs sung by our professor RP mam.It was truly a treat to ears.We went to Marudhamalai temple and climbed around thousand steps and lost the Gym-miss-guilty feel.It would be insane if i miss the names of the team here.Ladies first ...Uma mam,Sabeetha,Revathy,Shanthi,Kiruba,Balaji,Chezhiyan,Tamizh and ofcourse me.Its a wonderful team.Touch wood!!!


Still feel like writing more about the trip but not wanting to test the patience of the reader.So winding up with the upcoming last line.On the whole it was a fun filled experience to cherish through out..

Long Long ago..

Long Long ago there lived a man named Harichandra.He always spoke the truth...Oops ! not so long ago..it just came in flow with the title.Just thought of sharing one of my embarrassing situation that happened some 19 years ago....I was in my third standard @ Our Lady of BonSecours Convent ,Mandeveli,Chennai then.I am basically a mediocre student in academics .One fine morning ,I was writing my Maths Annual exam.After about one hour later ,I discovered that I was given fourth standard Question paper instead of third standard question paper.I remember I had a slight doubt right from the beginning as I was unable to solve even a single problem...But just thought may be my preparation was so poor failing to solve even a single prob.Finally told my teacher about it .She and all the teachers supervising in that floor actually gave me a gentle pat for having attended a fourth standard question paper while in third standard. The rest of the scenario got ended by giving me the right question paper with a grace time of about half an hour totally extra !Suddenly when this incident got popped up y day, I thought why none scolded me for the inability of mine to differentiate a right question paper and the wrong one.???..So kind of them....Please read the post script..

P.S: I flunked twice (Quarterly and third mid term test ) in mathematics while studying in Fourth standard :) All in the game :)Thanks for reading the Post script too :)

Of Side Effect Realities of Allopathy and Of Dangerous superficial googling knowledge

Getting meagre time to sit on net these days . Visiting Apollo hospital @ greams road, Chennai with appa almost became a daily routine last week. Appa had some problem with haemoglobin percentage. Doctor in our locality suggested consulting a haematologist in Apollo hospital. After almost three weeks which we spent in taking blood tests and bone marrow test(test which is prescribed for detecting blood cancer) doctor came to a conclusion that appa is in a safe zone right now but has to intake medicines to avoid getting in to the dangerous zone. Thank god we went there at the right time .What doctor told us after seeing the reports of bone marrow test is that, the bone marrow which is responsible for producing blood corpuscles and releasing correct percentage of iron to produce haemoglobin is not functioning properly. The shocking fact is that the bone marrow’s malfunction is due to the medicine called ,”Eptoin” which appa has been taking for the past four years as he had a mild fits kind of disorder ..Not a very serious disorder but he gets unconscious once in four years due to the presence of small scratch kind of stuff in brain. This Eptoin has very well cured the fits but has affected the bone marrow which when not treated for long time results in blood cancer.

I am not aware of the facts of other type of medication such as homeopathy, siddha,unani etc and I am not into comparing allopathy with other medications but just thought of sharing the info so that when ever we take some treatment we will also have to check if it has some serious side effects too.

Now coming to the ignorance part of mine. We had to wait five days after every blood test.Meanwhile ,I use to google why this test is necessary and after I get the reports of the tests I will cross check if the next test prescribed by the doctor is really needed .Actually after taking blood test to see the % of blood constituents like WBC,RBC,platelets ,lymphocytes etc (which costed 12k Rs),doctor told us this test is not enough and suggested to take bone marrow test which may give a clear picture. We took the test(which costed 6k Rs) and after returning home I googled why bone marrow test is taken. After reading first two sites, I came to a conclusion that only if the WBC and platelet counts are abnormal one has to go for bone marrow test. I thought doctor is just doing things for money as appa had absolutely fine percentages of WBC s and platelets. Only after consulting the doctor, we came to know that without taking bone marrow test we would not have deciphered that he is in a safe zone but has to undergo medication to prevent getting into the dangerous zone.Googling is fine but superficial knowledge from googling and jumping to conclusions blindly like me may be dangerous. Thanks for reading.

Silk Saree -Jewels Combo Phobia

Long time no blogging.My site meter shows some frequent visitors from New Delhi,B lore and US..Thanks for visiting my blog constantly even when i am not writing for long time and sorry for the delay..

Whenever a family function like wedding approaches ,the first thing that makes me go worried is the Silk Saree and the jewels combo.Its not that i don't like saree but tying a Silk Saree in a hot summer is equivalent to writing a Mathematics exam for three hours without arriving a solution for even a single question.If the example is not in sync forget and forgive.May be because the temperature is preventing me to think straight .Samaalification is always part of life .Note that I have used this sentence already in recent posts.Again the culprit is temperature :)

Simplicity is heaven and always it is .When it comes to functions simplicity is not appreciated much.If u r a girl/lady above twenty five .. let me put it as girl instead of girl/lady at least till I reach thirty .I actually wanted to say that ,when u r in ur late twenties , u cant afford to go to a function without tying a silk saree and wearing jewels.The Silk Saree and Jewel Combo is the one I hate to the core.First and foremost thing is that, u will feel old no matter when u r actually old :).Next thing is that , comfort will not be felt even at least percentages.


