Last week a news of alleged suicides of Engineering college students in Tamilnadu was disturbing me. All the students were from first or second year of the colleges and the reasons for the suicide (there are doubts of murders) are something that can't be accepted. All the incidents point to the ill treatment of the students by the college management, especially the hostel related issues and one incident alleging the theft case. The suicide of three girls near the Kallakurichi paramedical college also pointed towards the absolute lack of infrastructure and the student's protest against that. What makes me wonder is what makes the parents to make a beeline for these colleges that "lack" a proper infrasturucture either it be labs or hostel?

WASHINGTON: The obituaries all cited Raymond Tomlinson, who died over the weekend, as the “inventor” of email, but out in the cold in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Shiva Ayyadurai bristled.

Ever since my favourite Vidya Balan announced her comeback with the Hindi remake of a Bengali movie - "Rajkahini (2015)", I was intrigued about the original movie. Veteran actress Rituparno Sengupta is one helluva lot of actress and had played the role which Vidya Balan is about to essay in Hindi version. So when I stumbled upon the movie with subtitles in a torrent download, I didn't think a moment to initiate the download. The storyline of the movie is quite fascinating. During the India Pakistan partition, the international border line passes through a brothel which is headed by a powerful woman called Begum Jaan.

When you work in SAP Data migration, you'll be automatically forced to get more comfortable with Mircosoft Excel because of the extensive use of spreadsheets functionality to migrate data from non SAP systems to SAP. But SAP's mass updation tool - MASS has a limitation. It will process 6000 records maximum at a time for certain programs. Recently I had a situation where I have to upload 1.1 lakh entries into SAP, which means I have to split the entire data load into 20 jobs. It is not only cumbersome to split manually the 1.1 lakh entries into multiple sheets of 6000 each, it will also lead to manual errors & system performance issues.

I had drawn an Ardhanareeswarar mural a couple of years ago and l had felt that it looked more like a contemporary painting than a traditional mural. Also that mural was a bitter sweet memory and I gave it away to my sister-in-law who liked that mural very much. Oflate when I decided to paint a mural to overcome the loneliness / boredom, I found this image attractive from the Google image search. I decided to be more careful regarding the stippling techniques this time.

Hai Guys, I had completed my third Kerala mural painting - Ananthasayanam. Ever since my batchmate Mr. Ian had forwarded the image link to me, it was my fantascy to attempt. Originally I planned this drawing for 3 ft x 5 ft but had second thoughts whether I can be able to pull it off. While the wood work was going on I took a remaining plywood (1 ft x 2.5 ft) and started the Ananthasayanam painting on it. But while progressing only I realised that it would have been easy if I had started in the 3 ft x 5 ft board because the drawing had so many intricate parts which took a toll while drawing them in still more smaller board size. Atlast when I finished it, it gave me a sense of satisfaction and a confidence to start boards of larger size. For Kerala murals enthusiasts, I have photo documented the stages since the basic outline, so that you people can understand what exactly goes into these paintings.

Almost after a couple of years since I had made my last "successful" Kerala mural - Shivakudumbam, I got a chance to revisit painting. I was scouting for a nice painting to start with and I shortlisted few murals. However this Ardhanareeshwara grabbed my attention because of its difference in painting. Normally the feminine and masculine parts of Ardhanareeshwara were painted with contrasting colours that clearly demarcates them. But in this painting, the body colour was the flesh yellow but just the shades were made in green and orange for the Parvathi and Shiva respectively. At the end of the day, my mural looked more like a contemporary painting but what gave me the satisfaction was that I managed to get the stippling techniques better this time.

ரொம்ப நாளாச்சு.. ஒரு சினிமா பார்த்ததும் அந்த கதாநாயகி என் மனசிலே பச்சுன்னு ஒட்டி... அதனாலேயே இந்த ஜொள்ளு பதிவுகள் குறைவா இருக்க காரணம். சமீபத்தில் (4-5 வாரம் முன்பு) தான் கடந்த வருடத்தில் மலையாளத்தில் வெளிவந்து மிகப்பெரும் வெற்றி பெற்ற பிரேமம் படத்தை பார்த்தேன். எனக்கு படத்துல நிவின் பாலியோ, இல்லை மடோனா செபாஸ்ட்டினோ யாருமே நினைப்பில் இல்லை. மலர் டீச்சராக வந்து என் மனதை கொய்து காயப்படுத்திவிட்ட சாய் பல்லவி மட்டுமே நினைவில் இருக்கிறார். ஐய்யோ... கடவுளே! இந்த மாதிரி பெண்களை ஏன் மிக குறைவாக படைத்து எங்களை கொடுமைப்படுத்துகிறாய் என்று முறையிட தோன்றியது.

Kiama is a small coastal town that is located at 120 kms from Sydney and can be reached by 90 minutes drive. I had a chance to visit that scenic town and fall in love with the picturesque beaches. Kiama Municipality is promoting the tourism by offering the picture perfect Coastwalk along the shore. There are three legs of the coastwalk which covers 22 kms but the last leg is the most beautiful one. I loved that place so much that I visited there again after 20 days of the first visit. Some photos for your viewing.

"We don't know what is the destination, yet we are roaming in the streets of an unknown town.. this is not craziness but madness".. this is what I told to my kid friend Vaithy when we were going to search and see the Aathankudi tiles factory in Karaikudi. Our travels become memorable when we get such like minded crazy friends and I was lucky to have this kid as my travel mate on this Karaikudi trip. We just took his brother's Hero Honda without informing that we are going for a long drive and explored the culture or legacy that is rooted in the red soils of Karaikudi.