{mosimage}India had always been a fantasy for the West, famous for its culture, wealth, fine arts and attracted the scholars & traders all over the world. Yuan Chuang visited Nalanda for knowledge, Mohammed Ghajini invaded India 17 times to loot its wealth, Columbus was raring to discover & reach India, but landed on America. After getting eclipsed for past few centuries under the British rule, we are at the right track. After 60 years of Independence, we are now attracting the west but in terms of trade (large market size) and knowledge (software, BPO). In this occasion let us hope that we regain our lost glory by becoming a formidable super power in coming years..

Reeling from rejectionThis is an extension of the sequences that made me blog the previous articles "When personnel becomes personal" and "Loving unconditionally" and I hope this should be the last leg of the trilogy. I liked one of my colleague very much and I extended my hand of friendship. But things didn't go the way I expected and I was bluntly told that there was a strong feeling of incompatibility & not interested in intercolleague friendship, my offer was turned down. It hurted much and since I had to interact with that person on daily basis, there was a feeling of unease, so I was even contemplating quitting. I attended a seminar which was a sort of eye opener that my career focus was completely lost. I realised that I am on a mission and I shouldn't quit before completing it, for that I must put more efforts to make up for the lost time.

{mosimage}Nobody believes the predictions based on Zodiac signs, yet they are popular. Almost every second magazine, News Paper and web portals offer astrology as a channel, proving their draw among the audience. Do the lunar, solar charts etc. etc.. exist? Are the characteristics of zodiac signs true? Based on my experience I have enough reasons to believe that Zodiac signs hold true to a certain extent. Initially when I observe people, I notice certain characteristics and later correlate with their date of birth, surprisingly most of the time, most of them fall under a similiar pattern. For example I have many Gemini friends (including me) and all of them have a varying taste, prefer lighter friendship, exhibit liveliness and good conversationalist also. Now I try to predict their behaviours by their zodiac signs.

{mosimage}One of my best friend in Chennai asked me to give a parcel to her sister in UAE, when I went to India on vacation. I met "Chechi" one Thursday evening and gave the parcel. We (I, Chechi, her husband) chatted for long and I was playing with their kids for sometime. I felt at home in this part of the world after a long time. Chechi asked me to drop often whenever possible. I was touched. After a month when Chechi called, I said that since she said that it was boring just being locked at home,I had collected some VCDs for her and would like to give it and I need a home made food as I hadn't got any of friends with family here. That Thursday also came, I forgot this and went with my friends for some electronic goods purchase. When I came back and saw the mobile phone, I saw around 7-8 missed calls from the Chechi's number. I was scared and called her back to enquire had something bad happened.

{mosimage}At last Surya has finally opened his mouth to accept the love between him and actress Jyothika. Infact this is one of the hot topics of discussion among all the layers of people - tea shop to software companies in Tamilnadu. Will they or not? They make a beautiful pair and no wonder every movie goer wanted them to settle together in a marriage bliss. Their growth in career was almost parallel. They both made their debut in "Poovellam Kettu Paar" (Ask the flowers...), both managed to steal the audience's heart with their innocent smile. Both have clean history and a proven track record. To be honest when Surya came open about their affair putting end to all speculations, I really felt happy as if two of my friends are getting married. Infact most of the Tamil families treat Surya's love with Jyothika as their family affair. Actor Sivakumar's, Surya's father, resistance to this affair, kept every fan's heartbeat go faster. Surya replicated his first movie in real life too. i.e not to elope but wait and marry with the parent's consent only. That's how he managed to win the family audience's wishes and blessings. My heartiest wishes to Surya & Jyothika for a succesful marriage life.

WorkplaceSometimes back there was this discussion about an incident in my workplace. My friend said that I am getting emotionally attached and taking things personally in the office, which I am not supposed to do. He said that it is a thumb rule that you must not get personally attached during the working hours and with the colleagues. But my arguement was that only if you get personally bonded you will be able to give your best in the workplace. After all you spend your prime time of a day when your level of energy is at its high, with these people in the workplace, so obviously you tend to get personal.

{mosimage}Last week there was a gala ceremony at Dubai named IIFA Awards - Intrernational Indian Film Academy Awards function. Even though this is the seventh year of IIFA awards, this is the first time South Indian movies have been added to the section, that too in the non competitive section. Which means the South Indian movies weren't taken into consideration for competition category but mere exhibition category. On the awards function Mamooty, the malayalam superstar, in his speech came strongly on those awards. He had said that it should have been right named as "International Hindi Film Awards" as Indian movies are beyond the Bollywood with exceptionally good movies being made it South.

{mosimage}Few days back I came across a "finding" by American researchers that disturbed me very much. It had put forward its findings that "People who always say good things about others suffer from low self esteem". What a shit observation! It is absolutely ridiculous and a piece of trash that never deserved such exposure. What they mean to say? This means people who are picky and have no good opinion about others are supposed to have higher self esteem? Else people who always see the good point in others are supposed to be goofy asses? I seriously don't dignify these kind of "findings" but I fear this might spoil the young minds who come across these findings in their formative years.

Intermittent ReinforcementIt was an intresting concept I came across accidentally while reading someone's blogs on line. This article is my take on that rather than adapting it. We might have come across many people sticking in a wrong relationship undergoing verbal and physical abuse. We wonder why the hell they are suffering like this rather than walking out of the relationship. Sometimes such things might have happened to us also. We might have liked somebody immensely that we stick to thim even though there used to be lot of problems. Some of us might have come out such situations and look back why we tolerated those things at that time. This piece of article is a part of self realisation and evaluation exercises I normally do. What is "Intermittent Reinforcement"? See it later part of the article.

{mosimage}Haiyyada! This is not a movie pitted against Goutham menon's "Chennaiyil Oru Mazhaikalam" nor a take off from a novel. This is all about my experiences in Summer 2006. By God's grace past three summers have been memorable and I am glad that this summer started and ended in a productive note than just being funny or in lighter vein. This summer made a considerable shift in my perspective about Chennai. This summer proved that certain traits are inborn. On the whole this summer went beyond the lighter elements and presented life in a serious fashion.