In case if u have avoided wearing a silk saree and golden jewels, u some how ought to arrange for an alternative like designer saree and Non Gold fashion jewels. Arranging for it is the top most head ache and wearing is the next head ache and the next's next head ache is not actually yours but its your husband's head ache as he has to spend for it.Till y day I never wanted Selva to suffer from that head ache but I had no options than buying a pearl set.I tried avoiding the silk saree but in that case, I need to buy a designer saree which will weaken Selva's account even more so decided to go for the silk saree..

Other than family functions ,salwar with least /no jewels is always the choice.My personal opinion is that salwars not only makes to feel comfortable but also helps in enjoying the function to the fullest .Sorry if u like the other way round.Taste differs.Don't know what made me write this post.But just thought of writing something on blog from the day one since I landed Chennai.So writing this thought that was lingering on my head for the past one week.Thanks for your time.Have a nice day ahead :)

Miss u UK ...

My favorite shot of Selva from our balcony...

Disclaimer: You may get bored in the middle as this is a very lengthy post.:)

Probably my last post in UK. It’s been a wonderful six months journey in UK. First it was so frustrating to be a home maker, as I was not used to be idle and alone at home for long hours and most importantly without talking:) But the idleness has been a bliss and have done some good to few factors in life .When I was in Chennai,I hardly had time to even think of my passions like writing and singing. Though I am not a great writer or singer, by doing the either task, my mind gets refreshed for sure. I had so much time to read online especially I came to know of umpteen good tamil blogs and websites. My god! There are so many people in and outside India writing beautiful Tamil poems and articles. Before coming to UK I rarely wrote in Tamil, but now mostly I write in Tamil. This happened solely because of the websites that support Tamil stuffs. Story writing was like a mystery before (still it remains to be the same at least by 90%).But after getting encouragements in the form of user votes in Tamilish.com, I am continuing the story writing task .I know way to go in story writing but still I am happy that I have started it .Sites like Tamilish.com allows only contents like story, poems etc from blogs/websites which are purely in Tamil. As my blog contains English stuff too, still I am able to post them in Tamilish.com through ithutamil.com website. Thanks to ithutamil.com team and thanks to Rajapriyan who introduced ithutamil.com to me.

Apart from writing and reading, I had some time to spend for introspection which has made me to come out of being sensitive to anything and everything to an extent and is helping me to have a different perception towards life especially the way we handle certain things in life. Again long way to go .I never knew being tightlipped for hours would benefit me, to this extent.

Next thing is the one for which I have almost yearned when in Chennai. I mean watching TV and films. That too after marriage, watching TV in week days is almost next to impossible. Now the scenario is that, the maximum number of movies I have watched in my life time has happened when in UK. Wow!!!U name any movie, I would have watched it. Thanks to websites that helped to watch Tamil movies and TV Music shows online. While talking about movies I cannot skip English movies. When we were in Chennai, I and Selva use to go to English films. I hated watching English movies then. I keep staring at the mobile monitoring time and scolding Selva for having made me watch an English film. First and foremost reason to hate English movies is that, I don’t understand their accent and also the cultural difference kept me off from English movies. But in UK no other go, Tamil movies get screened very rarely .So after seeing many English movies under compulsion now have started liking them. But understanding the accent 100 % still remains as the unachieved target. I am ok with American accent (I guess so coz of English movies) but the British accent is a hard MOUNTAIN to decipher. Probably if I had taken some job here in UK, things would have got fixed. Learnt some tutorials online regarding British accent, which helped to a very small extent. Let’s see if I could make it to the fullest in future.

If you have read my posts on Chennai to UK, u may know how finicky I was regarding food. I could not stand the food given in the Emirates flight on which we came here. I am a dosa freak. But after coming to know that fermentation of Idly/dosa batter is a daunting task in cold countries like UK, gave up my freaky attitude .You won’t believe. I have almost done a sort of research in how to ferment the idly/dosa batter in Cold countries. The batter stinks if the right amount of temperature is not supplied for fermentation. After all my findings, I came to a conclusion that ,India is the right place for making idly-dosa batter and have stopped my efforts on batter making & reading :( .See I have started this again. I mean start writing something and end up with something else. Actually I wanted to convey that I have changed my fussy finicky attitude towards food. Now I have started liking burgers and tortilla rolls too. To be more specific, I like KFC’s tortilla roll and Mc Donald’s Burger. Coming to the attire part, I have always felt comfortable in salwars.But have got accustomed with jeans and it has to be that way, as u can’t wear salwars in such freezing cold.

Don’t worry I have come to the finally section. So finally I have learnt (mind, only learnt yet to implement!!!) variety of recipes .Thanks to the excellent culinary website vahrehvah.com.The chef is an amazing person, believe me u will go crazy by his cooking videos.

Just learnt that accepting the changes as it is can only make life happy .After all complaining and fret -fuming of unavailables and not happenings will only cost u heavily in terms of worry rate and pills rate where latter is always the follower of the former. Hope I carryon the changes that got induced in UK for rest of my life too. Because of the good changes and also it happened to be my first abroad experience ,UK memories will stay vivid throughout .Miss u UK.

Oh u have read the full article is it ?thanks .I am sure u have loads of patience:)